We were out the door in Lake Las Vegas by 9:00 am. Tom got The Ford Expedition rental from Budget as a free upgrade. We had food and lots of miscellaneous items that we’ll haul to Cleveland in the next 90 days.
The drive was pleasant and uneventful, although it rained intermittently. We stopped for a restroom break at the only rest stop in the last hour of the five hours, but they had no restroom. Weird. Nor did we stop to eat when the only restaurants we passed were fast food.
By 2:00 pm, we pulled into Robert’s Resort in Apache Junction and checked in at the office. There was a long queue, resulting in about 45 minutes to check in, and finally, we made our way to our unit, a short distance from the three homes of Tom’s three sisters. Tom unloaded the vehicle while I got to work putting everything away.
We had more “stuff” this time than we’d had in years, but it wasn’t an issue when we’ll be on road trips. When the time comes for us to fly again, whenever that is, we’ll have lightened our load considerably, back to a maximum of one bag of clothes for each of us and one bag with supplies.
As we unloaded the vehicle, Tom’s three sisters, Margi, Colleen, and Mary (and husband Eugene), stopped by to say hello. I had already started unpacking, but I chatted with them in between. We planned to come to one of their three homes once we were done and had something to eat. We hadn’t eaten all day.
With only eggs and cheese on hand, which neither of us felt like eating, we decided to forgo having dinner. We munched on snacks at Mary and Eugene’s place. When we returned to our place around 8:30 pm, I ate a protein bar from the batch I’d purchased at Walgreens. Tom didn’t have a thing but felt it wouldn’t hurt him to fast for a day.
The TV here is so small that we won’t be able to broadcast our streamed shows. We’ll use my laptop to stream anything when we have time. In the next week or so, we’ll buy Tom a new laptop with an outlet for our HDMI cord. His computer is three years old. and is due to be replaced. He’s happy with the Chromebook concept and a small 14′ monitor. When we can’t use a TV monitor for streaming, we will always use my larger laptop.
The bed was comfortable, more than the memory foam bed we slept on in the condo in Lake Las Vegas. It is very soft but enabled us each to get a good night’s sleep. I never awoke during the night, but I awoke early and bolted out of bed, ready to start the day.
While at Mary Ellen’s house last night, I prepared an online grocery order. It arrived at 7:00 am when I’d scheduled it from 10:00 to 11:00 am. Go figure. I have decided to use a different grocery store for future orders since I was disappointed with the small sizes of many items. I may not have better luck with a different market. With all the retirees leaving this area for spring and summer, they only offer petite sizes of most products.
As an example, Tom suggested that this may be because most seniors don’t purchase one-pound blocks of aged sharp cheddar cheese or large packages of romaine lettuce. While we still had the Expedition this morning, we headed to the market to fill in some items and purchase bottled water. The tap water here is not safe to drink.
In total, we spent over $250 on groceries, which is about $100 more than we’d been spending in Las Vegas. We have enough food to last for one week. Prices are very high here.
At this point, we are entirely settled. We unpacked the items we’ll use while here, and somehow, we managed to make space for everything in this small place.
We’ll be fine. It’s not my ideal vacation home scenario, but it’s fun to visit with Tom’s sisters and Eugene. As always, we’ll make the best of it while always enjoying being together, regardless of where we are.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, April 2, 2014:
