We headed out with high hopes but knowing no one and having no commitments for jobs in the new city and state that none of us had ever seen.
It was going to be a new life.
We didn't travel very fast.
I was driving a new Chevrolet Corvan and trailing a 16 foot U-Haul trailer packed to the gunnels.
Judy's kids followed us in a 1950 Dodge school bus that had been converted into a camper.
We stopped for lunch at a picnic site somewhere in Missouri.
Eventually, after nearly a week of traveling we arrived in Phoenix.
In July.
I can remember watching a television newscast one night early after our arrival from the station where I later went to work.
The anchorman said "Good evening and good morning, it's midnight and 100 degrees in Phoenix."
We survived it and many travails ahead and spent 15 years there before moving on.
Once again.
Well you left the Indiana humidity behind.
ReplyDeleteIndeed we did!
DeleteI couldn't live in a place that reaches a hundred degrees at midnight, beautiful though Arizona is.
ReplyDeleteNor could I any more, Stephen. That's why I live where I do.
DeleteI don't care how dry the heat is, 100 degrees at night is friggin hot!
ReplyDeleteYes, it is Joe. Thanks be for swimming pools and a.c.
DeleteWe had a pool when we lived there, one balmy August day it was maybe 110, dropped to 95 that night, we went for a swim, nice. Sitting on the patio, I noticed Jan was shaking and her lips were blue. The water was evaporating off her so fast she was cold and it was hot outside.
DeleteI arrived in Phx in February 1983 when the skies had opened up for almost a week.
ReplyDeleteFlooded the whole city and we were ankle deep in storm water as I drove around getting my bearings. The desert can be a deceptively active place for the unwarned.
Yes it can.
DeleteWhen we arrived in Prescott in 2003, we were amazed at the 30 degree fluctuation of temps in a day. We only used our a/c 3 weeks in August for years. Cool in the morning, cool at night and never topped 80 degrees during the day. Unbelievable coming from hot & humid Michigan. Of course, in over more than a decade the temperature has risen and we put solar on the roof top because our a/c bills were rising, too. But after yesterday's 60 mph winds and snow, here we are at the end of the afternoon at 63 and sunny and perfect. I think Northern Arizona, and especially our tri-city area, has been a well-kept secret. At this time of year, that smell of sage is so sweet. We are in heaven.
ReplyDeleteI remember our first visit to you in Phoenix. Neither of us had ever experienced temperatures that high.
ReplyDeleteNice trip.
ReplyDeleteWow, did this every bring back memories. My family moved to Arizona in 1970 and we also did the caravan run from Illinois to Arizona. One car with a U-Haul trailer and one car with a horse trailer. We also stopped in Missouri for a breather at a wonderfully beautiful and large roadside rest stop. It was a modern day wagon train.
ReplyDeleteOoh - I love Judy's bag! She always looks so fashionable in your pictures - then and now.
ReplyDelete