Road trip # 2 – Tempe Arizona

Taking a break from the boat is sometimes a good idea.  My friend Danielle and her family, Zakee and Sakari, live in Tempe Arizona, just a short 7 hour drive east of Ventura.  We decided to plan this visit when I heard my other grade-school friend, Sara, and her daughters (Mikaela and Maya) were headed to visit her.   Danielle and I agreed that we would keep Trevor’s and I trip from Sara and surprise her by just showing up at Danielle’s the same day she arrived.   The look on Sara’s face was PRICELESS!

Did I mention Danielle has a grapefruit tree in her backyard?  Needless to say, fresh squeezed grapefruit margaritas was the drink of choice and boy howdy, they were good.  The girls played in the pool out back and the adults watch from under a sun umbrella.  Danielle had all the meals planned and cooked…felt like a princess.

Zakee and Trevor watched the girls while Sara, Danielle and I went to dinner in the heart of ASU.  I recommend not doing this unless you want to feel super old. We are proud to say we managed to stay out just past 9pm, but that did include picking up Danielle’s prescription (hahaha). The boys reported back that it was the “Maya Show” while we were dinning out.    It is clear that Maya knows the entire soundtrack from  the Frozen movie.  And there was a special performance from Maya to the lyrics “Uptown funk you up, uptown funk you up!”.  Trevor couldn’t get this out if his head for days. Chris, you were missed!

But you know Trevor and I, we can’t just crash 1 party, why not make it 2.  Call it coincidence, but our friend Andrew was making a transition from Maui to Montana and was making a stop by his parents house in Albuquerque, NM the same time we had planned to drive to Arizona.  So we “crashed” their party too!  We had a great time meeting Andrew’s dog, Darby (woof), and enjoyed an authentic NM dinner (green and red chilies) with his parents, Judy and Ron.  Andrew, thank you for dinner…..I can’t believe you beat me to it 🙂