Arizona, Day 5 - Homage to the Mecca

The beautiful interchange...


Nice, neat traffic lights in Tempe...


I saw this one coming from blocks away. He was looking for something, though I don't know what. He was offering himself to a woman walking in front of him and promising her...well nevermind...

I have to laugh. The older generation says the darnedest things. We were at a Denny's in Tempe and Mavis was looking around the restaurant. She said, "There aren't any women in here." and continued to look around. She leaned over to me and said in all seriousness, "This must be a gay Denny's."




Day 5 was exciting. We made the homage to the home furnishing Mecca of IKEA in Tempe. "What's ITEA?" Mavis asked. I just told her that she would have to see. They had to call and ask Mavis' sister-in-law for directions to get there. When we arrived, they still wondered what the big deal was. But, when we entered, you could hear the angels singing. They sang until their voices faltered and our feet were throbbing.

If you have never been to IKEA, keep in mind that it is one HUGE storage solution. I salivated. Unbelievably, the prices were so reasonable. I was in heaven! Dreams of moving out of my large house into a one room flat crossed my mind. So much unused space!! I looked at each of the items and wanted them, but to tell you the truth, although I could afford them, the thought of carrying them on the plane and being searched and carrying the stuff through the airport made no sense. I confidently grabbed a catalog on the way out thinking I could order what I wanted. When I went on the internet, I looked up the items, and they all said, find an IKEA near you. I may have to give my sister a shopping list for when she comes back from the cities...

We went to another ghost town. This one was embellished with touristy crap. When I showed the kids the pictures, Jess informed me that they had a place like that in Disney, too! Gee, if I would have only known. I had to educate her that Disneyworld was not a place where all this stuff was there...Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion, etc. were constructed imitations of things like this. She looked very confused and almost hurt, so the slideshow just moved on...

Goldfield was near superstition mountain. I got several photos and picked up a parking lot stone that reminded me of a mountain





There was a woman in the coffee shop we went to that had an unusual accent. I asked where she was from and she said she was from Hawaii. She was a native of Hawaii. Her daughter moved to Arizona with her boyfriend and begged her mother to come. This woman had a brother that goes to school in Vermillion. Sometimes it is so nice to just begin a conversation with folks.

When we stopped at a gas station on the way to Fairbank, I asked one of the attendants if she knew where any local ghostowns were. She said she did not and then asked if I was one of those ghost hunters.

An expectant cactus??

They didn't have MADD back then...