Posted by whalerho | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 14-12-2008
We left El Centro CA on Highway 8, en route for the beautiful regional park near the town of Cave Creek AZ. We were so excited to stay at this wonderful county RV park. We have driven by this area many times and now we got the chance to “live” there for 10 days! You could feel the excitement mounting for the kids as we approached the area where they have so many friends. We started off our first full day at the DENTIST of all places, not too exciting for the kids but at least we all have good clean teeth! Later in the day, we took all the kids to the back of their school (Diamond Canyon in Anthem) and, along with Hobie, waited for the bell to ring and all the kids to come streaming out of school! It was overwhelming, to say the least, to see so many friends ALL at once! Andrew spent the night with good buddy, Austen, as well as the next THREE nights as Austen was taking off for Disney World and the two of them wanted to spend as much time together as possible!
The visit involved, for the most part, being a taxi driver to and fro Anthem, usually twice a day. The kids loved it though and we knew they needed to reconnect with their roots! Andrew is a mere 12 years old and has already lived in CA, IL, South America, IN, NY, AZ and is now a gypsy on the road. With all these moves, he considers AZ to be his home town, having spent the last three years of his life there and having made so many good friends. I think the same applies to Nikki and Lauren. I took Lauren to the park in front of the school one day and some of her old Girl Scout buddies joined us for a play date. It was great to sit and chat with Carolyn, Karen and Natalie and have the girls run around together again. Lauren had a wonderful reunion with her best buddy, Natalia, and they hugged so much. It was really adorable to see them together, after all the e-mails and calls over the last 6 months. Lauren also spent the day with her good buddy Paityn, watching a Christmas play and just giggling together like old times. Nikki had a great time with her good buddies Tori, Peyton and Mirah. She wanted to spend hours with other buddies too but it just couldn’t happen, at least this time! She did get to practice with her old soccer team one evening which was really fun! Nikki still has good kick in her!
One afternoon, Lauren was invited by Mrs. Olson (her second grade teacher from Diamond Canyon) to meet her class. Mrs. Olson’s students each wrote a letter to Lauren, asking her about her favorite things. Lauren wrote back, responding to all their questions with the most common one being, “What is your favorite kind of pizza!” Lauren got to finally meet her penpals and the students were all SO full of questions and excited to meet her too. It was such fun to watch Lauren command the room and to answer so many thought provoking questions! Thanks to Mrs. Olson for making this happen!
I also did a bit of taxi driving for my OWN sake! I had a wonderful time with my dear friend Darcy. Even with all the hours we spent together, I still don’t think we finished saying all the words we had stored up! Darcy and her husband, Troy, came to our RV one night and we enjoyed chatting away while eating some yummy Thai food and sitting next to a blazing fire. Carrie and I had a wonderful day which started with a latte at a new ritzy hotel in Scottsdale. Carrie always knows just THE place to go!! She has an unofficial degree in tourism! Jill and I had a wonderful morning at Cave Creek, sipping coffee and inspiring each other’s creative endeavors. I could have stayed a few extra weeks just to spend more time with these three gals and other friends who I hold dear in AZ. If I were to say what I miss most about travelling around in an RV, it would be time with my girlfriends! But when I do see them along with my wonderful sister Robin, our time is so special and we really focus on reconnecting.
In an effort to see as many friends as possible in our limited time in AZ, we had a BBQ near our campground where Ken grilled up some yummy carnitas tacos and all brought accompanying dishes. The day was warm (in comparison to the days to come) and we loved seeing so many wonderful faces! With the holidays fast approaching, it was a challenge to see all the people we wished we could have seen. There is always next year when we trek through AZ again en route north to Alaska!!
On our last day, we went to our storage facility to bring a bunch of stuff we didn’t really need (REALLY thought we would have used it 6 months ago!) and to take out a few necessities for Mexico, such as the kayak and the boogie board! It was somewhat strange to look in and see all my old “stuff”. I felt oddly detached from it as everything I need is in my RV. REALLY! I didn’t think I would feel that way but alas I do!! (Ken is thrilled as he has been a minimalist for years!) We did a lot of shopping for food items we didn’t think we could find in Mexico and hit the road for Tucson, our final stop before entering the border on Sunday.
We stayed at Beaudry RV’s “Resort” campground in Tucson for two nights, doing our last minute preparations for Mexico. Ken found a FANTASTIC used book store where we all picked up some fun books and magazines for our endless days of sitting on the beach in Mexico! The night before our departure was OH SO WINDY and we felt like we would take off into the wind like the cow in the movie “Twister”. But we awoke with our RV in tack and hit the road for Mexico in the dark cool hours of the early morning.
“Oh, oh Mexico, seems so hot I forgot to go home. . .” la la la! Mexico, here we come!
