A Trip!

On Wednesday, I arrived in VA during a nor'easter', so that made things interesting. I think I experienced the hardest landing I've ever had, and I've flown a lot. All was forgotten though when I got to the beach. I love the beach in any condition.

I was determined to get a beach walk in every day I was here, so headed out anyway only to find that the combination of high winds and high tide cut me off in spots, including the public access stairs on/off the beach. No problem I just found a path to the street and did a little detour.

Until a grumpy home owner yelled at me one day that it was not a public egress. Jeez. It's not like I was walking with a crowbar with nefarious intentions or was peeping into his windows or something. I was an innocent wind-blown female in a billowing jacket that made me look like a giant blueberry. I couldn't take 5 seconds to cut through and get away from the water? Fine. Americans are too crabby. No one would have given a crap on St. Kitts. I guess I'm just glad he didn't shoot me.

Luckily, the sun eventually came out, the winds calmed, and I made it out at low tide for good measure.



The beach wasn't the only place I walked though. We spent one day at First Landing State Park. The mosquitoes were the size of toy helicopters and went for any open skin. I was mostly covered by long sleeves and long pants, but my neck became a smorgasbord before I finally broke down and used the repellent my mom was smart enough to buy and apply.



It was a pleasant walk except for the occasional kaboom from a nearby naval facility. Tico didn't like it and dug in at one point. We checked him out to make sure he didn't have burrs or something, but nope. He just didn't want to walk anymore. I'm wondering if I can apply that method the next time I get tired or cranky. Carry me!

Luckily, Tico got his mojo back and we all had a pleasant walk back to the car. Another day brought the Neptune Festival art show (why I chose this particular weekend).

It goes on forever! We walked it for 5 hours and still didn't see the whole thing. Lots of fun stuff though. And right on the beach. Temps in the 70s. What's not to like?



The stupid thing people do for free stuff like beer coozies.

This seemed like a great idea until I saw the sign...afterwards. Oops! Sorry.



Of course then it's back to the beach. The other beach.

This Christmas tree was likely dumped last year, but it's been resurrected.



Every time I walk or run past it, it's got another decoration on it. By Christmas, it should be fully dressed.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum....

Back in Fountain Hills, the Ballet Under the Stars in the park was clearly a success.



Octoberfest had a good first night (photos from I Heart Fountain Hills),



but got walloped the next day. Hard.



I have never seen the park flood this badly. The lake just took over.

Here's what it looked like farther south.



Trees were down all over town. Sunday is going to be clean-up day for everyone. I think I'll keep enjoying my pretty day, thank you.

Getting Back Out There

It has been humid. I mean sticky. Disgustingly icky. Despite sayings to the contrary, Arizona is not always a dry heat in August and September. Combine that with temps over 100 and it can be rather unpleasant. There were a couple of tropical storms/hurricanes in the Pacific that brought us this fun. It brought rain too, but Fountain Hills didn't see as much of it as other cities in Arizona did. We did see enough to bring out the mosquitos though. Thanks to that, I wondered how many people would brave the park for free movie night. The movie was Legos. We asked friends with kids if adults would enjoy this movie too, got a yes, so thought, why not?

The night wasn't overly buggy and was much warmer than the last movie night when we froze our butts off, ironically while watching Frozen. Our biggest disappointment was that the same temporary snack stand that had been there last time selling what you'd expect to eat/drink at a movie wasn't there. Instead it was Chik-Fil-A. Obviously they were sponsoring the event (thank you), but who wants a chicken sandwich during a movie? Okay, it turned out lots of people did, but still. They're not even a local business. We sulked a bit that we didn't have popcorn (obviously, we'd have brought some if we'd known), but eventually got over it.

The movie itself was weird. It took a long time for the kids to calm down (over an hour), so we missed a lot of the dialog, and people just stood or walked in front of other people as if they were in their living rooms or something (you can see an example of that in that photo below right - those adults stood there like that long into the movie), but what we did hear/see was strange. Funny, but strange.



Anyway, it was a nice way to spend a Saturday night out. Sunday, I decided I couldn't take it any more, wrapped my foot up and hit the 2 1/2 mile (if done both ways) Overlook Trail by the fountain. I normally do this trail (jogging) about 2-3 times/week. The last time I was here, a month ago (aack!), I was just feet away from a coyote that was crossing the trail in front of me. I gave him the right-of-way.



I haven't worn the boot since it was given to me. It was truly overkill, and I have things to do. I have refrained from running and hiking though and was starting to go through withdrawals. So off I went. It was the perfect length. Can you tell I was enjoying myself?

It felt good, but would have become more painful if I'd picked a longer hike, particularly one with steeper/longer downhills. It was just what the doctor ordered, just don't tell my doctor - ha! It was so worth it.

No swelling, much less bruising. This was just to make sure it stayed that way.
Jack doing his Renee impression in the background.

We had another dust storm roll through, as well. We were at our favorite sub place, Uncle Sam's, clogging our arteries with their big cheese hoagie & fries (no one's good all the time), when a dozen smartphones, including mine, blared out an alarm. Everyone looked down at the same time. Everyone mumbled "dust storm" at the same time. It was kind of surreal to have everything go in unison like that. The alert said to avoid travel, but of course, we headed right out. It was south of us, and we drove parallel to it. They're always cool, if you're not driving in them.

It's supposed to be a drier week but with humidity creeping back in by the weekend. I'll be leaving town for a week, so am going to miss the Ballet Under The Stars on Thursday (free),

And Octoberfest ($5) over the weekend.

Maybe Michael will go and take some photos. I wonder if temps will be under 100 when I get back. Yes, please.

Moving Day

This weekend entailed us moving 4 blocks up the street. First, I was given a huge boot to wear from a podiatrist to help heal my still-bruised and apparently slightly fractured foot. I wore it long enough to hobble down his building's stairs, took it off to drive home, and that was pretty much that. My foot doesn't hurt bad enough for me to put up with the inconvenience. Plus, we had to move on Saturday. That meant going down these stairs.






And coming back up these stairs.

Over and over and over again. With heavy items. There would be no boot. I wrapped my foot up instead. We packed up one room or closet at a time, filled our Mini Cooper and a borrowed Suburban, and then unpacked it at the new place so we could reuse our limited number of boxes. Clothes stayed on hangers or in drawers. We did this a kazillion times. Our Ikea couch has covers that can only be washed once the couch is taken apart - yup - so I was running them and some dirty laundry through the wash in the midst of the insanity as well. Oh, and the cable guy was trying to get us setup at the new place. He wasn't supposed to be there alone, but we threw the key at him and told him welcome home... Twelve hours later, we were all moved. Everything was unpacked, the couch was clean and put back together, the bed was reassembled, we were drugged up with Advil to ward of soreness, and off we were to sleep. I was dreaming of making some big, burly friends before we have to move again.

One thing that sold us on this place was the fact that we had no other apartments across the way. Instead of this.

  

We could see the fountain., which was cool.

We have this.

  

Both 3rd-floor apartments are on washes, but one had a high wall for privacy so all we could see was this.

Seriously. That's what we saw if we were sitting.

While the new one gives us this.

We even get the view from the living room.

It just makes a place seem bigger and lets us enjoy nature - lots of animals/birds come into these washes.

Sunday was Michael's birthday, the last one in his 40s, and we spent it cleaning the old apartment and shopping for a few things we needed in the new one - no lights in the bedrooms?! We also spent $200 to fix my phone, which got crushed at some point during one of my hauls. Hopefully now the blog can change from being a journal of mundane life events and get back to fun things to do here and elsewhere.