Sunday, November 13th., 2022…… My back feels somewhat better
today. I think rather than a pulled muscle, this is more of a pinched nerve or
sciatica. We got out with the dogs and walked and fed them. Cathye had made
burritos yesterday and made extra while she was at it. So, I had those this
morning. We watched a couple of Rick Steves travel shows before she left to go
to church. I did my blog and got it posted and then settled in and relaxed and
watched tv the rest of the day. Later, we both worked on our packing. We leave
Wednesday morning for our trip to Arizona. We have reservations at The
Tombstone Hotel where we will base for the first 3 nights (Wed-Fri.). Mary (Cath’s
sister) and Jim’s reception is on Saturday, in Benson, just a few minutes from
there. Then we will move to Tucson, where we will stay Saturday and
Sunday. We get to visit with Frances and
Kyle and family on Sunday. It will be a short trip, but packed in with fun
things to do. More on that later…
Cathye made dinner and we settled in and watched tv until bedtime.
Monday, November 14th., 2022…… Good night’s sleep for me last night. My back
feels really good! Still a twinge now
and then when I overextend, but all in all, it feels better. I was up and going
at 6:30 to make my 8:00am acupuncture appointment. I made it with no issues and
got that done and wrote the check to the engineer for the deck plans. When
Russ was here Saturday, he said he was having more issues with that guy on his
other jobs in regards to overdesigning and seismic requirements – things he’s
not dealt too much with in the past. I think he’s ready to move on! Anyway, I
need the guy to make the one page amendment to substitute on the project. Seems
that Russ can’t find the 8x8 post material anywhere! You’d think that the lumber capital of the
nation would have an ample supply of wood!
But they are rarely used and not in stock in most lumber yards. Custom
cutting them would be cost prohibitive!
Funny thing because the posts holding up the house are 6x6’s. The guy
who came out and walked the job must have thought they were 8x8’s because they
are wrapped with 1x’s on all sides (making them look bigger than they are! Russ says he can use steel posts and still
wrap them so they would look the same. He says the engineer just needs to make a
one page amendment and the city inspector will use that when the time comes. I
said ok so we are good to go. Then I remembered that I hadn’t sent the
engineer’s check so I got that in the mail today!
Tuesday, November 15th., 2022…… We are doing last-minute packing today. Plus making sure we have
everything Penny will need for the dogs when she comes over tomorrow. I think
we’re ready. We have to leave here at 6:00ish tomorrow for the trip to Portland
PDX. We’ll park in the long term lot since we’ll only be gone 6 days. I did
have a dental appointment this morning and that went well. Just cleaning and
x-rays today.
Wednesday, November 16th., 2022…… We were up early this morning and quickly walked and fed the dogs. We
loaded up the luggage and headed out about 6:00am for our 10:00am flight. There
was lots of traffic in the metro area even on the 205 which skirts around the
city. But we got the truck parked and shuttled in with a little time to spare.
Cathye had pre-checked us in so we went straight to TSA. Well, I got detained!
I was sent back to ticketing. It turned out that Cathye had misspelled the last
name on my ticket! But they got it corrected and I headed back through security
and made it in time. Our first flight was to Seattle, which took maybe 1 hour
total. We made the connection and got in to Phoenix with no problems. We
shuttled out to the rental car area. Cathye had suggested we try another rental
company this time. I normally would use my
National’s Emerald Club. It’s super convenient and I get great cars, but it’s a
little pricier than she thought prudent. So this time I had booked at Thrifty. I
rented an economy car and we did get to choose ours. I chose a KIA Soul, which
was an excellent choice!
It was very comfortable and roomy inside and had a bit of power. I would rent one again. It took us 2 ½ hours to drive to Tombstone. But we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. CB is not in Oregon so it was a nice treat! We checked in to The Tombstone Hotel about 9:30pm and settled in and had a nice rest. We had lost an hour with Mountain time.
Thursday, November 17th., 2022…… We went to the hotel’s waffle breakfast bar this morning. It was ok. We drove 5 min. to old town Tombstone and parked.
Not crowded at all. First stop was the town courthouse. It was really cool and was very grand for its time.
We saw the jail and then the gallows in the courtyard. Only seven people were hanged there. One other was sentenced to a term in Yuma Territorial Prison for life but a group of vigilantes came to the courthouse and busted him out and hung him from a telegraph pole. Western justice! We were ready for lunch and headed over to the OK Café & had buffalo burgers which were amazing!
Then we drove 30 miles to our next outing. We were headed to Kartchner
Caverns. We chose the ‘big room’ tour which was 1 ½ hours and a mile walk. We had time beforehand so we went to their discovery
center and walked through that. No camera are allowed in the caverns so we had
to shoot the replicas in there.
We also tried out our ‘bat hearing’.
We met up with the tour guide and got the briefing and history. The tour was excellent and we will definitely go back again to do the other section of the cave next time. We drove back to our hotel and rested for a bit, then headed back to town for dinner. We chose Big Nose Kate’s to eat. Now this place was awesome! These places in town are authentic and not replicas and this place was no exception. Of course they have added to the ambiance with a lot of decorations and pictures and such. It was really cool! After that, it was time for our ‘Gunfight and Ghosts’ tour! Our guide
met the 7 of us on the tour outside on one of the street corners and gave us all either heat sensors (Cathye) or electromagnetic sensors (Terry) and off we went for our 1 ½ hr. tour. We hit the gallows and Cat saw the heat readings drop as she scanned up to the top of the gallows and also the tree where the telegraph pole once stood. My meter went off where a little Chinese girl had fallen to her death from a second story building. Since we all got ‘hits’ or ‘readings’ on our devices, folks believed.
Let’s just say she did an excellent job. I’m still a skeptic but she made believers of probably 4 of the 7 on the tour. Home to bed after our long but fun day!
Friday, November 18th., 2022…… The main reason we made this trip
was to attend Cathye’s sister Mary’s and Jim’s wedding reception. We already
knew they wouldn’t be able to celebrate because Mary had covid and was really
sick. She had intended to cancel the
party, which was being held at her old mobile park just outside of Benson. But
her cousin Nancy, who also lives in the park decided to have it anyway. She
said she would pick up the tab for the cake and the band. Cathye’s Aunt Dolly and
Uncle Paul also live in the park so we decided to just go visit with them and
Nancy this morning and then we could skip the party since we didn’t know anyone
besides these guys. We had a nice visit with Dolly and Paul. They are both in
their 80s so she was glad to be able to spend some one on one time with them in
their home. Nancy came by later so we saw her too. After that, we drove back home and ate
leftovers in our room and rested a bit. Later, we drove back in to town and got
on the trolley for a tour around the town. After that we got ice cream and
walked around the shops and stores. We bought some souvenirs and then went in
and toured the Birdcage Theater and saw the gambling tables and bullet holes
and even the old town hearse! We eventually found an old vintage photo studio
and had a pic showing us as the mean gunslinger visiting one of his ladies in
the saloon.
I wasn’t too keen on the idea of any of this but it actually turned out to be one of my favorite things we did on this trip! After that, we hit the Crystal Palace and split a ribeye dinner and then had more drinks up on the upstairs balcony and watched the sunset and took pics up and down the street.
We came back to the room and changed into our swimsuits and hit the spa. It was a nice experience even though the temps outside were in the low 40s! We leave early tomorrow.
Saturday, November 19th., 2022…… We checked out of our room in Tombstone and
headed out to Tucson. We are booked in to the La Quinta Inn just east of the University
of Arizona campus, but will check in later this afternoon. We stopped Since we
decided to forgo the reception which was this afternoon, we found we had all of
the day open. So we had more time to visit. This time with my side of the
family. Lydia’s sister, Frances now lives in Tucson. She moved there a few
years ago to be closer to her son Kyle, his wife Tiffany, and their three kids,
Hera (8), Cora (4), and Luke (1). We decided we wanted to go see the Biosphere
2, which is just outside Tucson. A little history – back in the early 90s, they
tried an experiment where a group of scientists tried to stay in an enclosed
environment for 2 years, sustaining only on what they had and could grow. It
was pretty much a failure and they had to evacuate due to dangerously low
oxygen levels. They rebranded the project as an environmental experiment. Now,
they are working trying to understand natural and human-made ecosystems and
sustainability and quality of life under simulated conditions and controls. We
bought tickets for everyone so they could go too, except Kyle – who had to
work. We met them there and started in. The girls had a great time and ran
around and enjoyed the time out. Both of them are smart and picked up on
everything and understood the concept of the controlled space so they enjoyed
their time there too! It was really fascinating, but I don’t think I could be
enclosed for any length of time like those folks were! We took pics as we went…
Once we were done with the tour, we followed Tiffany back to their apartment where we waited for Kyle. After a short visit, we went out to dinner. They chose Mexican and it was tasty!
Thanks, guys! After that, we came back home to check in to our hotel and rest for a while. We liked the spa and pool area so we changed into our suits and relaxed in the spa for a bit before calling it a night.
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