Tuesday. The Dycks are packing up. They’re going back to Palm Desert, a four-and-a-half hour drive west from here. We had coffee and toast. Arlene put the sheets in the laundry and the dishes in the dishwasher — and then showed me how to use both machines. As it turns out the machines are not so different from what I have at home — I will manage. 

After Arlene has made the bed and restored the room to better-than-new, Robert backs his Honda up to mine and we move the clubs from one vehicle to the other. Load up the suitcases too. And say good-bye. Come again. It’s been fun. Drive safely.

I am alone again. I have a call from Ingrid who is getting her TV and internet re-configured. Then I get an email from Hans, inviting me and Ken Loewen to a ‘Mennonite dinner of farmer sausage and wine’ that Chris will cook tonight. Huh? That doesn’t exactly sound like a ‘Mennonite’ dinner. But I’m in.

I look at my Yahoo weather app, which gives me the current weather conditions for the places I select. Here are my three places, and the ‘Flickr’ photos that the app links to for each place. Looks like I’m in the right place. Nineteen degrees isn’t all that warm, and even Portugal, where my friends Dave and MaryLou have been rained on for the last couple of weeks doesn’t look so bad. But look at that photo for Steinbach! The temperature is PLUS 2, but the photo looks like it’s ‘schteeming’! I sure hope the snow is gone by the time I get home a month from now.

I work on updating my blog. Shoot! I should have taken some more and some better photos. Oh well. I want to go for a little bike ride. I need to finish my crossword puzzle. I should really check out the movie I didn’t watch last night and see if I can watch it again before my iTunes rental expires. I do that. Yeah, it’s a pretty good movie. 

I’ve volunteered to bring dessert to the dinner tonight. What will I get? Oh, I’ll stop at Basha’s on the way and see what the bakery has made today. But I end up Facetiming with Tim and Max and when I hang up I really have to hurry to make it to Hans and Chris’s for the 5 o’clock invitation. 

Google maps sends me south down the 60, to the Florence turn-off, and then back up on the Arizona Farms Road. It’s supposed to take 45 minutes, but it’s rush hour. I get caught in rush hour and road construction once I’m in the San Tan Valley. Plus I still have to get to a grocery store and buy my dessert. There’s a big Fry’s store not too far out of the way. I select a cherry pie and some cherry ice cream to go with it. And then I wait and wait in the turning lane out of that parking lot.

I arrive at Hans and Chris’s nearly half an hour late. No problem. It’s Arizona. We’re all on ‘holidays’. We sit in the backyard, next to the pool, and just across from the 17th fairway of the golf course around which this neighbourhood is built. The evening is warm. The sun is setting. The music from the dance hall about a mile away is wafting across the golf course. 

Chris has made a delicious ‘Menno’ meal. Bothwell farmer sausage and scalloped potatoes. I guess there is a Mennonite sausage smuggler who sources these things! It is a fine evening of laughter and story-telling. Chris is a good cook. The Neufelds are excellent hosts.

I drive back home via a different route — basically zip right up along Ironwood Road all the way to the 60. No traffic issues now — these retired snowbirds all go to bed by 8:30.

When I get home I feel a bit bad about not getting much done today — especially as it pertains to my blog. So I will try again. Shoot! the internet is down. (What else is new — it’s the same Mediacom flaky service that I endured when we were here in previous years.) Oh well, I tried. Might as well go to bed. So I do.