The Final Zig

 

I landed at my condo in Queen Creek, Arizona, a week ago and still no good story of the final zig has emerged.  And yet, I don’t feel like I can just leave off without a last update.

So a quick one. During the final portion (from the beaches of California out here to Arizona) I made three really good decisions:  A little hotel vacation; avoiding a night with twenty-four men; and, knowing when it was time to call an end to a driving day.  But first, another gorgeous picture of the Laguna Beach Area:

Tired of the 90+ degree temperatures while camping at Crystal Cove State Park, Opus and I checked into The (heavenly) Montage for two nights so we could stare at the ocean and sit in A/C.  Well, I sat and stared, Opus had a different idea:

As you know, Beagle has A/C, and my pitch included electricity but there is only so much sitting in an aluminum tube I can take.  The hotel room (gorgeous) gave us room to be further than six feet from each other for the first time in seven weeks.  There was a high surf warning so swimming in the ocean was out for me, but we woke before dawn each day and I let Opus run free on the beach before the crowds and burning sun appeared.

We left for Arizona a day early; after that gorgeous hotel not even Beagle felt that good (it was still over 90) and headed East. This was our pitch at Crystal Cove--always a delightful stop:

I pulled into Joshua Tree National Park for my stopover night and pulled right out again.  Across from my pitch were about two dozen men sitting around shooting the shit and it just didn’t feel right.  I have camped there before with no issue, but with no cell service and the thought of listening to men crack open the silence of the desert all night, I just kept driving.  It was early afternoon.

Unfortunately, back on I-10, there was an accident and both lanes were at a dead stop for over an hour.  (It appeared to be a single vehicle accident, a moving van had flipped over and busted open, who knows why, and someone’s precious belongings were spewed across the lanes and median.  Quite a sad sight.)

So now it wasn’t so early.  Right at the border I looked to my right and saw an RV park with lots of green grass nestled next to the Colorado River.  My third good decision.  The old Kit would have just pressed right on through to the condo, arriving past dark, needing to unload everything from Beagle in order to shower or sleep, and been miserable.  (Although she would have enjoyed some Taco Bell along the way.)

But the more careful Kit, mindful of my head issues, pulled off the freeway and into the Cove RV Park, walked Opus by the river, opened a can of Amy’s, took a shower and curled up into bed.

I do like to know when I am on my last night in Beagle; there is something special about that time, knowing it’s going to be over the next day (at least for a few months.)

And so we are here for the winter with a few little camping trips here and there (maybe.)  I jumped right into tennis, lap swimming, fitness classes, and pickleball and, true to my desire to try new things, water volleyball which, although a total blast, did take a little adjustment time:  When you are a tennis player playing doubles and the ball goes over your head, you don’t watch the ball, you know your partner is going to get it and you focus on your opponents to see who will hit it next.  If you do this in water volleyball, as I (very slowly) learned, the ball passes over your head but gets returned to you so you can put it away at the net.  Not watching the ball causes it to smack you in the back of the head.

This happened twice in the first ten minutes, after that my teammates said, “Kit watch the ball!” every time it came to our side.

-K