A Little Vacation 1: Day Before and Night One There

I both want to sleep and don’t. Want to because it’s been a long day and I’m tired. I woke at 4:30, and by the time I got back from letting the dog out I was fully awake. I turned on the TV and got last night’s (recorded on the DVR) 7-day weather, concentrating on the area we’re now in. The forecast is for cooling, with rain likely Tuesday and as much as maybe 5” snow on Wednesday. It  was helpful knowing how to pack since we were leaving after a day of near 80 back home and a forecast by the time we left in early afternoon of fairly close to that for our two hour drive north. We had to wait that long because the Air B&B they rented was only available at/after 3.

Our Minnesota friends - Steve’s MN fishing buddy and his wife - arrived in the Phoenix area two nights ago after four days of driving. Not being used to it they spent their evening recuperating. We went out to lunch together yesterday at a restaurant everybody liked. The guys stayed at our house for several hours that afternoon to do their thing and I showed her the Gilbert Water Ranch. We hiked over a mile. Silly me, thinking it was a good idea to go on a Saturday afternoon, but it was that or nothing. Three tours of the regular parking lot convinced me I needed to head over to the library parking lot on the other side of the lake, adding significantly to the walk. Both ways.

We both loved the area, and it has benches placed regularly along the paths where one can sit, often long enough for the wildlife to become active again while we watched, at least so long as no more people pass in the meantime. Yep, watching the wildlife, that’s my excuse for sitting. I had my camera along of course, and she settled for her cell phone camera while bemoaning being unable to zoom in on the birds.

 Many of the birds were new to her, others were also down from “back home” to  winter in milder climes. Literal snowbirds. She couldn’t get over how everything smelled of nature.  They left the frozen northland of ice and snow, where nothing smells except the city, and that not very nicely. So leaves, flowers, and open water, even with floating algae patches, are a treat. Our friends have visited several times here, and are funny in that when they come down here to the Phoenix area they bring us north to join them in the winter part of AZ. I keep telling them if they really want to get away, come in March, stick around, and see the desert in bloom. Last trip up to the the Verde Valley area was the day after a nice snowfall in Sedona, which turned out the have the makings for our picture X-Mas card that year.

They are great company. He and Steve have known each other at least a couple years longer than I’ve known Steve. I’ve only fairly recently come to know her and we find so much in common each time. We both have some artistic streaks. I do photography, she sketches. I love to make earrings, she loves to wear earrings. We both love music. I k kinda sing and she plays harp. Both of us appreciate the local cultures, especially the original ones in either locale, love the scenery, take in the world with much the same sensibilities.  Where we differ is I’m more practical and organized, she’s more spiritual.

There have been times while driving alone that I will start humming a tune circling my brain and start throwing in variations until it’s something completely different and yet somehow the same, so I can comprehend how she might be doing that with her harps. Yes, plural. Just the little one travels. That is the reason I don’t quite want to go to sleep yet. She is out in the living room of this little Air B&B  house playing it. The sounds are so soothing, I don’t want to miss a note. None of it is familiar to me and I need to remember in the morning to ask her if she makes it up as she goes or has everything memorized.

I’m sure I’ll get some sleep soon. Just as soon as my shoulders quit aching. I’ve taken ibuprofin, but the bed and the pillows are just wrong. I can’t refluff the pillows to support my head to ease the shoulders because of - you guessed it - the shoulders. My body has adapted to what’s at home, which includes a very firm pillow that is in one piece and doesn’t ease away from me while I sleep, unlike both of mine on this bed, so even on my worst nights at home I can manage sleep without too much pain. When that’s not possible, I head out to my living room recliner and spread out there. This place is wonderful but has no recliners. I assure you the ping pong/pool table in the living room with the panorama wall of windows behind it looking out over the field and orchard to the as-yet-unidentified mountain/cliff/wall the sun recently set behind do not quite make up for the lack of a good recliner to sleep in when the shoulders are acting up. I blame tonight’s pains on carrying in all the luggage we brought along, since Steve’s now added hip problems to his other aches and did well to get himself over the stairs and into the house.

Unfortunately harp strings have been replaced by the sounds of running water while they settle in for the night, so it’s time for me to stop writing and try to also.