Tempe

After all my whining about the BLM area near Tucson, we ended up staying there the whole 4 nights. The NFS campgrounds were on the other side of town--maybe 15 miles away, and Steve didn't want to move that far. We ended up finidng a better spot in the BLM campground, away from the road, and it ended up being fine. It was very handily close to Saguaro National Park, which is beautiful. We did a short hike there, intending to do a longer one another day, but ran out of days, but will go back another time. Steve spent a happy day at the Pima Air and Space Museum, and I spent an even happier one "shop hopping" quilt and yarn shops. I found 6 quilt shops and 2 yarn shops in the Tucson area, but had to apre it down, knowing I couldn't get to the them all. Thanks to my friend, Lisa, a fellow quilter/knitter who has a condo in Tucson, I got some recommendations of which ones I .'t miss--Quilt Basket, Quilters Market, and Kiwi Kntting Co.-- so I hit those first. I had a grand time, spent lots of money, and bought lots of fabric and some interesting sock yarn made of weird fibers--corn, soy, and chitin. Oh, and a "bonus"yarn shop, Grandmother's Spinning Basket, that I discovered by accident. It had only recently opened up in the same shopping plaza as Quilt Basket.

After Tucson, we drove to Maricopa, which is about 90 miles north and west, where my brother Bill and his wife, Patti, live. They are both realtors, and they drove us around Maricopa in Patti's bright yellow PT Cruiser showing us some of the homes they have listed. The next morning, Bill, who deals more in acreage than houses, took us on a tour of some of his listed properties out in Hidden Valley, about 15 miles from Maricopa, very near the mountains. We fell in love with a 2.5 acre parcel lushly (well, lush for desert!) with many mature saguaros and other desert plants, plus a small 2-bedroom manufactured home already there. All for $160,000. I can't say we weren't tempted, but we passed.

Yesterday we drove from Maricopa to Tempe (1/2 hour away) to spend a few days with our oldest son, Chris. He is single, bought a house a few years ago, and lives there with two roomates and two large dogs. We are parked in his driveway and are staying three nights. Chris is a graphic artist, and, for the past year, has been consumed with helping get a new program designed and off the ground. It finally launched about a month ago to rave reviews. AND, you can download it free. What is it? A program for designing presentations, very versatile, and with many extremely cool options for personalizing it. Think of Powerpoint on steroids, and not boring. Check it out on flypaper.net. And tell all your friends.