DAY 26 Phoenix
(Photo: The Hohls and the Randalls)
I was supposed to meet a friend this morning, but she called and cancelled because her son got sick. Instead we took showers and drove out to see Lisa’s mom in another suburb of Phoenix. We are invited to a poker game at the Randalls’ this afternoon.
Lisa’s mom lives in a 50-and-older gated community in Surprise, AZ. It’s very nice, with many community amenities such as a community center, auditorium, golf course and swimming pools. Her house is beautiful, too. She gave us a golf cart tour of the neighborhood. We also sat on her back patio and talked while Nora reorganized her rocks.
We went straight from her house to the Randalls, where Nora went down for a nap and David and I played poker. David and I were the first two people knocked out of the game, but we haven’t played in months. Nora woke up awhile later and David took her swimming in their pool while I played the second game. I ended up taking second place in that game and won $15. We took some photos with the Randalls and said our goodbyes. It was great seeing them. We got back to the campsite around 8:30 p.m. and put Nora to bed. We tried to watch a little TV, but nothing was really on. I plotted our route from Phoenix to Tucson, and we caught two or three minutes of preaching by Bill Winston, the mega-church minister from Forest Park. I would not have noticed, but we were flipping the channels and he was saying something about how the mall was empty when they bought it, and people thought no one would come, and now it’s thriving. That mall was the source of a lot of angst in Forest Park when we lived there because the church owned it, and they weren’t very good at getting tenants, so it took forever to get some decent stores back in there. It was vacant for a long time and a supermarket committed and then pulled out. It was finally doing OK when we moved away. It was interesting hearing it from Winston’s perspective. But we soon changed the channel.
The weather was great tonight. Nora got to see the full moon again, and we opened up all the windows and vents and turned on all the fans. It’s been a little stuffy in here.