Residence Inn By Marriott Tempe

... 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 ...

Maybe we've been in the desert too long, but the Salt river was gorgeous. Clear, cold and full of pools and riffles, it flows out of seemingly dry mountains east of Phoenix like a miracle--a wet mirage.

Along it's length from Mesa to Saguaro Lake (backed up by the Stewart Mountain Dam) are access points with parking lots the size of Target, but today, Black Friday, they were mostly empty--just us and a few others avoiding the mania in town.

Further up the river lie Apache ...

... highlands are drier and generally thinly vegetated except during the rainy season.Only the eastern and southern highlands conform to the image of Ethiopia as a featureless desert.
- Capital city is Addis Ababa with a population of about 3.1 million.
- Official language is Amharic. English is widely spoken.
- Main religions are Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Protestant Christianity. Ethiopia also had a ...

... potato, green bean casserole, broccoli, cauliflower, gravy & cranberry sauce. For dessert either pumpkin or apple pie. Later Janine & I went to a huge craft shop called 'Michael's' where I 'saved' Fred 30% on all my purchases, including all the stuff that was already discounted!

For the famous Thanksgiving Day Sales, we decided to go to Toys R Us first which opened at 12am, but when we (Fred, Janine & I) got there, there was a ...

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.

... He called me an hour later to come and pick him up-He had walked 2.2 miles up Idaho Road. Fixed us a hamburger for dinner. Charlie has lost 20 lbs in last 3 weeks-getting sick sure helped that! Feb 12-I was up early for an appt with my Merrill Lynch guy, but just before I left got an email saying it was cancelled-Marc was sick. Charlie up and had more crisis at the office so spent most of the day on the phone and emails. Stayed home in the cool weather again - just not ...

... he was happy to be able to help Sherry get a few things accomplished before she has surgery this week. We really have enjoyed being able to spend some time with her - and until last month, I hadn't seen her in about 11 years! But, after those three weeks, we'll be back here 'til mid-April, when we'll enjoy the spring race weekend at Phoenix International Raceway before starting back towards Michigan for my niece's wedding and ...

... home? Add a week? I had problems with both of those options. So I came up with a third. I am going to change it up and get back to the adventure I wanted to have. I am going to wander aimlessly about. Probably head up to Sedona, maybe the Grand Canyon, or into Utah. Maybe it's 60-100 miles per day. Just wander about with no pressure, maybe take a glider ride or hot air balloon ride, or rent a mountain bike for a day, we'll see. I hope that in this way ...

After 9 years of working in the corporate world, I just couldn't take the Teal and Sesame colored cubicle walls any more - my savings account just sitting there accumulating dust. So I decided, in what I call "The Meltdown", that I needed a break and I needed a BIG one. At the time I had friends working in Peru, visiting Costa Rica, sending me web links to "Help Save the Turtles in the Galapagos", and others sending me their TravelPods. Envious ...