Old Friends and Baking Sun

Day 27:

Waking up so close to Phoenix, we had a schedule to keep, meeting Jenny's friend from her childhood for lunch.  So we woke up pretty early and drove off to Jenny's home when she used to live in Glendale, AZ.  I punched in the address to Jenny's old home on my cell phone and the computerized lady in the phone told us where to go.

Buckeye is in the outskirts of the Phoenix area and Glendale is probably its largest suburb, making our drive into Glendale a short trip, especially compared with much of the driving days we'd made on our trip.  When we passed Sahuaro Ranch, Jenny had met her bearings with her old neighborhood and began showing us the library, places she'd ridden her bike, Desert Palms Elementary School and her old home.  Many of the places she remembered had changed in the past twenty years, but a surprising number of places were much the same as she remembered them from her childhood.

Desert Palms Elementary has been completely rebuilt since Jenny attended in the 1980's

After getting the complete tour from her old home, we drove into Sahuaro Ranch, where they were getting ready for a Wild West Day.  We parked and got out for a short time, giving the kids an opportunity to play at a unique playground before it got too hot in the day.  They played the National Anthem from the side of the park where they were celebrating Wild West Day, and I made the kids stop playing and stand at attention till the music was completed.  

The unique playground at Sahuaro Ranch challenged our children's fitness and imaginations.

Before we left, we walked past the orange trees to look at the peacocks that walk freely around the park.  It just coincided with the check point, where they were letting people in to the Wild West Days.  We got to watch as a man in full cowboy costume checked his gun with a man dressed as a sheriff and the young teenage boy with him before being allowed into the park.  Checking his gun consisted of verifying it wasn't loaded.  The boy gave each of my kids a sticker before we remounted our vehicle.

Kimberly decides the best way to get down the slide at Sahuara Ranch.

We still had a little extra time before meeting Jenny's friend, so we went back through the tour past Jenny's home, this time with the video camera. 

Then, I programmed the GPS to send me to the Arrowhead section of town, where we were meeting her friend at Arriba's.  We parked at the outskirts of the mall parking lot and walked across the street to the restaurant.  After a short wait, Jenny's friend Mel arrived with her family.  Our family clicked with their family very easily.  We all had a great time and enjoyed great Mexican food and at the end, Melissa and Steve picked up the bill, which we weren't expecting.

The Snethens with Jenny's friend and family outside the Snethen motor-home.

After leaving Arriba's and saying goodbye to Jenny's friend and her family, we drove out to Metro Center Mall.  As it turned out, Jenny didn't really recognize anything there, but they did have a really good playground on the first floor which entertained Daniel, Kimberly and Ben while Jenny took the oldest and youngest to look at clothes.

Kimberly, standing inside an alien robot at the Metro Center playground.

Leaving the Metro Center Mall, we drove on to Tucson, where we were fortunate to find a Burger King with a lit outdoor playland.  By this time, the sun was beginning to set and playing outside had resumed the appeal that it may have lost under the intense, afternoon sun.

Daniel slides down the rocket ship at the Metro Center Mall in Arizona.

By the time we left Tucson, it was completely dark and we decided to drive on, driving toward the waning gibbous moon as it rose with an amber hue over a mountain in front of us.  It was truly a beautiful sight!!  We kept going past the New Mexico border and on to Deming.  It would have been about a normal day's drive if we had started earlier in the day, but, arriving after midnight, I plugged us in and didn't even attach the hoses, knowing we probably wouldn't be there long enough to really need them.

Wildlife count to date:  2 moose, 21 bears, 7 rabbits, 9 deer, 16 squirrels an elk, a kitten and a coyote.