Arizona Visit

Wednesday, Nov. 3, I flew to Phoenix for a visit with family and friends. Nick was my chaufeur to Lisa's. On Thursday morning, sister Marla picked me up. We went to the Apple Store where I got a new battery for my MacBook. Since I had paid $300 for an extended warranty, I saved the $129 the battery would have cost. I stayed with Marla Thursday night and we went hiking on the 6 mile GoJohn trail in Cave Creek Park. Friday afternoon we met Lisa, Nick and Aaron2 at Dos Gringos in Old Town Scottsdale for Happy Hour. I went home from there with Lisa.

Saturday, Aaron2 took Nick, Lisa and I to his parents' house in Gold Canyon. Lisa and I spent the afternoon looking at scrapbooks of Aaron2's life. Saturday night Aaron1, Nick, Dan, Lisa and I joined a large group that went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner in celebration of Aaron2's birthday.


Sunday, Dan and I went to see "Hereafter." We thought it was good and had a happy ending. That evening, Lisa, Dan, Taylor and I went to Old Town Scottsdale for dinner at Oregano's pizzeria. Aaron1 and Marla joined us. After dinner, I said good-bye to my family members as I was going to be staying with Marla.

Monday morning, Marla and I went to 7th Street for a 5 mile hike. In the afternoon, we drove to Terravita for a visit with dear friend, Marilyn. We also spent an hour with friend Trudy in The Boulders.

Tuesday morning, Marla and I decided to hike Piestewa Peak. We had only gone about 3/8 of a mile when Marla said her foot was hurting. She has a broken toe and we decided it probably wasn't a good idea to continue the hike to the top. We found another trail that wasn't as steep or rugged and hiked another 3.5 miles. Later that afternoon we went to Terravita once again. We went to visit with good friend, Jane. She served us dry martinis, which we sipped slowly. At 6, the three of us went to the clubhouse where we met seven other friends for dinner. I was happy to see so many Terravita friends and acquaintances. As we were leaving, the former president of the golf club was heading straight for Marla, thinking he was saying hello to me. I intercepted him before he got to her and he did a double-take. Several people had commented it was easy to tell that we were sisters. I also got many compliments on my hair. I haven't colored it for eight months and think I'll not do it again. I still have a lot of my natural hair color with enough gray to look frosted.

This morning Marla took me to the airport. I had an 8 AM flight to Albuquerque. From there, I took the New Mexico Rail Runner to Santa Fe where Erik picked me up and brought me to Los Alamos. To be continued...