Friday February 20 2009

Sammy and Grandma Beverly

So..... Guess where I am. No, you have to guess. We'll you're never going to figure it out, so I'll tell you. It's a kind of long and round about story. Sometime last week Bonnie said her brother was flying down to Vegas and if she could get him to take us along, would I like to go. I was kind of flabergasted and finally after trying to think through all the probabilities, said "Yes". He has a couple of planes and we would fly, probably for overnight or maybe two nights. She needed to talk to him some more to know we were actually going to do it. So I decided not to say anything to you in case it didn't happen. We talked another time or two during the week and she still didn't know anything for certain. I had mentioned to Debbie that we might come down just overnight, but didn't get to tell Beverly. Then I began to think positive about it, and deciding if this opportunity is presenting itself, YES, we should do it. Then Bonnie asked if we went could I could stay a week? More Uh ..... Uh ,,,,, Uh?

Finally at 5 p.m. last night, she called and said she had just talked to her brother and he would send his pilot to Pinedale to pick us up at 8 a.m. in the morning. I dashed down to the clinic to get the blood tests I had scheduled for Friday and went to the courthouse and got that mystery paperwork filed - that was easy. Got some groceries so Joe would have stuff to eat. And started packing.

Joe and I went to dinner at the brew pub and that took another couple of hours. Came home and I made his 10 day buttermilk sourdough pancake mix and got a pork roast ready for him to cook that would last him a few days. He also has some leftover tacos. Tried to get serious about the packing and what to take, trying to make pants and tops match, etc. Made a phone call to Debbie to tell her Bonnie and I were coming to stay with her for a week. Tried to call Beverly and she wasn't home so left a message that I would be there tomorrow. She hadn't heard anything about this yet, and had just been reading how I was going to the art meeting today and making her pink cookie recipe for Mixed Media. When they got back from their meetinglate in the evening she wrote me an email asking if she was confused and what did I mean I would see her tomorrow?? So call her back about 11:30 and filled her in.

Set the alarm for 5:30 because Bonnie was going to be at my house about 7:30 a.m. and we'd meet the plane at the Pinedale airport at 8 a.m. Hardly slept all night when I finally got into bed. We met the plane on time. We picked up Bonnie's brother and a friend of his in Spanish Fork UT where the plane lives in a very nice hanger with an apartment. Pretty much followed I-15 south and landed to pick up another friend in St. George. Then on to Vegas. Hard to believe even with getting us loaded in Pinedale and with the two stops, we arrived in Las Vegas in two and a half hours. And had a wonderful smooth flight in spite of the wind blowing way up there about 50 mph or so. I loved looking down on the landscape from the plane window and picking out the landmarks along the way.

The airport is in our old neighborhood, and it has grown larger and the buildings have been really nicely remodeled. Joe used to fly from there when he had his pilot's license. Neither of the girls lives far from the airport. Debbie had an appointment at Lowes about some stuff for the new house they are building. So Beverly came and picked us up, and after a stop at Debbie's house, where I called Joe to let him know we got here o.k. we met Debbie for lunch at Red Lobster. Then we all drove out to Red Rock Canyon for a sightseeing tour. There were more people out there than I've ever seen, all the parking lots and pullovers packed with cars, people hiking and climbing like ants all over the landscape. The sky was kind of hazy, as it had been all the way on our plane trip, but it was great to see our old back yard again. Back to Debbie's for a while and later we had dinner with Curtis at Olive Garden and am I stuffed. Tomorrow we're going to a new museum with Beverly. I'll write about what that is like in Saturday's blog.

Tonight I tried to remember my ID and password for the new email and cannot remember it, so won't be able to look at email for a while. Also may not post any pictures for a while since I didn't bring the laptop, but am taking photos like crazy. So will fill in with them later.

We have lots of plans and count on us having a bunch of fun. On Sunday Debbie will have a family dinner and I'll get to see my first great grandson. The second one will be born at the end of March, and hope to come back to see him/her too. Called Betty and surprised her!! and we will probably drive out to Mesquite to see her on Tuesday. I'll fill you in on other things as we do them.