Moving Day

Farmington Hills, MI (September 19, 2009) ..

Finally, at last ... moving day arrived. Before we hit the road in mid December last year we sold most of our furniture and some of our possessions. What remained has been in climate controlled storage for the past 9 months. Pictured above is the ABF trailer being loaded to transport the goods to Chandler, Arizona. The trailer should arrive the middle of next week. Ed will have a crew of people ready to unload and deposit everything in the new house. Ellen made the trip back to Michigan to supervise the loading and has also spent time in Kentucky and Dale Hollow Lake.

Happy Anniversary

Phoenix, AZ (August 29, 2009) ..

Today Ellen and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with Andrew and Lindsay by attending an Arizona Diamondbacks game. It was well over 100 degrees outside but in the domed stadium it was a cool 78 degrees. As you can see we viewed the whole game from TGI Fridays in the outfield. Diamondbacks won the game 9 - 0. They even scored a run on a wild pitch during a bases loaded intentional walk !

Denver, CO (August 19, 2009) ..

Today we left the househunt (which is essentially complete) and the motorhome behind and flew to Denver to spend some time with Andrew, Erica and baby Lucie. While there Ellen was reunited with her red car which Andrew was keeping for us while we journeyed in the motorhome.

We had a good time visiting and spent some time at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science http://www.dmns.org/main/en/ . Lucie has grown so much since we last saw her and she's such a happy child. Andrew and Erica are really into parenting and doing a great job !!

Home

Chandler, AZ (August 17, 2009) ..

Forget about the previous house shown in the blog. That house was a short sale and the prospects of closing before mid November were not good since there were two lienholders. We withdrew our bid. The house pictured above will become our new home. It's a "normal" sale with a resident owner and real estate agent. Closing and possession is two weeks from today on the 31st.

The house is move in ready with a large backyard, 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths.Ellen doesn't like the color of the flooring so we are replacing all of it with carpet made of recycled material. The old carpet will be donated to Habitat For Humanity. Tile will be removed from the house and replaced with tumbled travertine from Turkey. The appliances are white so we are replacing all with stainless steel including a new energy efficient front loader washer and dryer. Last but not least we have contracted with California Pools to install a swimming pool in the backyard.Ellen purchased a five burner stove with double oven ... she plans on doing lots of cooking for our guests.

Home ??

Chandler, AZ (July 23, 2009) ..

The blog has been kind of silent for the past week or so because we have the home on wheels in a campground in Chandler, AZ so that we could househunt. After 5 days of traipsing through one home after another we found 5 or 6 that we definitely could live in. Yesterday we made an offer on the home pictured above. The offer was accepted today by the owner but since it is a short sale we still need approval from the seller's bank. Closing will be in 3 1/2 months so we expect to move in around November 11th. The house is a 4 bedroom with a huge master, 3 car garage with a nicely landscaped backyard which includes a salt water pool !! It has lots of features which make it perfect for entertaining and accomodating guests from out of town. We are looking forward to seeing lots of our friends and relatives in the winter.

Now that this is settled we will be travelling to Utah to continue our journey through the western states !!!

Grand Geology

Grand Canyon, AZ (July 17, 2009) ..

Today we made it to the Grand Canyon sometimes known as the world's largest geology lab. The views were awesome and if you click on the above photo a condor can be seen flying just at the horizon. Ellen,Ed and Andrew rode the tourist railroad from Williams to the Canyon, a two hour trip each way.

Riot of Color

Las Vegas, NV (July 15, 2009 ) ..

The Bellagio has the most beautiful hotel lobby in the world. Pictured above are some of Dale Chilhuly's 2000 hand blown glass flowers suspended from the ceiling in front of the registration desk. The hotel is modeled after it's namesake on Lake Como, Italy. The indoor botanical garden contains thousands of plants and flowers along with a nice collection of tropical birds. Scaled down hot air balloons hang from the glass ceiling which exposes the whole area to plentiful direct sunlight.