Vacation Arrival

Greetings from Arizona. I’m trying something new, so this should be a short one. Debbie, Kayla, and I thought we would take a week and come down to Phoenix to attend her brothers wedding, and make a vacation of it sitting by the pool relaxing and not doing much for the rest of the week in one of our resort vacation places.  We’ve talked about taking relaxing vacations before, but we always end up cramming so much in that there isn’t usually much relaxing going on.

I had the brilliant idea that I should take along my wireless keyboard and try to do some writing on the iPad (that I’m using now) as I’m without an actual laptop at this time. It was a good idea for a test, but it never made it into my bag. So far writing isn’t too bad hunt-and-peck style, but it is slow. I’ve got a new idea burning through my mind and I’d like to have some time to start in on it when I don’t have the usual distractions and duties that seem to so easily pull me away from accomplishing anything.  I may have to bust out Monday and see what I can find locally, but I’m afraid I’ll end up with a chromebook.*

The trip down was nice, we took the scenic route down through Kanab, and stopped in at the Glen Canyon Dam visitors center.** We had some good Mexican food for lunch in Paige and pushed on through to Phoenix. In all it was about an 11 hour trip. It’s the first road test of the new vehicle, and I was pretty pleased, but I’m obsessing a bit much over the predicted milage and mpg calculations on the dash. *** Upon arrival, and after checking in at the hotel we had to meet up with my brother-in-law and make some wedding assistance arrangements. We finally got back to the condo around 10:00 tired and hungry having had no time for dinner. It was way too late for me to eat and still be able to sleep, and deciding I wanted sleep more than anything I finally got to bed.

There is a bird in Phoenix that sounds like a cross between a rooster and a howler monkey . Actually, there seems to be a lot of them. Either that or they vacation in the same place I do. In any case they woke me up early. I stubbornly kept going back to sleep until rather late in the morning, but was still pretty punked when it came time to leave for the wedding and I’d not managed to get anything to eat, either.

The wedding was nice, as far as this introvert could see, and people seemed to be having a good time. I survived  enough for the time of sustenance to arrive and had a good dinner. Shortly after eating I got up to go outside to get away from the noise and see what my wife was up to. On the way, a man I hadn’t met who was either with the bride’s party, or with the reception hall, stopped me to ask if I was ok. He said he’d noticed me kind of withdrawn earlier with my head hanging down. In truth, I was probably just surreptitiously checking my phone, but I was kind of out of it, and I think I give off that vibe when I’m in a crowd.

I was really struck by his  kindness and concern. When I notice similar circumstances I find it very hard to make that kind of inquiry, mostly, I think, it’s more of a fear of prying in on someone’s personal space than anything else, but I don’t think I really should be afraid of that. I didn’t particularly want to be bothered, but I stopped and tried to let him know it had just been a long couple of days. Given my insular nature, I’m not sure if I can really change, but I’d like to give it a try.

*which wouldn’t be bad, I want one, I just don’t need one, really.

** Sparking the inevitable “Those Dam <something related to the reservoir>” jokes

*** 24 mpg-ish at 65mph. 21 at 83mph