Echoes of the Southwest

One of our Arizona traditions is to go tubing down the Salt River. You usually go with several friends and family and head down to the Lower Salt River. The first thing you do is to park at the place where you rent tubes and then grab a bus to take you upstream to the higher elevation to get started. There is usually a crowd of various types of people of all ages and sometimes they bring their pets. I don’t recommend that because those poor animals are terrified of being on the river. I also don’t recommend stringing tubes together. That will just get you into all kinds of trouble on the rapids especially when there is a fork in the river. More times than none, the entire group will hit the bank and fall off their tubes. We usually attached with our feet so when the rapids move faster, we could unhook and go solo. We would have one person attached to the cooler which had its own tube and another person would be attached to the plastic container which usually carried the dry foods, s

Thanks to the many days of rain we got in Arizona, our garden is growing like crazy. This is our fourth year to get a garden to grow and the best one yet. The first year we planted in May which is a no-no in Phoenix. We learned our lesson and now we have a flourishing garden. My husband added shade to a couple of our boxes to protect the lettuce and tomatoes from the harsh summers which are quickly approaching. We are also protecting our grape vines as well. lettuce and tomatoes bell peppers, zucchini, jalapenos, and cucumbers grapevine sunflowers corn, green onions and carrots jalapenos cherry tomatoes vines, and grapevines

One of my fondest memories is going to the drive-in with my family and friends. Depending on the time of year, we would bring blankets, pillows, chairs and be in our pajamas. We would hit the playground and play before the movies begun. You would get to watch at least two movies, sometimes three. The two theaters that I remember the most were the Indian Drive-in and the Big Sky in Phoenix. I always had a friend working at one that would get our car load of friends in for free. We would find the right spot, roll the window halfway down and hook on the speaker. If the speaker didn’t work, we had to move to another spot to get a decent one. We would stock up on junk at the concession stand or would pull out the cooler and goodies we brought with us. We would sit outside our cars or in the bed of our trucks and watch the movies. I have great memories of watching movies at drive-in theaters. Later, they built drive-ins with more than one screen. This was an interesting concept. We