Home for the Winter

We've put some miles on the truck and are settling into our winter home in Gold Canyon, Arizona.  It feels good to be here, our winter home since November 2014.  The winter residents are slowly trickling in.  So far, there are only 4 houses occupied on out street.  By Thanksgiving, most of our neighbors will have arrived. 

We made a two-day trip from our Lone Tree apartment to here.  We stopped in Albuquerque at the Days Inn on the east end of town.  We walked across the street to the Owl Cafe for dinner.  We wondered how many of our children and nieces and nephews, let alone our grandchildren, would even know what this device is.  Remember the juke boxes found in many restaurants during our childhood?  Today, they can only be found in retro diners.  We didn't have the necessary coin to play a song.  

 There was a drug store with a soda fountain on the route I walked to grand school.  They had these on the counter.  I only ate there once and don't know if I payed to listen to a song.  The store was the place we stopped for a coke or ice cream cone after school.

I think this year will be more comfortable--and more normal--than last winter was.  The pandemic is waning.  We, and most of our neighbors, I imagine, have been vaccinated.  Masks are only required in the gym and other indoor areas of our resort for those who have not been vaccinated.  The same is true in the businesses we go into.

Arizona had mass vaccination sites early last spring.  We received our first and second Pfizer shots in February and March.  We got our booster shots shortly before returning here for the winter.  It is refreshing--refreshingly normal--to see people's faces and their smiles!  Three cheers for the scientists who developed these vaccines.