We left Colorado on a Wednesday morning in early October singing along to the song “On the road again” on the radio! Driving over Raton Pass we said our goodbyes and both wondered when we would be back again… it wasn’t sad though, after all, we still have all that real estate that we need to sell, so we’ll be back!

On the road again...getting ready to leave Phoenix

We stopped off at Gloria and Bob’s in Albuquerque and said hello and then left with Gloria for Las Cruces. We would have stayed to watch the Balloon Festival, but the forecast was windy and we were already heading south later than we had wanted, so we decided to push on to Toni’s. We arrived around 6.30 and promptly opened the beers in celebration! Yay! On the road again!

Sarah - the latest addition to the Jarry family

Introducing Sarah, the latest addition to the
After a couple of days in Las Cruces, during which we managed to go for a run; eat at Andale, one of my favourite restaurants there; have a pedicure (Gloria’s first ever); visit Valerie, Taneka and Crystal (Nick’s cousin and kids on his Mom’s side); meet Sarah, the latest addition to Todd, Laura, Xander and Jotham’s family and generally hang out…phew - it didn’t seem so busy when we were doing it all!!! …we left for Tucson. We drove through an amazing storm that we were able to see sweeping across the desert from a good distance. There had been an unusual hurricane which came up through Baja California in Mexico and affected the whole area. The rain and wind were pretty impressive, but fortunately we were both heading in different directions and we soon cleared through the wind, mist and rain.

A fuzzy storm picture...

In Tucson we caught up with Marci, Savannah, Jane and Gil, Mark, Chris, Jan and Judy (for a 30 second visit before we were marched on to the next place!). I haven’t laughed so much in a long time as I did at the party we attended on the Saturday night. Must say I have never heard “fart” being referred to as the “F” word before…it created a great deal of confusion with everyone while the story that was being told! But it led to a lot of laughs once we figured out what “we never do the “F” word in front of each other!”

Marci and Mark at Rocky Point

From Tucson we headed to Rocky Point, or Puerto Penasco, Mexico. So much for leaving early on the Sunday morning, I think we were all a little tired and hungover, but we managed to get there by 11.30 or so. Jerry was there to meet us (another cousin!) and show us to our room – the three bedroomed, three bathroomed Presidential suite. Very nice it was too. We couldn’t resist taking a bunch of photos of the rooms before we put anything down or even got to taking photos of the beach from the huge sliding French doors!!! The afternoon was windy, but warm and sunny. Unfortunately the hurricane had churned up the water so we couldn’t really snorkel. The pools were also cold water pools and the air temperature didn’t make them too inviting! We enjoyed hanging out and relaxing down there though and then walking along the beach. The sunset was lovely. As it sank lower in the sky we were finally able to see the outline of the land and mountains on the other side of the Sea of Cortez. I couldn’t believe it was that far away…

Our room at the hotel!

Hanging out at the beach bars...
Puerto Penasco is unfortunately undergoing some hard times at the moment. Jerry told us that all building in the resort stopped dead when the mortgage and financial problems hit the U.S. market. Unemployment is now over 40% and the town is having to deal with social problems that haven’t arisen in a long time. A lot of the workers are able to return home to the south of Mexico, but it still doesn’t put money in their pockets. I think the whole market crisis is going to be much more far reaching than people are aware of at the moment.

Pelicans on the water

From Rocky Point we headed back to Tucson and then to Phoenix ready for our flight out to Honolulu on October 15th. We managed to get to the hotel via Ikea, which was, as always, a huge treat! I’m still upset that they just announced that one will be opening in Denver next year. Marci and Mark presented us with a memento of our trip, a very handy, amazingly cool wine opener that in true Ikea style cost about $5! We love it and christened it when we arrived in Waikiki!!! Thanks to Mark for being our chauffer and Marci for being tour director - we had a great time!

Hopefully I will be able to keep everyone in touch though at the moment we only have sporadic access through an internet café. Hope everyone is well!