The week started with a birthday celebration for Lucy last Sunday evening. She is now fifteen years old and a beautiful young woman. Steve and I gave her a violin bow. A few months ago, she observed my violin bow (a relatively inexpensive carbon fiber one I had purchased from Amazon to replace the silly purple fiberglass bow we bought for Kirsti when she was using the violin) and loved the weight and feel of it compared to her own bow and I decided then and there to get her the same one for her birthday. I think she was pleased. I am happy she continues to play violin as a freshman in the school orchestra. Noah is playing stand-up bass in his orchestra and Quinn still plays cello in his middle school ensemble. Larkin informed me that she is choosing viola for her instrument next year. YAY!
Monday morning, Steve and I drove to the bank to get my birth certificate and social security card out of our safety deposit box. We then took those documents to the License Office for me to get a copy of my lost driver's license. I took my number - 78 - and we sat down where I looked up to the number they were currently on....38!!!!! We were in that office for an hour and a half!!! Happily, I had my Emma M. Lion book on my 30 day free trial Kindle. Poor Steve was not so fortunate. But, I left with a photocopy of my current license. I also went to the TSA website and purchased my $45 TSAConfirmID.
Monday afternoon, I had my cardiologist appointment. I was somewhat nervous about meeting him as he has a middle eastern last name. Over the years, my experiences with many doctors from that region have not been great - poor bedside manner, hard to understand, not very respectful of women, somewhat dismissive - but this fellow was terrific. His family is from Pakistan but he was raised in the U.S. and is as westernized as they come. He was very informative about my condition and the first step is a stress EKG test. He said that almost all of my PVC's originated in the same part of the heart and, if medication could not control it, they would need to do an ablation. But, as I type this, I have been on the medication for five days and I have not felt the palpations hardly at all! My stress test is this coming Thursday afternoon.
Tuesday and Wednesday were just the usual days - chores, lessons, orchestra. Steve took me to the airport early Wednesday evening for my 8:45 pm flight to Phoenix. I was nervous, not knowing what to expect with TSA. I needn't have been. The terminal was practically empty - no lines anywhere! I walked right up to the TSA counter and was directed to a separate desk for people "like me" (without a form of ID or a real ID). The woman was very kind and efficient. She asked me a few questions like "from where was my first social security card issued". I had to think for a moment because nowadays, our children get their social security number as babies but I didn't get mine until I had my first job so the answer, which in today's world, would have been Texas, was California. She asked me the year, make and model of a recent car I owned. I NEVER can remember the year of our Kia but, thankfully, I remembered that the Honda Element is a 2003 so that satisfied her. Overall, it was a very painless experience. And, there were no lines to go through the x-ray machines so I found myself with tons of time to await my flight. I ate my sack dinner and happily read my Emma M. Lion book. I flew on Southwest but did not opt to pay for my seat so I was prepared for a middle seat in the farthest back of the plane when I checked in Tuesday night during orchestra rehearsal. I was assigned 3E!!! Middle seat, yes but on the third row of the plane! $85 seats! My guess is that the seat was never sold and they just plugged me in since the flight was completely full. As it was a night flight, being in the middle was not a problem for me (who loves to have a window seat to look out). I started watching a movie - Fly Me To The Moon - which was very enjoyable - but the WiFi pooped out about 3/4 into the movie so I just read my Kindle instead. I hope I can finish the movie on the flight back home!
Amy and I took a walk along a nearby irrigation canal Thursday morning while we waited for my sister Juli to arrive from Payson.
Once she did, we left Amy behind (too many grandma duties) and drove up to Cottonwood (about a two hour drive) to meet up with our niece, Jill Vidstrand. Jill is a year older than me. She just recently moved there from her longtime residence of Palmdale, California. She lost her husband, Carl, three years ago, and was finding living in California just too expensive and her house was way too big to take care of so she just up and moved to Arizona. She has a really cute condo and two sweet kitties. The three of us said good bye to the cats and drove via Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon up to Williams to stay the night. We didn't stop in Sedona because we have all been there and it is just so crowded and touristy. Williams, on the other hand, is a cute little town along the historic Route 66 - which is why we chose it. It is the 100 year commemoration of the start of Route 66. We enjoyed wandering all the little shops paying homage to Route 66...check out the photo of the Mater and Lightning McQueen car mash-up!
We had dinner at a Thai restaurant because all the places that had gluten-free were not open until Friday/Saturday/Sunday. We stayed in a vintage Rodeway Inn overnight - it had been restored and was quite nice and comfortable.
Friday morning, after our complimentary breakfast, we headed east to Flagstaff for more Route 66 exploring. The visitor's center is located in the historic train station (that is still the Amtrak station).
We decided to save our downtown Flagstaff exploration for after lunch and we headed to nearby Walnut Creek National Monument to see the cliff dwelling ruins left by the Sinagua peoples over a thousand years ago. They took advantage of natural occurring rock overhangs on the sides of cliffs and built homes using additional rock and mortar.
The trail has 736 steps leading down which, of course, have to be climbed back up! But, we went quite slowly - me especially since I am not accustomed to the higher altitude of Arizona - and took many stops to sit and catch our breaths. Steve and I never made the time to visit while we were on our mission so I am glad I finally go to see it.
We returned to Flagstaff around lunch time and ate at a Culvers (they do not exist in California so Jill had not heard of the chain) and then drove in to downtown Flagstaff. Being on a Friday, it was full of tourists and finding parking was not easy. We finally found a spot, paid for an hour, and then walked around the cute little downtown. By then, we had acquired all the Route 66 souvenirs we needed so we just walked and looked - well, we did visit a chocolate shop and bought there.
We then headed back down to Cottonwood to drop off Jill. Here she is in front of her condo
Juli's check engine light went on while in Flagstaff so, after leaving Jill, we drove to an auto parts store to have them diagnose the problem....catalytic converter! No place in Cottonwood could fix it on a Friday afternoon so we said a prayer and headed over the mountain to Payson (about an hour and a half away) and, happily, we made it to Juli's house with no problems. On the drive, we contacted her mechanic to schedule a repair and he couldn't get to it until Thursday. So, after hanging up with him, I booked a rental car for Monday and Tuesday to get us down to the Valley for some more family visits and for my flight back to Missouri on Tuesday afternoon. How did people manage before cell phones?!?!?
We arrived in Payson in the early evening, we ate our Thai leftovers for dinner and we watched The Fighting Preacher on BYU-TV that night. It is a good movie.
Saturday morning, Juli and I participated in a "Clean-up Payson" event. We donned hats and gloves, brought grabbers and yellow vests and picked up trash for three hours. Here is Juli on the side of the highway that leads into Payson. Our socks picked up many foxtails and the soles of our shoes collected several goat head stickers that we had to get rid of. And, there were holes in the ground all over the place - I sure hope no snakes lived in them. Happily, I didn't see any!
We came home to eat lunch and rest up a bit before Juli had yardwork to do in the afternoon. Poor girl had the hardest of the jobs - mowing - while I just snipped off dead iris blooms and held a hose and watered. Juli's yard is covered in California poppies right now - so pretty. And, happily, elk do not eat them! (like almost every thing else in Juli's yard). If you look closely, you can see her behind the mower in the second photo....
I did a laundry later on and we watched Zootopia 2 in the evening.
Today was church and now a quiet afternoon. Jesse and maybe Kat will be coming over for dinner this evening. It has been a wonderful visit so far. I will write about my last two days in Arizona next week.
