Phoenix too !

Well we certainly took a circuitous route to get here. We got bumped in Salt Lake, and ended up flying to Phoenix and then flying to St Louis...

Salt Lake was very pretty, all the hills/mountains were covered in snow. You could see where they had to plow snow off the runways that morning. Ansel's family used Salt Lake City as their base home from like 1924-1935. Ansel said he never remembered seeing snow on the surrounding hills the whole time he was there. While we were flying to PHX, Ansel said the last time he went from Salt Lake City to Phoenix was in a rail road box car full of race horses. He said it took two full days to get there.

Ansel said he found his first love in Phoenix. He was 10 years old and it was Mary Goldwater, sister of Barry Goldwater. Both of the Goldwater children were in his class at the elementary school he attended in Phoenix. He remembered the teacher giving a little speech about paying attention to studies, and that some of you are probably going to find love and i see that Ansel already has, and has it bad for Mary...

Ansel said that they were registered in the school with the last name of Gold. That their family was very wealthy and feared the notorious Poncho Villa. As he had a reputation for kidnapping the children from wealthy families and holding them for ransom. The Goldwater children were chauffeured to and from school by a body guard in the biggest fanciest black and chrome car of the day.

Long day, I learned a very important lesson. If you are going to travel with a Rascal... (elec scooter) don't pack the battery charger in checked baggage!!! Southwest was really awesome, we were planning to check the scooter through with baggage, but the folks at Portland said no he should keep it, and it should be checked at the Jetway. So Ansel was able to just cruise through the airport. But by the time we got to Phoenix the scooter was quitting us. It kept getting slower and slower... I was envisioning that it would completely die on us. It finally gave up the ghost at the hotel, where we had to abandon it a few hallways from our room, and then I had to come back after I got Ansel settled and push it to the room. Lesson Learned !

We bought a car this morning. Actually I had bought it on eBay through a dealership. It's very very nice, better than I was prepared for. 97 Honda Accord LX. So right now we are headed to see the Budweiser Clydesdale's and then will head north to Troy, Iowa.