It is a very hot Thursday afternoon. For some reason we always manage to get
to places when they are in the hottest part of the year. We arrived on Tuesday
afternoon and will be leaving on Sunday morning. We are on our way to San
Jose, California, for next week. This week is vacation time.

We left Colorado Springs on Sunday morning at about 8:30 a.m. and drove to Las
Cruces, New Mexico. My uncle Delon and his wife Nelma live there, as does
another Uncle and his wife, Ted and Larella Larsen. Delon is my dad’s youngest
brother and is three months younger than I am. My mother and her mother-in-law
were pregnant at the same time…. Aunt Larella is my Dad’s younger (and only)
sister. She’ll be 73 years old in September. Delon was 57 in June. His wife
Nelma is eleven years older than he is.

Delon’s oldest daughter and her husband (Sean and Cheryl Anaya) live in Ft.
Collins, Colorado. Consequently Delon has stopped at our house a couple of
times when they’ve been in transit between their home in Las Cruces and
Cheryl’s home in Ft. Collins.

We were originally going to Oregon this week for Kendra’s wedding. We had
planned the week to drive out to Oregon, be at the wedding, and then go down
to San Jose for a week. However, Kendra and her fiance were in a motorcycle
accident a couple of months ago and still aren’t fully recovered. As a result,
they put their wedding off until September when we’ll be on a cruise ship up
in Alaska. So, we decided to take this time anyhow. After a lot of discussion
we decided to spend the week visiting family, even though it would be very
hot…. The itinerary was to drive on Sunday, August 11th to Las Cruces and
spend Monday with Delon and Nelma with a short visit to Uncle Ted and Aunt
Larella. Then on Tuesday drive to Chandler and be there until Sunday morning.
We’d then drive on Sunday to Morgan Hills, south of San Jose, and spend the
week there. We’d leave on Friday and drive to Provo, then leave on Sunday to
drive back to Colorado Springs.

Saturday was another day working at the temple. It was fairly busy. I spent
the day loading sessions as the fellow who normally does that wasn’t able to
be there. That’s a very enjoyable job, particularly getting to interact with
every session as it’s getting started. One of the sessions included a fairly
large family who were all there as the father was being proxy for his son and
their younger brother. That was a very lovely session as we arranged for
everyone to be gathered around behind the veil as the father came through.

We finally got away about 8:30 on Sunday morning. It was a bright, clear day
and pleasant driving conditions. We arrived in Las Cruces about 6:30 that
evening. We stayed in a RV Resort — very well appointed — but too expensive
and more than we really needed. It was pretty much empty, but I expect that’s
because this isn’t the tourist season. The best part of the park was that each
site has a phone connection. We were able to check e-mail and call Delon from
the trailer which was very nice.

After getting the trailer set up we drove over to Delon’s house for a few
minutes, went back to the camper, and crashed for the night. On Tuesday
morning we went back to Delon’s for breakfast and then drove to Old Mesilla.
We spent the morning taking pictures there. The sun was directly overhead and
picture taking was somewhat difficult as there was far too much contrast. We
had a good time … sweating the whole way. I’d like to go back there in the
very early morning. We had lunch in a Mexican restaurant “Si, Senor” and then
went out east of Las Cruces to visit with Uncle Ted and Aunt Larella. Uncle
Ted is, at 83, very active and will be going to St. George in early October to
play in the Seniors Tennis Tournament. Aunt Larella had a tumor removed from
around her pituitary (along with the pituitary gland) a year or so ago and has
a lot of memory problems. She was a bit confused when we were there. She was
convinced that her entire house had been in Mexico last week and had just come
back. She was worried that we wouldn’t be able to find the house since the
house was oriented incorrectly after it came back from Mexico. Dreams and
reality are difficult for her to sort out from each other. We had a good
visit, but I’m sure she doesn’t remember it very well. We then drove south of
town to the Stahman Pecan Farm to do some souvenier shopping. We had dinner at
their house that evening and visited. I had a very good visit and it was good
to have spent some time there. We’ll need to go back sometime.

Delon and Nelma have a son Kenny who has Down’s Syndrom. He is 27 years old
and in amazingly good health. He’s quite a testament to what good medical care
can do for these kids. Nelma receives a small stipend from Social Security
each month for her care of him in lieu of him being in an institution. For us,
who don’t have to care and worry about Kenny every day, visiting him is a lot
of fun.He competed in the New Mexico Special Olympics over the past weekend
and did very well.

Tuesday we drove from Las Cruces to Chandler. We arrived about 3 p.m. and the
place where we had a reservation had no one at the office. We waited for a
while, then called a second place. That one was a few blocks away. We drove
over there and found a place that we would not stay at. It was rather scary!
So, we called a place in Mesa who had a spot available. It’s a Senior Citizen
park catering to the Snowbirds who come down every year to stay the winter.
We’ve a nice space, it’s very clean and well maintained, and we’re quite
pleased with the park. Now if it wasn’t so very hot!!

We made dinner at Jaelene’s place on Tuesday night. Nina spent Wednesday
morning visiting with her friend Cathy and we had lunch at a Japanese
Restaurant. Jaelene came home from work a bit early and we spent the evening
at her place ending up with a rousing game of Scrabble which Nina (this
happens very often) won.

This morning we arrived about 8 a.m. so we could watch the kids while Jaelene
went into the office for a couple of hours. After lunch we went to a nearby
pool for a couple of hours. The water was wonderful. We’ll have dinner here
tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to Sedona. No idea what’s planned for Saturday
other than we’re having dinner at a very popular Chinese restaurant. Sunday
we’ll leave for San Jose. It’s a very long drive, so I think we’ll break it up
into two days. We’ll drive as far as Los Angeles on Sunday and then go the
rest of the way into San Jose on Monday morning.

Hot is measured in the hundreds. High today was 109 degrees officially. It was
hotter here in Chandler! It was the same yesterday and the day before. It’ll
be the same for the next week or so. Perhaps it’ll be cooler in Morgan
Hills????

Copied from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002.