I got up early again — sixish. The sunrise from my upstairs bedroom windows and patio doors is amazing. Reminds me of the first Eagles album cover — pink sunrise tinting a clear blue sky, with dark silhouette cactus in the foreground.

It’s another tequila sunrise
Staring slowly ‘cross the sky

The nights here are dark and quiet. There are no streetlights in Gold Canyon — there are some small lights lighting up the desert plants along the sidewalks, but folks here prefer starlight to streetlights. My house is far away from the busy highway and everyone around here goes to bed by 8pm so the only sound I hear at night is an occasional chorus of coyotes howling at that full moon over Superstition Mountain.

Now, at 6:30 in the morning, there is the hum of the Mexican crew zipping back and forth on their mowers and their gators, making art on the golf course, raking the big sand traps around the greens so there’s no sign of the agony they inflicted on yesterday’s golfers. Sunrise and sunsets here are as short as they are beautiful–quite a bit shorter than they are at home. It gets dark quickly and it gets bright quickly. When the sun bursts over the top of Superstition and blazes onto the walls of my bedroom it’s time to get out of bed and go get the water boiling for my morning coffee.

I worked my way through some of the things on my ‘to-do’ list this morning. Made an appointment for an oil change for Wednesday. Made a few phone calls. Swept out the garage. Cleaned the windows. Finished another crossword puzzle. Cycled down to Bashas’ to pick up buns and avocados so I could make my favorite meal.

At 2:00 I drove to Apache Creek golf course. It’s not as nice as the golf courses here but it was crazy cheap online and had lots of open tee times. I thought I might as well try it — I’ve golfed there previous winters but not this year. I used to hate it because it has a lot of desert scrub if you miss the fairways, and I usually missed the fairways. It’s not easy hitting the ball off of the hard gravel and even harder if the ball is stuck in a prickly plant or has rolled down into one of the many gopher holes. On the plus side, unlike so many courses here, there are no houses or families enjoying happy hour in their backyard patios to hit with an errant shot.

I was paired up with Tim, a security system sales rep who had just moved to Mesa from Indiana. He hit the ball a long way, and mostly straight. It was fun golfing with him — he seemed like a very nice man. We were joined by Chris on about the 12th hole — he was a transplanted Minnesotan who was walking the course and taking his game a little more seriously than Tim and I were. Tim was keeping score for the two of us — I noticed he would mark down my score sort of like you would guess a woman’s age — that helped ease the pain of a couple of sevens and eights for me. I’m not exactly sure what is going on with my short irons — just when my putting improves some of my wedge shots are taking off at right angles…

I got into the van at around 6:15 and was about to drive west to the cheap theatre at Superstition Springs for a 6:40 movie when I got a text from Alex. It’s two hours later at home and Max wants to have a quick FaceTime. Hey, I can go see that movie tomorrow. I hurry back home and have a nice chat with Max and Alex. Max had indoor recess this morning because it was too cold outside! I guess it’s not time to go home yet!

I warmed up my leftover Chinese food from yesterday and sat down to watch some TV. Mixed results. Either the shows are getting less interesting or I am just getting too much exercise to keep from dozing off. I had to have a dish of ice cream and a cookie just for something to do so I could stay awake long enough to get the Trumpy news from Jimmy Kimmel at 10:34. And then BOOM! — sleep overwhelms me and I’m off to bed.