A one week visit. in A small but passable life.

Daughter and Boyfriend finally arrived Saturday about noon. I had been receiving text updates on their progress and had been stalling Mom for over an hour as she was wanting to go out somewhere for lunch.

They arrived and truly surprised Grandma. I parked Moms car in a space across the street, pulled the van into the carport and we all went to Hacker’s for lunch.

The next three days we worked on the van. We didn’t get it all done, but we got the major steps done. It took me nearly a full day to install the Fantastic Fan. The brand new saber saw didn’t work. I had to use a metal cutting wheel in the power drill.

We got three layers of the floor down. The “click-together” vinyl flooring wouldn’t click together. We fought it for a couple of hours and finally gave up and went to the pool and hot tub.

Daughter’s Boyfriend covered the entire roof interior with Frost King. That’s the first R-3 of insulation.

We got the old wiring sorted out and labeled. I got the exterior 110v plug and inside receptacle installed. I got the continuous duty solenoid wired up.

The brand new Apache Junction Fry’s opened on Friday. We had waited until Sunday to explore it. It was mobbed. But nice.

Wednesday afternoon was a Grandma Granddaughter day. They went out to eat and to the mall.

Thursday morning Daughter and I were up at 5am. After breakfast and one cup of coffee we drove out east to the Peralta Trailhead.

The mountains were beautiful in the pre-dawn light. We parked the car. (Moms car!) Daughter signed the trail log and we headed up the Peralta Trail (#102). It was the roughest trail we’d ever hiked. The sun rose behind us as we climbed higher and higher.

At 9am we turned around and headed back down. We didn’t make it to the “saddle”. Back down at the trailhead we chatted with a Forest Service volunteer sitting in a lawn chair in the shade of a tree.

Daughter had an app on her phone to measure steps and distance. Apparently we’d hiked nearly nine miles at a nearly 4mph pace. Not too bad.

Our very first desert hike.

Friday we returned the vinyl flooring. We’d buried the pieces we’d cut in the middle of one of the three boxes and glued it back shut. (Looked like it never was opened.)

Another trip to the grocery store. More hot tub and pool time.

And this morning they packed up and after much hug, they drove off.

Before I brought Moms car from across the street I built the bed platform for my little room. (I’d brought two sheets of 5/8th’s plywood home in the van.) I’d been telling Mom for the last six months the thing wouldn’t take two hours to build. It took me three hours. And yes, all my crap that Daughter had brought to me from storage fit perfectly. Well, except for the goosedown sleeping bag in its storage bag.

Time for a shave and shower. And maybe a nap.

(3:46pm. Just got a text from Gallup, N.M.)