Valley of the sun

Wednesday was awesome! I drove to the Valley- first to Sun City to visit family, Sharon, Bob, Shawn and Don. Sharon had surgery 10 days ago, and I wanted to see her and meet her daughter Shawn. We were talking about how we're related, and it goes something like this- Sharon's married to Bob, and is Don's sister. Shawn is her daughter, so she's Don's niece. And me, well, my Dad is Sharon and Don's first cousin. That makes me their 2nd cousin, and Shawn's 3rd cousin. We were laughing about it, and later it reminded me of that old joke- "Who's on first".

Evidently Shawn and I met at a Balmes' family reunion that was held at our ranch in Prescott, somewhere in the 1960's. We lived up in the mountains then, and Shawn's main memory is that her brother Roy got lost. It created quite a concern, he was only about 7-8 at the time. I vaguely remember looking for him, wondering why everyone was so worried, it was only a 60 acre pasture, and the whole darned thing was fenced, he could just follow the fence back down the hill. OK, I was only 9, and I'd grown up on that mountain. I didn't realize that they were from the valley, where everything is flatter and more wide open. Looking back, that had to be so scary for their family, who had spent little or no time in the rugged, mountainous country we called home. Anyhow, in general the reunion was so much fun, there were actually 3 girl cousins my age: Shawn, Gini and Robin, so we played and ran all over the apple orchard. I lived so far out of town, it was a real treat to have girls to play with!

After I left Sharon's, I stopped by my friend Julie's and met her new husband Ken. Actually we went to school with Ken, back in the 70's, in Prescott. They reconnected last summer, and now they're married. They took me to the local Costco and helped me load the truck. The nearest Costco to Cottonwood is 50 miles away in Prescott Valley, or the one just off the 1-17 and 101 freeways in north Phoenix. If I'm going to the city, I usually can't leave without at least one errand, it's too far to drive not to. I loaded up the truck, braved the evening traffic and headed home. Luckily the traffic was only bad for the first 1o miles or so, after that it thinned out and speeded up nicely. All in all, it was a great day, and I love my family and friends!