Hello, Safford!: A Blast From The Past

If you've stuck with me through my inconsistency, you've read my rants about disliking towns. I'm afraid you might think I'm rather whiny. But good news! I actually liked the town we newly resided in! And that's what this post is about. :)

When we first decided to move to Arizona, my dad started house hunting right away. We've been through it so many times that it's become a slight bore, but we know the ropes, and it's best to start looking as soon as possible. At first we couldn't find a house. My dad was searching while we packed up in Ely. I'm not entirely sure we had a house set up to rent until the week of the trip, in all honesty.
Well, Dad found one. And the first impression wasn't too bad. We got into town late one July night, and we were all so tired that we didn't really care whether it was a shack or a mansion. At least, I didn't. When we first looked around, it seemed nice enough. I don't remember too much about that night, though, because we all simply crashed on the floor. The next morning, I looked outside the windows at the new surroundings and found...

Dirt. And cactus. And a cemetery. And an old abandoned church house.

I didn't think much of it in the beginning. It was my first time in Arizona, and I woke up to desert. Although, I would later come to find out that we were in the middle of the monsoon season. Rain is precious in the Arizona desert.

The stay in that house was short lived. We had not even unpacked when Dad let us know that we wouldn't be staying. The house hunt had continued for him; and we moved at the end of July to a house in town, having only been in-state for a month.

Do you know what a Gila Monster is? Aside from being the mascot at the local college, a Gila Monster is one of the most venomous reptiles in the U.S. We discovered about four of them in the one month span that we lived in the Sanchez House (Had you caught on to the fact that each house we'd lived in had earned itself a nickname, usually stemming from its location? It was our way of differentiating each move and remembering each year of our lives).

The house in town was a curious one. I don't remember how long we resided in it; however, I will acknowledge that it was a stepping stone in our journey, and many memories were made there. We found and joined a church there; the first church that I remembered attending consistently since living in Missouri. That church had a youth group, and so we were suddenly caught up in all the goings-on of a young teenage life. We had such fun going to a weekly Bible study, eating pizza, being crazy teens, and making memories. It was the best time of my life, because I was able to be fully care-free for the first time since I was young.

We lived in the Bonita House (nickname alert) for about a year, and then we moved to a bigger, more private home on the outskirts of town. This house was surrounded by cotton fields, it had three bedrooms (the boys shared, the girls shared, and mom and dad had a room), a large living area with a gorgeous high ceiling, a sizeable kitchen, a play house, tree house, and swing set outside, two bathrooms (a great luxury), and generally more room than any house we'd been in since the ranchhouse in Salmon, Idaho (See previous blog posts). This house has many memories attached to it, and I loved the entire 2 years that we were in there.

So much happened during those two years that I feel I should continue the Cotton House's story in the next post. And, in fact, I shall.

And now to address the elephant in the room:

Hello again, nearly 7 years after writing the last post! I had so much happen in my life, in my relationships, in my world while in Safford, Arizona. Some ups, some downs. Many happy memories, and many hard ones. I am a mother and a wife now, though I will tell more about that in future.

I'd forgotten all about my innocent teen self inventing a blog to tell all tales of her past adventures. But I have missed it. I'm not even entirely sure that I will have an audience now, but for my sanity's sake and for the sake of my discontinued story, I think I will be updating this blog when I find the time. Please comment below if you've read this! I'd love to know who joins me in my tales.

Until next time, dear reader. Thank you for reading to the end!

A Blast From The Past,

Mountain Gal

Goodbye, Round Mountain!

I'd like to say Round Mountain was the best place I've ever lived. In fact, that's only a third of the truth, because three towns hold dear to my heart. During the two years in Round Mountain, I made friends whom I'll never forget. When we moved to Ely, NV, it made me love them even more. Ely (pronounced Ee-lee,) was...an interesting town. To say the least. But still, it was a stop along our road, and so it merits a mention, however small.

Ely was the next town on our list because Round Mountain was, well, tiny. It was decided (not unanimously,) that we needed room to grow; room to live.
I say the decision wasn't made unanimously. Don't get me wrong; we support every decision my dad makes. This one was just a little more difficult to accept. As I think I mentioned before, we didn't have any friends in the previous places we'd lived. The Idaho girl clan and the Round Mountain family were the only real friends we had ever had, besides the church family in Missouri, and our relatives. So as you can imagine, it was hard to leave. We keep in touch with our RM friends even today, but that doesn't change that we were saddened by the move.

Continuing on, I think that Ely needs a chance to be appreciated. I disliked the town, yes, but the rental house we resided in for that time is ranked one of my favorites. Partially because I had a bedroom to myself.   ;-)   There was so much land with that house! That's where my brothers and dad got into dirt bikes. Later they got me a fourwheeler so I could join in. But that's another story.
The Ely rental trailer house was bigger than the  trailers in Round Mountain. It was a double wide, which meant it was twice the width, which meant more room, which meant happy family. Add the house to the five acre lot it was on, and you've got a rather nice house. To be honest, though, there were only a couple little memories made in that house. Most of them include dirt bikes. Some of the best memories were at Hotel Nevada, a local restaurant/hotel and casino.

Needless to say, we never went into the casino bit, but the restaurant, we found out, was really rather tasty. Let me rephrase that. The restaurant served good food.   ;-)
Some of the memories are playing in the yard. We often pretended that we were pioneers on the Nevada plains, trying to settle in and build a town. One memory is of our Thanksgiving turkey flying up as my dad went down. He slipped on the kitchen tile because he hadn't taken his wet flip flops off. He ended up twisting his knee. Oddly enough, I thought to save the turkey from the floor before helping Dad.   :-D
I'll never forget the day we moved away, though. It was early, like five AM, and it was a big step. We had no more need to live in Ely. Well, I guess I should revisit WHY exactly we were moving. Why do we ever move? Dad's work. He found a copper mine in Morenci, Arizona and decided that it was a better place than Ely. We didn't move to Morenci, though. We moved to Safford. Safford, Arizona is roughly 45 minutes away from Morenci. Dad moved us to Safford because it had better housing, better churches, and better stores, and decided that he would drive to work in Morenci. There is a van available for the employees of the mine, and it picks the Safford employees up and drives them to work every day so as not to use personal vehicles' fuel.

The size comparison with Safford and Morenci is a bit like Salmon, Idaho and Ely, Nevada. Morenci isn't quite so big as Ely in population, but it has bigger buildings, and bigger company name buildings at that. Safford, on the other hand, has a Walmart, a Home Depot, a Safeway, and several other big-name stores.

I'm afraid that Safford is full of blogging content. Which means that this post is to be continued. There are only two more moves left to go in my story.
Until the next time!

We Know It's Spring When...

There's one thing that has made its way onto our annual agenda for March: a trip to Las Vegas. What's in Vegas, you ask? Well, I'll answer that question with a story.
My dad is always looking for new things to have fun with. Whether it be a used dirt bike, an old Bronco in need of a spruce-up, or a trip to Mount Rushmore, he always finds something. One spring, in 2010, he found the website to a monster truck show that we used to watch on TV. When we had TV.    ;-)
Well, in short, he ended up buying tickets to go see the show in real life. And so we did. And that was nearly the most fun spring I've ever had in my whole life.
Monster Jam, as the show is called, is a group of trucks and drivers getting together yearly in order to compete in freestyle and racing for the World Champion title. We went in 2010 and 2011, skipped 2012 and 2013, and went back in 2014. As you may guess, we went this year as well.    :-D    We didn't attempt a pattern; it simply happened like this.

One day, my mom's friend e-mailed her saying that she had booked resort rooms at The Grandview in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, long story short, they couldn't make it down there, so she actually offered the rooms to us. And that was the beginning of our Grandview obsessions. Between the convenience of the full kitchen and the various outdoor pools to choose from, we booked Grandview whenever we could when we went to Vegas. Plus, did I mention the hotel/casino across the street from there? It offered restaurants, bowling, movies, and an arcade all within walking distance. Lots of times our routine was swim, eat, theater, milkshake.

Ah, yes, Grandview is the life.   ;-)
But I stray from the subject. Back to Monster Jam.

We just got back from this year's show, and let me tell you, it was near perfect. We even got to meet some friends and go with them. Granted, it was hot outside.   :-P   But the show was after sunset, so that was a good relief after walking around the stadium grounds getting autographs.

And that is Monster Jam.   :-)

Hopefully we'll get to go next year. My brother has already started saving his change and extra bills. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he likes going.   ;-)

Mountain Gal