Travels, Part I

I'm frankly a little appalled at how infrequently I've blogged in the last year. All I can say is that it's been quite a year.

Since the last blog, we've traveled from Portland to Eugene for Thanksgiving; we had a wonderful holiday with family. That night, however, while we were staying at my grandmother's, Danny heard her call for me. Thinking I'd left a dish in the wrong place (it's happened before), I got up to see what she needed.

Well, she'd fallen and (we later discovered) broken her hip. We didn't know that at the time. She wanted us to help her to bed so she could sleep it off. At one point she asked Danny if he could just grab her foot and drag her down the kitchen floor (he declined). Instead, he called an ambulance and she was whisked away for painkillers, x-rays, and ultimately surgery to repair the hip.

I'm happy to report that she's doing quite well. She's in a rehab facility (though looking forward to being out) and has her spunk back (not that it was ever far away).

The Monday after Thanksgiving, we packed up (again) and began our journey to Memphis. We drove to Fresno, CA, first, where we got to see some of Danny's cousins and their kids. From Fresno we continued to Bakersfield and hung a left to Arizona.

1.) Parts of the desert are incredibly beautiful. I find this comforting since we will eventually be moving to the desert.

2.) The freeway, eastbound, in Arizona is weird. I'm still astounded that we didn't see any hippies out there with their tambourines, but they may have been on their smoke breaks. There were plenty of places to stop and see fake dinosaurs, though, if we were so inclined.

3. The streets roll up early in Williams, AZ, where we spent our second night. Very glad for Safeway, bearer of food.

4. Flagstaff, AZ could be Bend if you added a couple mountains. Same type of people - they all look like they were just out surfing/snowboarding. Deeply grateful to Starbucks, from whom we searching out breakfast every morning.

5. New Mexico is a dull place to drive through. Just sayin'.

6. Amarillo, TX is a good place to order in pizza if you've been driving all day and the thought of going back into the car and walking around in public makes you want to cry.

7. Van Buren, AK has my favorite Holiday Inn Express.

And then...

...we got to Memphis.