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February 16, 2007
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
It has been a while since I have updated because I took some time off to go on vacation in Arizona.
The week before we left was fairly routine. Home for a couple of days, drive to Portland for a game, back home for a couple more days. It really didn't take us long to pack, so we were able to concentrate on getting some other things taken care of around the house. There wasn't any shopping to do, because we wanted to empty the refrigerator before we left. I think that other than some last-minute packing, we were ready to leave two days before we actually had to head into town.
We came into Portland the night before we left because we had to engineer a Blazer game. We spent Tuesday night in a hotel near the airport so we could leave the next morning for Phoenix. We checked into our room early, left our luggage in the room and then headed for the game. When we returned to the hotel after the game, I came into a dark room and tried to turn on the light switch, only it didn't work. Somebody had turned the switch off at the lamp and so the light didn't come on with the wall switch. As I walked across the dark room to reach for the lamp, I tripped over Dave's luggage and hit the floor hard. I lay there for quite a while, trying to collect myself while Dave finally got the light turned on. I managed to bruise my shin and banged my chin on the ottoman as I fell. I also wound up with sore ribs and a sore shoulder and in addition to all that, I broke my glasses too. I can imagine what the people below us must have thought about this noise at midnight! Anyway, I picked myself off the floor and headed for bed. Luckily, the next morning, the desk clerk was able to wire my glasses together with a bent paperclip and we were good to go. I have had some pretty sore muscles all week and feel lucky I didn't break anything. What a way to start a vacation!
We went through the same old thing we did last year when we were traveling by air. Somehow, my name has always appeared on some terrorist list each time we fly and they have to make sure that I am not dangerous. Good grief. We know the routine pretty well by now. We try to check in using the touch-screen and it finally tells us we can't check in that way and then we have to see a ticket agent. The agent says, "no problem" and starts the process all over again. Then she gets that funny look on her face and says, "Um - I'll be right back". We know then that my name came up on "that list" again! We finally got checked through okay and our flight was uneventful. After we landed, we had to take a bus over to another terminal to pick up our rental car. That took forever! I guess it never fails, when there's a line to wait in, ours will always be the longest! And why is it when there are 20 people in line, there's only one rental agent? We finally got through that line and went downstairs to collect our car. Guess what? Another line! It was over an hour and a half from the time we arrived before we were finally on our way to my sister's house. By then, we were in the middle of 5:00 traffic. Still with all of that, it was great being in sunny Arizona again.
My sister Jeanne and I had a great time shopping. We don't get to just take off and go shopping in the malls very often. She is too busy and I don't live close to any real shopping malls. We spent two days just wandering around in the malls checking out everything. We bought some valentine stuff for her grandchildren and I got a couple of things too.
They have had a strange winter down here too. It was really cold for a couple of days before we got here and a lot of their palm trees, shrubs and bushes that are usually full of greenery look like they are dead. They should snap out of it but it sure looks strange to see all this dead stuff. But the day we arrived, it was a warm 80 degrees and clear and we have been mostly just soaking up the sun.
On Sunday, we had a get together with all of their kids and grandkids. Between Bob and Jeanne's three sons and their wives, they have nine grandchildren. It was quite a zoo around here with all the kids running around. Since our nice weather had turned to rain, they had to play indoors. Oh, the wonderful sounds of silence after everyone had left!
Monday, Dave and I got together with a couple of radio engineers who work with us. One is the Phoenix engineer that we hire when we need a broadcast done in Arizona. The other guy works out of Chicago, but is Paul Harvey's engineer too, so he follows Paul to Arizona when he comes down here in the winter. These are people we may talk to on the phone or communicate with on the computer, but we really never get a chance to meet them. We spent a couple of hours talking business and telling stories over a nice Mexican lunch. It was great to finally put the names with the faces and since Dave paid for the lunch, it was a good write-off for our trip.
On Tuesday, we drove out to the IKEA store in Mesa and since we don't have a store like this at home, it was quite an adventure for us. The building is bigger than a football stadium and it seems like miles and miles of displays of office furniture and household goods. You have to follow the arrows so you won't get lost. They will be opening a store like this in Portland this summer and I can hardly wait.
We did our annual fruit picking on Wednesday before it rained again. We came home with bags and bags of grapefruit, lemons, tangelos and oranges. The people around here are just begging you to come and pick the fruit, because they have so much of the stuff. The challenge on Thursday was to get it all in the two folding suitcases that we brought along and getting it all home without the luggage handlers making it all into fruit juice!
It was raining with thunder and lightning on Wednesday evening, but by Thursday it was sunny and warm again and of course we had to leave for home. Still, I'd rather fly through sunny skies than to fly through a thundercloud! I guess all the rain was just getting us prepared for what we can expect when we get back. On our way out to the airport, we stopped to meet Jeanne's oldest boy, Micah and his family at the "In N' Out" burger place. They are missionaries in Ukraine and are here on sabbatical, so we didn't know when we would see them again. I'm glad we had one last chance to see them.
When we checked in at the Alaska Air desk, we went through the same thing all over again. Everything is fine until the name comes up on the computer and the agent disappears into the office to check us out. Eventually, she came back and gave us the "all clear" to head out to the gate. Just out of curiosity, Dave asked if it was my name that came up again, and she told him, "No, it's you". All this time I thought I was the bad guy, and it turns out to be Dave! In all fairness, I'm sure we heard that it was me in the past, but between the two of us, we just know that it's going to take a little while longer for us to get checked through and okayed to fly. They did give us some paperwork to fill out that should get us off the list in six months, but I'll believe that when I see it! Still, all in all we had a great trip and it was an enjoyable time seeing my sister and her family.
We have a big weekend planned, with all our kids and grandkids coming down to the coast for the President's Day weekend, so we'll hit the ground running today!
