“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I wondered if this balloon was going to get high enough to miss the wires. It did. — Photo by Pat Bean
Adjusting to a New Life
After exiting, but not abandoning, my nine-year RV home, Gypsy Lee, in an apartment complex parking lot, I wondered if I had chosen the right place to put down a few roots.
Balloons are a familiar sight over Tucson. — Photo by Pat Bean
I was still remembering how claustrophobic I had felt after purchasing my last rooted home back in Ogden, Utah, in which I had spent seven years before moving into Gypsy Lee.
Right up until the last few months, when this old body decided it needed a bit more space and a few conveniences Gypsy Lee didn’t have, I never felt more at home than I did when traveling across this beautiful country. The road truly felt like home and the place I should be.
I had thought when I retired that I would have about five years on the road before I would need to settle down again. I almost doubled that. I also thought that I would find a place that would call out to me as being my next home. It never did.
I suspected I would end up in my native Texas, where most of my children and grandchildren live, and started looking, and continued doing so for almost a year. I found nothing that met my requirements – nice, dog friendly, large bath tub, light and airy, and near town conveniences but with a place to walk – that either appealed to me or was in my measly price range.
When I started looking in Tucson, where my youngest daughter lives and where I was headed to spend this past Christmas, I found what I had been looking for instantly, with the bonus of it being located at the foot of the Catalina Mountains.
But almost as soon as I had moved into my new, small, third-floor apartment, I broke my foot and also began having doubts if I had made the right decision.
A pair of Cooper’s hawks nesting in a tree in one of the apartment’s courtyards helped convince me — I’m a passionate birder — that I had, as did the beautiful view I have of Mount Lemmon to the north and the beautiful sunrises that have brightened almost all my mornings.
I never thought I would live in the desert and like it. But I’m slowly beginning to think of Tucson as home.
I’m especially enjoying a landscape where giant saguaro cacti — including one here at the apartment that is home to a pair of Gila Woodpeckers – dominate the landscape, and where it is not unusual to look up and see hot air balloons gliding by.
The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.
Bean’s Pat: Basil the Hippo http://tinyurl.com/cq9x969 I fell in love with this story – and Basil.
