Move That Tassle!!

Before arriving in Tucson for a tease week, we overnighted in Amarillo with dinner at the Big Texan, quite a contrast to the sublime of Oklahoma City and its reverence; then a night in downtown El Paso. I had visions of El Paso being akin to Tijuana--oppressive crowds of assaulting hucksters, drinking holes omnipresent. Downtown was quite not that. There were a number of boarded up places, and many that were still going concerns but were steel barred after closing. But, Kirk walked the streets in search of a McDonald's Frappe and a visit to the Art Museum while I rode a most pleasant route feeling as safe as at home in Chicago before we watched Oregon lose summarily to LSU 27:40.

Sunday, September 4th we pulled into Tucson, our new home.

We won't take possession of our townhouse till October 1st (when the tenant's lease is up), but we had compiled a seemingly endless to-do list of new-to-town things to do, top on the list was working with Liz Ryan, our designer/decorator.

A week later we had spent 7 hours with Liz, identified where our furniture would be placed when it arrives October 10th; picked out oodles of new furniture to create space for sharing time with each other, adult kids, grandkids, friends, and groups for fellowship and study; chose 8 colors capturing the desert beauty; and, thanks to Liz, contracted with the electricians, painters, closet people, woodworkers, and landscape architect to do a 7-day make-over of the place between October 1-8.

In between Liz times we chose a church (Catalina United Methodist), a Rotary Club, rode 275 glorious AZ miles, and plugged into several cycling groups: Arizona Randonneurs, GABA, Tucson Recumbents. Then there were all the other little things, like finding a bank, a library, exploring refinancing the mortgage, transferring utilities into our name, transferring auto-withdrawals from our new bank, making new keys, and, and, and it was ALL great.

The landmark moment came, though, as we left Tucson today for two more weeks on the road before returning to Tucson for keeps. The gas pump wanted our zipcode before accepting our credit card: 60091 didn't work!! 85718 did, though.

It was a like that defining graduation moment of moving your tassel.