Family Mellmann

Well, we made it back to Vermont.  What a ride. After Tuba City and Zion National Park (just the southern tip), I arrived in Ogden to connect with my sister and her family while I enjoyed some do-nothing days of reading, knitting, and...yep, just reading and knitting.  We talked and laughed, enjoyed some television in their media room, and caught up on all the news.  After a few days, it was time to meet Joerg (who had been in Oregon on a business trip) at the Salt Lake City Airport.  For the rest of this journey, we would be together and able to share the driving. We headed north for Montana by way of the western edge of Wyoming, but before we could make it to Livingston, where we had an Airbnb waiting for us, we would have to contend with one of the challenges of the west...flat tires.  Many of the road we traveled as we looked at property were dirt, rock, or gravel.  Eventually, it was bound to cause trouble as one of those rocks hit just the right angle...

Patrick and I enjoyed one last meal together and said our farewells...again.  This time, it will be more than three weeks before we see each other again.  I'm sure I'll get used to this eventually... I hit the road around 10:00 and headed north.  My first stop was Tuba City, Arizona.  Tuba City sounded like a fun place to visit given my high school band experience (I played tuba), but then I learned that it has some history.  Tuba City is in the Navajo Nation.  Several Navajo citizens were part of the Code Talkers of WWII.  Marine Corps leadership selected twenty-nine Navajo men who created a code based on the complex, unwritten Navajo language.  This code was used to communicate military tactics and plans.  This system enabled the Code Talkers to translate three lines of English in 20 seconds versus the standard 30 minutes with existing code-breaking machines. The Code Talkers participated in every major Marine operation in the Pacific the...

Patrick and I finished out our day at Rustler's Rooste in Tempe.  Situated atop a...hill...it gave us some great views of the city below and a lovely sunset.  And the steaks and homemade baked beans were fabulous.  

Last night, Patrick and I had dinner out at a local restaurant and then walked around town a little enjoying the architecture.  This building struck us both as an architectural representation of Arizona; the orange and tan parts of the building are reminiscent of the rock and stone colors common to the area, and the blue of the glass mimics the sky quite accurately. This morning, Patrick had an early morning flight with an owner of a flight academy where he is being considered for a job.  When he was done with that (by the way, it went very well and resulted in a job that Patrick is very excited about) we took a drive to check out some local scenery. We went to Papago Park where we could see the Papago Ponds, the Desert Botanical Garden, and Hole in the Rock.  As we drove through the botanical garden we saw this eye-popping green tree with green branches and trunk (the Palo Verde).  It was beautiful against the cloudless blue sky.  We also snagged a photo op wit...

The drive from Oklahoma to Arizona was long, but interesting.  I encountered dramatic storms, construction traffic, and an ever-changing climate and terrain. On Thursday, I crossed the border from New Mexico into Arizona.  Once I crossed the state line, I spotted my first saguaro cactus which dots the roadside like pine trees in the northeast. I checked into my hotel and parked the car/trailer so I could settle in for a couple of days in Tempe.  Patrick and Amelia picked me up so we could go get some dinner. On Friday morning, we met as early as we could muster to unload the trailer before the stifling Arizona heat could make such work intolerable.  I unloaded the trailer and moved boxes to the bottom of the stairs and Patrick lugged everything to his third floor apartment.  Amelia pitched in where she could, but those boxes were packed pretty heavy, and some of them were large and/or awkward. With the back of the car empty and the trailer emptied of everything ...