Welcome Home with Wildflowers

We flew back to Arizona from Eleuthera yesterday.  We arrived home at 9:30 pm.  We woke up to a beautiful day!  Our yard is full of blooming plants!  It felt as if they were welcoming us home!

Wind on Eleuthera

In spite of 20-30 mph winds, we’ve had a nice last two days on Eleuthera.  The winds kicked up big waves that brought lots of seaweed onto the beach, so we’ve played games, went to the Alfred Levy Nature Preserve, and eaten several meals out.  All good!  We’ve had a wonderful week on Eleuthera!

Clouds, Crab, and Kayaking

We woke up to a cloudy morning.  We had breakfast at Pammy’s in Governor’s Harbour, then hit the beach.  We all kayaked, with Papa following a large manta ray close in to the beach.  We ate lunch in Governor’s Harbour, then back to our beach house to watch Anne of Green Gables, Part 1, with a few sprinkles outside and thunder.  After the sprinkles, I noticed a line in the sand of our yard.  I followed the line to a large hermit crab inside a sea shell.  We had a terrific, low key, relaxing day, ending with Papa and me taking a long walk with Audrey on the beach at sunset.  Nice!

French Leave Beach

We woke up to mostly clear skies and 70’s temperature, with a mostly swept beach.  High tide carried away most of the seaweed washed up by the weekend’s storm.  The pink sand was glistening and a mirror of the sky was left with each wave slowly lapping the beach.  Beautiful!

Eleuthera

We flew to Governor’s Harbour on Saturday morning to join Audrey and Dan for a week on Eleuthera.  Wilton, our rental car provider, met us at the airport with a minivan.  We rented from him three years ago and have stayed in touch.  Audrey rented a house next door to the house we rented almost three years ago (without realizing it!), on French Leave Beach.  We are spending time on the beach, eating with the locals in Governor’s Harbour at Shauna’s, going to the library, local bakery, and grocery.  It’s nice that so many things are so familiar.  The pink sand of French Leave Beach is beautiful!

Desert Museum

We left home by 8:45 Tuesday morning, to arrive by 9:30 at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  Emerson and Colby talked with a docent holding a red tailed hawk while I bought our tickets.  With tickets in hand, we made our way to the Raptor Show.  We watched while a gray hawk, four Harris hawks, and an owl, flew within inches of our heads and stopped to eat on trees within a few feet of us.  It was pretty amazing!  We proceeded on to see javelina, coyotes, big horn sheep, birds, snakes, an ocelot, and much more.  We spent four hours at Desert Museum and didn't see everything. 

Pontatoc Ridge Hike

We worked in our yard this morning until after 10, with Emerson and Colby helping pick brittle bush from our paths and pick up small sticks (with the ulterior motive of using the sticks as kindling for a fire).  By 10:20, we were off to hike.  We drove to the Finger Rock Trail, then turned onto the Pontatoc Ridge Trail.  The hike was challenging, reminiscent of a giant stair stepper with the steps constantly changing heights.  We continued on the trail to a large rock overlooking Tucson and the mountains beyond.  The view was spectacular!

We were starved after our hike, so we went for a late lunch at Zinburger.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, with Emerson and Colby playing in our yard.  They seem to have a sense of great freedom in our yard, exploring all about, looking for rocks, and always picking up sticks for the firepit.  Another night at Lulu and Papa's house... another fire built by Colby and Papa!

Second Trip to Picacho Peak

We stopped at Picacho Peak last Sunday to see the poppies, and we went again today.  This time, we met Claire, Emerson, and Colby.  We hiked the Calloway Trail.  There were more wildflowers, including poppies, than we saw last week, plus it seemed the whole mountain was covered in thicker green grasses.  Picacho Peak was beautiful!

After hiking, we moved Emerson and Colby's bikes, scooters, and suitcases into our car, to bring them home with us for a few days. 

Mystery Guest

On Friday afternoon, on our way home from TMA’s Spring Art Market, I got a text from someone, asking if we could get together over the weekend to talk about a new business idea this person has.  I invited them to breakfast on Saturday morning, without knowing who it was, but believing it was one of our Boys and Girls Club kids.  I prepared omelets with roasted potatoes and fruit and yogurt parfaits for breakfast, watching out the window for our mystery guest’s arrival.

It was Tatiana!  We enjoyed hearing about her classes at UA, a new sales job (meant primarily to learn how to sell), and a new idea she has about bringing better health care to the continent of Africa, particularly to Cameroon, where her family is from.  We talked for three hours about ideas, examples, companies and countries already working on the same problem, and connections that may be helpful. We had a fascinating conversation and we followed up later via email.  Tatiana is in a pre-med program at UA.  She has arranged a summer internship with a group of neurosurgeons going to Cameroon.  She volunteers in a biomedical engineering lab.  She is an amazing young woman!

Wa:k Pow Wow

We went to the 37th Annual Wa:k Pow Wow this afternoon, at San Xavier Mission del Bac, and hosted by the Tohono O’odham tribe.  Wa:k Pow Wow is Tucson’s largest gathering of Native American dancing, singing, arts & crafts.  Native Americans come from all over the west and east to Oklahoma.  Our friends, Rachel and Bill went with us.  Rachel and I shopped a bit, and each of us bought a Navajo handwoven necklace, that came with an invitation to visit the mother and daughter weavers at their home in Canyon de Chelly.  We had a terrific afternoon!