Happy 49th Birthday to my youngest son, Ben on Monday. We celebrated with a little gathering at their house yesterday.
Cathy took me to the airport, I got checked in and through security with no issues. I flew to Austin, TX where I got on a connecting flight to Phoenix. It was nice to see some blue water and green patches of earth from the sky.
Tom was right there waiting in the phone lot and he picked me up and we headed to JJ Madison's for a bite to eat. It was nice to see him, get a big hug, and share a meal and some conversation. Funny thing about that restaurant is that one of their featured items on the menu is Minnesota Walleye - and it didn't take long before I remembered the place.
We got to bed late and woke up late the next morning, had a good breakfast and went for a walk around the park and to the Superstition Ranch Market for some stuff to make salads for dinner.
A group of folks were gathered in a circle down the street, so we grabbed a beer nd headed over for happy hour. I haven't done that in a while - got to see Harriet, a gal that was our neighbor when I was here back in 2018. There were a couple of other folks that I remembered too.
We took a walk around the park and heard the hooting of owls and then spotted a pair of Great Horned Owls up in the treetops.
This morning started earlier and after breakfast, we ended up going to a city park and had a nice little desert hike with the mountains in the background, some that I could remember, like the Superstitions, Red Mountain, and the Usery Mountains. It was windy and a bit chilly and we even felt a few raindrops, but much better than that 6-7 inches of wet snow that is falling in Minnesota.
Thursday morning we went over to the clubhouse and had coffee and donuts, followed by an AED presentation by the local fire department. I feel like I learned a lot, so now I just hope that I can remember what I learned in case of emergency. I also saw a few people that I remembered from when Tom and I stayed here together, many who have been coming back for years.
Tom's sister Joyce who spends the winter here also had been on a trip to Oregon, so we drove to the airport to pick her up. She was hungry after a long day of travel, so we stopped for a late lunch and I got the Walleye at JJ Madison's - it was quite tasty.
Today was another busy day, taking Joyce to pick up her car that was being repaired while she was gone, did a bit of shopping, took a nice walk around the park and I had a good nap while tom washed his truck.
We are going to a Rock and Roll dinner show at Barleen's tonight with a bunch of people from the park.
