Phoenix Hotel Tsu

... story of how Melissa and her boyfriend were named Homecoming King and Queen of their high school here in Mesa.

Melissa stood up and did her Miss America wave to everyone with this great Daisy smile--
I mean... think Daisy with a red cowboy hat and jeans and you have this girl.

Made me tear up, dang it.

Oh, and when we walked in they gave us each a little gift--me a bright blue boa and Bob a western tie. Oh yea, we were cute. You don't ...

... for most of this information is from the Bradt Guide for Ethiopia, with Carole's added commentary of the Ark of the Covenant. It is fascinating to me and such a great adventure story if it could ever be proven. Good read on the subject is The Sign & The Seal, Graham Hancock. Many believe his research presents a very compelling case for it being there while others think it is hogwash. Personally, I think they are just jealous! :)

... a poor salmon swimming upstream – an extremely bulky salmon who couldn't see too well because of the piled high trolly – trying to collect a few other goodies, but just amazing how quickly the specials were stripped off the shelf. Spent ages in a line to the checkout, so didn't actually get to leave Walmart to the sun was rising at 6.30! After a couple more shops we staggered home at about 8am.

Hopefully today we'll get a Nana-nap in!

Yummy breakfast this morning with the State of Texas shaped waffles – heh heh. Naturally Fred, Josh & I had to sample them!

Hit the road by 9am and drove straight to Wilcox, Arizona where we had a rather disappointing lunch at a local Burger Joint called 'Carters' – cost us $25 for the four of us, and that was 3 small burgers (tiny by U.S size standards), 2 ...

We leave for Ethiopia on December 15th and are getting very excited. This is one of the first steps
towards keeping friends and family updated while we are gone.
This is our first trip to an African country so we are extra excited for a completely different experience.

Erin is one of, if not, the oldest friend I have. We met in fourth grade and have managed to keep in touch over the years. I blame Erin. And this little girl I played tag with in elementary school is now a mother of an adorable little boy. She and her husband Mike had Alysia two years ago and we had a wonderful ...

... beautiful, and we had a nice visit.
On the way home Bob & I sought out our favorite thrift store, the Family Attic on Greenway Rd. It's laid out like a well cared for antique store--not jumbled together in a musty mess like so many. We've gotten $120 shirts for $2 there before, but today we hit it right after a half off sale and had no luck. We like this place not only for their ...

... here in the desert, go to another museum and do some sightseeing with Brandt on his day off. We got in after sunset today but will try to get a good picture for you tomorrow. They have some amazing su On Friday we will head out for Tucson as we slowly work our way toward San Antonio TX. I have been keeping up with the lousy weather up North. I really am sorry for what everyone there is going through but am happy I'm where it is basically warm and usually sunny.

Friday Sept 26th: We stayed in Grants NM last night. I thought about trying to get all the way to Gallup to cut into today's mileage, but thought better of it. We got a good start after a continental breakfast provided by the KOA folks. Not much to it, but a nice feature that allows an early start and no dishes or cups to do a final clean-up on. We had about 340 miles to do and all went well. I failed to lock the storage compartment on the curbside and it opened ...

Okay, so we're not going for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to know how the blog worked and also talk about some of the restaurants we're thinking about visiting... One of the places we thought about was going to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Ceasar's Palace. We love watching Bobby in his Throwdown show and didn't have the opportunity to visit the Mesa Grill in New York (although, watch for another ...