Back to the pool: a year and 10 weeks later

It has been a year and 10 weeks since the pool at Leisure World closed at night because of the pandemic.  It reopened for day-time hours several months ago, but we are still practicing social distancing so didn't go during the day.

This morning it re-opened .  So we were there, bright and early at 3:00 a.m. and swam laps for an hour with the pool to ourselves (big surprise).  It's so zen.

We have really missed it.  

Serrano’s.......with a view of our flower garden and the golf course

Finally after over a year and eleven and a half weeks, we ordered our first takeout. That means we ate all our meals at home for 445 days.  We are fortunate because I love to cook.  And Dan feels like every meal that I prepare for him is a gift.

We had our second vaccine two months ago.  With that protection against the coronavirus and more information about how it spreads, we felt it was finally safe for us to get takeout food from a reputable restaurant.  We have been extra careful because we are old, and Dan has a compromised immune system due to his cancer and the treatment for the cancer. 

We ordered our celebratory meal from our very favorite restaurant, Serrano’s!

This is the restaurant that we went to with Mom and Dad Graybill on the day that Dad married us.  This is where we have celebrated  many important occasions and where we go whenever we want a good meal and a good time. 

It has also been a Graybill family tradition to eat at Serrano’s ever since Mom and Dad moved to Leisure World in 1987.  Dan and I have returned to Serrano’s with all our Graybill/Borja children and grandchildren many times.  

So of course we ordered our first meal since pandemic started from Serrano’s!

We set up our delicious meal in our living room.  

We thoroughly enjoyed our meal, and what made it even more special is we had a the most wonderful view.  We gazed out upon our beautiful flower gardens and the green grass of the golf fairway framed by ancient eucalyptus trees.

Blossoming trees in the Matzatzal Mountains....and more

During past summers we have hiked to the base of the mountain peaks and picnicked in meadows covered with wild flowers.

We’ve hiked in the desert when spring flowers blanketed the ground.

In the grasslands in the fall, we’ve walked in fields of gold....as Dan had promised me that we would walk in fields of gold.

But never before have we seen wild trees in full bloom high in the desert mountains.  On our anniversary trip last week we were treated to this rare spectacle.  The hillsides and ravines were dotted with the most amazing flowering trees.

I have included an image of the blossom we saw on these trees in the picture after each photo of the tree.

Here are a few other interesting flowers we saw in the Matzatzal Mountains:

This next flower is my favorite because it reminds me of a tiny flower that intrigued me when I was a little girl living in the Pacific Northwest. Each of these plants in Arizona is only about 2-3 inches tall and they grew in clusters covering the side of the trail and hillsides in the mountains where we were hiking.

When I was a few years old I would lie on my stomach in the grassy areas of the countryside south of Seattle to study a very little delicate flower.  These flowers (similar to those in the picture above)  grew together in groups, like a little flower forest.  

I remember thinking how precious this tiny flower was, just the right size for a fairy to live beneath.  I would imagine that I was very, very small, and I was walking in this flower forest.  I would spend hours playing in my beautiful flower forest with the fairies.

Here is what this fairy flower looks like up close, when you are a little girl lying on your belly.

My love of flowers began at a very young age.  Now I am an old lady, almost seventy-one years old, and I am still mesmerized by the beauty of flowers.

Dan is very patient as I photograph and study each flower that catches my eye.  He encourages me to take the time to enjoy every single magical blossom.  I am thankful that he likes to see me so happy when I am surrounded by flowers.

We return to the Matzatzal Wilderness for our celebration

 .......our celebration of 10 years of our courtship.  

For our first night, we stayed in a site close to a hike we wanted to take.  On our maps it looked like this hike could really go somewhere.  

So much for maps.

Our site:

 The hike looked like it would be on a road.  However, the "road" quickly disappeared into a wash.   We spent most of it walking into and out of this wash, following a trail left by some motorized trail bikes.

It was actually very beautiful, but we could see that it wouldn't go anywhere.

 So the next morning we left and drove up a spur that we had hiked upon a few weeks prior when we camped on the edge of the Matzatzal Wilderness.  We had identified a couple of camping sites toward the end of this spur.

Here is our site.  For real.  Very high on the mountain.  Stunning views in all directions.  

Here is a view of our site from higher on the mountain.  Hard to see but we are there.  In  the second photo I have drawn a small box to show where we are:

One of the important features of our site was how close we were to the Arizona Trail.  We had about a half-mile hike to it.  So, for three days we went south and north on it.  One day we took small off-trails from it.  The hikes had a lot of elevation gain but were nothing short of spectacular.

The weather was quite warm so we usually got off on our hikes about 6:00 a.m.  Here are some photos from them:

 

 

I'm on the lower left in the following photo:

And Vicky is in about the middle of the next one:

On one of our off-trail hikes we found ourselves on a high desert meadow.  We absolutely love these. 

Photo of us on this meadow:

Vicky collects rocks.  By this I mean she finds them, and I carry them back.  Here she is photographing one of them.

See why she wanted it?!!  This heart shaped rock is now in her “magical garden” at our home.

A Horny Toad.  I think they are actually called "Horned" Toads, but we called them Horny Toads in Oklahoma in the 1950s.  We named this one “Gertrude”.  

Here is a shot from down below of our site.  Look at the middle of the top of the mountain where there is a bare spot.  We were camped on a hill beneath this bare spot.

 

 

Someone clever made this on one of the trails.  {Dan refuses to use emojis, but now he is using this photo as his very own “smiley face” emoji. ☺️🙃}  

 

 

 

Usually we were done hiking by about 10:00 a.m.  The rest of the day we sat in the shade provided by our camper.  The view was spectacular.  I worked on model cars, and Vicky knitted things for grandchildren.   

A view of the morning sun from our site:

People often have a bad view of "camp food."  Well, this is how we ate! 

We had such a good time that we spent a day longer than we had planned.  And we are sure we will go back to this spot. The hiking is excellent and the peacefulness cannot be duplicated.

Know what else?  We were one hour and 15 minutes from home.  That's why we moved to Arizona.

When we returned to Nuestra Casa we continued our anniversary celebration with a fondue dinner and dancing together.

 

And lots of ice cream!

We are going to continue celebrating our anniversary for the rest of our life....