Cave Creek and Carefree

Yesterday, Steve and I drove eastward on the Carefree Highway to explore three places:

Jewel of the Creek Nature Preserve just north of Cave Creek.  It is a spring right in the middle of the desert.  We brought our walking sticks and hiked around the area.  In addition to the creek, there is a cool little cave.  Thanks to three big rains, the desert is amazingly green as you can see from the photos below.

Our second stop was to drive farther east to check out Bartlett Reservoir - part of the Verde River.  It is waaaaay back in the mountains that separate us from the highway leading up to Payson.  I am not sure what I was expecting but I was underwhelmed.  The Arizona State Parks system is not as well put-together as Missouri's and they feel the need to charge for EVERYTHING - including just going for a picnic or a hike.  But, even with paying, there are no trails or picnic facilities.  Just a boat ramp, a marina, and a campground (somewhere - we didn't see it).  We ended up just eating our lunch in the car at the top end of the boat ramp parking lot looking out over the lake - basically a bunch of water in the bare desert.  I didn't even take a photo!

The final destination was to the Carefree Pumpkin Garden - a repeat of last year only this time in the daylight.  With the sun were a whole lot more people but we still managed to enjoy looking at all the crazy pumpkin populated scenarios.

Other highlights of the week include two free meals!  Nancy and Fred Richardson, long-time friends from our Virginia days, took us to lunch at Giordanos on Wednesday.  And, we had dinner with all the other office missionaries with President and sister Collins at the mission home Thursday night.

Stake Conference was this weekend and, with the visit or Elder Ochoa and Elder Torres, we have a new stake presidency. 

I am playing in a Messiah performance in mid-December and I have my first orchestra rehearsal tonight.  I am looking forward to it.

October 2018 is almost over...

On Friday, Steve had a routine colonoscopy.  I was going to write that it was a rather ordinary week but, for Steve, it was far from it.  Beginning on Monday, he had a very limited, bland diet leading up to Thursday when he could eat nothing after 8:00 am.  He reported to the hospital at 7:00 am and the checking-in/preparatory work took two hours.  The actual procedure took only about 30.  I drove him home where he stayed the rest of the day and I went into the mission office for the rest of the time.  

Friday and Saturday night, we watched Lawrence of Arabia which I checked out from the public library.  Steve likes the film score but he had never watched the movie.  I had seen it at least once many years ago but couldn't remember a thing about it.  It is a 3 1/2 hour movie so it took two nights to make it through and, after watching it, we both just kind of said "meh".  If you want to see gorgeous cinematography and hear fabulous music, go ahead and watch it.  But, for an inspiring story, watch just up to the intermission because the second half is just depressing.

Saturday morning, we went to the 6:00 am temple session.  I don't believe I have EVER gone at such an early time in my life.  But, it was the time when we knew that a bunch of missionaries would be able to get a seat because of the six temples in Arizona, four were closed all last week and the Phoenix Temple was just slammed with patrons.  So, we, President and sister Collins, the companions of, and five of the six missionaries who will be finishing their mission Tuesday, the 23rd all attended the 6:00 o'clock session.  And, we all stayed awake!  Below are photos of us all afterwards.  Those leaving are Sisters Christensen and DuPape and Elders Smith, Frye, Robbins, and M. Johnson (we have FOUR missionaries with Johnson as their last name)

Elders Frye and Hopkins and Elder Smith in the background

Sisters Christensen, DuPape, and Bastain

Elders Aubril, Robbins, Smith, MacFarlane

Elders Aubril, Robbins, Smith, MacFarlane, Hopkins, Frye

Sisters Perez, Christensen, DuPape, Bastian

departing missionaries with President and Sister Collins

same people with their companions

now we add Steve and me and the Harris's

Elder Hewlet with Steve and me

I drove down to Mesa Saturday afternoon to visit with my sister Jerri, her daughter Amy, and to turn in finished Days for Girls items and pick up supplies for more items.  Phoenix is SO HUGE!  Why can't Mesa be closer????

Steve continues to get stronger.  He is walking for 25 minutes in the morning nowadays.  And, that is about all our news....

the Grand Canyon

October 13th - we visited the Grand Canyon.  Although both Steve and I have been before, we thought we should visit while here on our mission.  It turned out, weather-wise, to be an interesting weekend to go.  Arizona was enjoying a cold front and, I believe, residual moisture from another Pacific tropical storm (not as intense as Rosa, though) so our weekend was cool, cloudy, and at times rainy.  This is a view from Highway 180 out of Flagstaff on our way.  You can see snow was falling on the mountains.

Temperatures at the Grand Canyon were cool and the light breeze made us glad we had long sleeves - and a jacket for me.  We never got rain while we were there, thankfully, but it was mostly cloudy with an occasional peek of the sun.  We spent about five hours there - riding the shuttle to various points, taking a very short walk on the path along the rim.  Because of Steve's back, regularly sitting down was a high priority.  It was fun to hear all the different languages being spoken and to see all the dogs that people brought!  

There are elk all over the park

We left at sunset and drove south.  The clouds created an amazing sunset.   I tried to capture some of it as Steve was driving.  The second one is snow-covered San Francisco peak that the sun just lit up like fire as it was setting

We stayed in the cute little town of Williams in a hotel called the Canyon Country Inn.  See below.  Our room window is the top right.  With the lace curtains and rose pink decor, it felt just like we were sleeping in grandma's attic.   We went to the Williams ward for church on Sunday.  There is a great set of missionaries assigned to that ward - Elders Kearl and Karl - and they are teaching a few people.  One woman brought her friend who brought her little 18-month daughter, Serenity.  Well, Serenity took a shining to me and, by the end of third hour, she was sitting on my lap.  Made me happy.

Williams is on the old Route 66 but, instead of dying when the interstate bypassed it, it kept the Route 66 flavor alive and it is a charming little town.  You can see from the picture I took from the church parking lot that it is up in the pines.  

We drove back down to Phoenix via Oak Creek Canyon which, in spite of a light rain, was just a feast for the eyes.  (think Ogden or Provo canyon).  It took us through Sedona that looked even more beautiful with the red rock against the dark cloudy sky.  We side-stepped over to Cottonwood to deliver some packages to our missionaries assigned there (Elders Hirschi, Hill, Larsson, and Johnson) before heading to Anthem.

The only sour spot to the whole day was the traffic on I-17.  At several points on our way down into the Phoenix valley, we were either at a dead stop or a slow crawl - a combination of a couple of accidents, rain, and everyone returning fro their Fall Break.  But, it gave us a chance to visit with Julina since we were stopped near Camp Verde and cell phone towers.  And, it gave me a chance to take lots of dramatic sunset photos out the window.

Rosa, I love you!

Hurricane Rosa turned normally dry and dusty Phoenix into a watery wonderland.  

It flooded some roads - but none of the ones we normally travel on - and it washed out a portion of the main highway from Flagstaff to Page which closed it down for a couple of days.  But, overall, it was just lovely and wet.  

Then, yesterday, another front blew over dropping temperatures enough to open windows and doors and, last night, it brought more rain, complete with thunder.   This is what the sky looked like this morning.

I am so grateful for this week's departure from the usual Arizona October weather.

As for the week's activities:  Steve and I both visited the dentist for routine cleanings and checkup.  Our old teeth are still hanging in there - no dentures yet :)

We invited a new family in the ward over for cookies on Monday night.  The dad, Nathan, is from St. Johns and he is a cello player looking to take lessons so he started those on Wednesday.  He's definitely more advanced than my usual students.  He and his wife, Corie, have four adorable children that almost match the Southerland grandchildren - boy, girl, boy, girl with similar age ranges.  

We had to move our temple date to Thursday night since the temple is closed this weekend due to General Conference.  And, speaking of, it has been a glorious weekend of conference so far.  I can get behind the two-hour Sunday meeting block with more time at home to do gospel study.  I am looking forward to President Nelson's message (s) today.  

The mission office was rather slow this week - more time for family history and pottery Youtube videos.  These three sisters popped in mid-week so I took a picture.

Sisters Aubrie Stevens, Sedona Tooley, and Summer Hall