A Few More Details

From Sunday the 7th:

We slept in pretty well... didn't wake up til 10. It had been such a nice chat the night before... and a perfect day.

But as I looked out the window all I saw was an oppressive, grey mass covering the entire sky. The asphalt was slick black from rain, and sure enough it was indeed precipitating... in Arizona! For some reason I was shocked because I thought that it was always sunny here! LOL

I forgot to mention on Saturday that after the ball game we did have a tiny run in with a little rain as we were waiting for him to get his haircut. But that only lasted a matter of a few minutes and was off and on.

After a while we packed up all our stuff, checked out and went to Denny's for breakfast. I had an "Ultimate Omelet", and I loved it again. As we sat, we pondered what to do. Our plans had included going to an open air wildlife park... and a scenic drive at South Mountain Park, just south of Phoenix. But there was close to no visibility, and it started to pour. We kicked around the idea of going to a movie, but it was rejected. Zac had a bit of congestion and a headache, so he was thinking he might want to go back to Yuma earlier than 5PM. We decided to go to the Air Force museum in Mesa, and then they would drop me off at the hotel where I was meeting Rita.

It was around noon when we finished eating, and it took about a half-hour to get to the museum. I was very impressed with it! They had two hangars (thank goodness it was all inside!) full of planes and memorabilia from WWII. They had a B-26, a few P-51's, several other planes, and then an F4 Phantom and a MiG in the first (besides many engines and displays and the largest 48 star flag that I've ever seen) and then in the operational hangar they had a fully restored and operational B-17G open to climb into and walk through! Still being restored and only available to look at was a veteran B-25 from the Mediterranean theater, and a smaller transport plane. Now, I read "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" when I was a teenager, so I have a special love for B-25's. It was in great condition (as far as I could tell) and was very neat to touch. We ended up spending two full hours wandering around all the history; and they even had a very pretty patch in the gift shop. :)

Getting to the hotel was very easy (thank you Google!) and I didn't mind just sitting in their lobby. I mean, if you have to wait around for a while, doing it in a swank hotel lobby sitting on a leather couch with free Internet is the way to go. I posted the pictures (in the last post) and read for a moment before Rita came. She wanted to meet here because the hotel has a lot of throw-back architecture to 1912, when Arizona became a state. We walked around for a while, looking in shop windows and talking.

We ate at the hotel restaurant (AJ's Cafe) and had dinners that they served back in 1912... I had a grilled salmon with rice and veggies and it was delicious! The dinner included a fresh greens salad to start and also a piece of ice creme cake to finish... wow! what a good choice of restaurant! We sat at our booth and talked quite a bit longer until it was time to go. On the way to the airport it was still pouring in spots with lightning flashing in the sky once and a while, just to our right. What strange weather! It's always fun for me to see storms in flat places in the country. By us there are so many hills and trees that it's impossible to get the same wide open experience.

I was so tired! I mostly slept on the plane, but it was an on and off, uncomfortable sleep. I listened to movie music on my mp3 player, and I was so tired that I fell asleep right when the Imperial March came on. And as on the way down, I missed the beverage service because I was dead to the world. Meg and Jason picked me up, and let me tell you, lying down in bed at home felt soooooooo good. :)

Jp