Greetings to family, friends and new readers. This will be a quick post just to close out the year…and what a year it has been.
I now have a bunch of titanium rods and screws in my back…and I’m an inch taller (which is to say, I’m not as short as I was prior to June 29th). I love the old Terminator movies, where Arnold plays the cyber-robot from the future. If you’ve watched any of them, you know the scenes where his metal skeleton is exposed. I can relate to that now, after seeing the images of my back post-surgery! Yikes! No more strolling casually through the airport security booths for me. I’ll set off every alarm they have. But…it’s healing (slowly) and I hope by this time next year, I’ll be able to report a full recovery.
The move from California to Arizona was another tough one, but very necessary for a number of reasons, first and foremost being near to the Mayo Clinic here in Scottsdale. But, there’s no doubt about it, the move took a lot out of me physically. Loading and unloading lots of boxes and tools took its toll on my poor back. Well sports fans, those days are over. I can now cheerfully tell any movers we hire what to pick up and where to load it and not feel guilty about not doing my part. Yippee! For the next year, I can’t lift anything heavier than 10 pounds. Which is, basically, nothing heavier than a pair of hiking boots. Which brings me to my favorite subject….moving!
I’ll write more about this next year (tomorrow), but for now I’ll just say that we’ve decided to head back East. Bottom line….we miss the sea…and living near the Pacific is just way too expensive. As much as we tried to love the desert, we just couldn’t. And, there’s also the heat. We’re no strangers to heat, after living in Florida for 15 years, but we hated living through 125 days where the temperature was over 100….with many days over 110. If you’ve ever wondered if you can REALLY fry an egg on the hood of your car in Arizona. Yep, no problem. Exposed metal reaches temperatures well over 200 degrees. They’ve actually cooked pizzas inside cars in Phoenix. That’s ridiculous (but it was a great YouTube video to watch).
And on the subject of weather…it snowed in Cave Creek, about 10 miles from here today. We only got sleet….but wait…isn’t this Arizona…where people from all around the world come to avoid the cold? Yep…maybe this is the new normal? Watch the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” and get back to me. Great movie by the way. Scary stuff.
So, the wagon train heads East sometime in April. We won’t announce where we’re heading just yet, but it’s not back to Florida. Been there, done that.
In the meantime, Claudia and I hope you and your family have a safe, healthy and happy New Year! Let’s all make it a great one. Now, if only we can get Trump out of the white house……
Cheers,
Wayne, Claudia and Tuck