What I Did On My Spring Vacation

Just back from a week in the Valley of the Sun, the Phoenix area, visiting our daughter Beth, son-in-law Bobby and five grandchildren.

People often ask me their names, and say they like them, so here goes, Chloe Autumn, age 9; Jade Summer, age 7; Cooper Blue, age 5; Juniper Spring, age 19 months and Juliet Winter, 5 months.

Spring is a great time to visit the desert--wall-to-wall sunshine and high temperatures in the 80's. In a month or two it will turn into Hades with daily highs of 110 or higher. It takes some getting used to for those of us from northeast Ohio's climate.

We've been visiting our family in Phoenix for eight years now.

Activities we've enjoyed include the Phoenix Zoo; Rawhide, the western theme park; Mesa Children's Museum; shopping in Tempe and Scotsdale and road trips to the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona. Prescott is an enjoyable small town to the north, I think because it reminds us of small towns back home.

All these side trips are north of Phoenix. We've never driven south to Tucson or to Mexico. Probably because we're always there in summer and that time of year valley residents always drive north to get away from the heat.

During our visit Chloe had her first overnight school field trip--all the fourth grade classes at her school left late at night on chartered busses and woke up the next morning at the Grand Canyon. After spending the day at "that great big hole", they returned the next night.

My wife stayed an extra week. She has the pictures which I'll post next weekend so those interested can see how these youngins' are growing up.

-Jeff Maynor
Email: jeffmaynor@wkyc.com