We are finally experiencing warm Tucson temperatures in the upper eighties. Yes, it’s been a long stretch of cool weather since we arrived here January 5. The local paper just reported that the average January temperatures were the lowest in over 25 years. Our furnace has used more natural gas than we have the previous five Januarys combined. Less the a quarter of the days have exceeded 60 degrees.However, lest you begin to feel sorry for us, we have to say that we have continued to enjoy the blue sky sunny skies nearly everyday. And furthermore, I am one of those who loves the spring and autumn seasons more than any other. So what’s wrong with this year’s January and February? Nothing, absolutely nothing. It’s just different than what we have experienced previously.
Now, with temperatures closing in on the ninety and above, we are finally cranking up the ceiling fans and opening the windows, and breaking out the t-shirts, shorts, and flipflops.
Our February was brightened with visits from Bonnie’s daughter Amy and Amy’s daughter Danielle. They spent a week here in mid February. We toured the city, drove up to Mt. Lemmon, shopped at Tubac, visited Kartchner Caverns, and attended the famous Tucson Rodeo.
Bonnie’s good friend Mary Meyer was our guest last week. Shopping was the high on the list of things to do. We also went to see the musical, 42nd Street, at Pima Community College. Another interesting event was attending a performance of HarpFusion, a U of Arizona group of women students of the harp. We heard nine harps playing arrangements all of which were written specially by the students as part of their academic work.
Our next door neighbors, Carol and Dick Stratmeyer, have left for their home near
Loveland, Colorado after spend nearly two months here. We had lots of fun with them and their many guests who came to check out their new seasonal digs in Tucson.We recently entertained a lunch visit from Harold and Anita Hinners. Harold is a third cousin of Bonnie’s on her Norwegian grandmother’s side. The Hinners farm in Humboldt Iowa and are spending time in AZ this winter. It was fun to meet and visit with them. We were alerted to the Hinners during our visit to Norway last May.
We have seen two Brewers games. One of them at their training facility in Maryvale in Phoenix. We met Bonnie's friends Chris and Jerry Hassenbein at the game, talking unceasingly about our activities since our last visit with them.
Just this Tuesday we joined a choir couple, Gayle and Ken Shepherd, for a roundtrip drive to Globe. At Globe we toured a 13th century native American ruin which featured over 150 rooms. It was quite a sight.
Our tentative plans to visit another cousin in Germany later this summer are now on hold for a year or so. Wolfgang Henning is a distant cousin on Bonnie’s maternal grandmother’s side. We learned last summer that Wolfgang wrote a detailed family tree on the Henning family, a family from north of Berlin Germany that settled in the Town of Herman in north central Sheboygan County Wisconsin. Wolfgang is a descendant of Hennings that remained in Germany.
Our activities here in Tucson remain numerous with church choir, and sports, theatre, and concerts. We have heard the Concordia Morehead MN concert choir and the choir from Jamestown College North Dakota. U of A sports have transitioned from basketball to softball. Major League Baseball spring training is now here in AZ for the month of March. The Chicago White Sox, Arizona D’Backs, and the Colorado Rockies train in Tucson. We have tickets for the ChiSox games with my brother Keith and Jan.
Our combined choirs at Resurrection Lutheran in Oro Valley are preparing to sing the John Rudder Requiem on Good Friday. Most of it is in Latin and I think it is quite a stretch, at least for me. We have made some good friends from the choir this year and that, too, has been fun. And next week the Carthage College Choir will sing at Resurrection and we are planning to house two students for the night.
We have seen some great movies here this season, namely The Painted Veil, and Amazing Grace. Both excellent productions and meaningful stories.
I am playing tennis, albeit gingerly on my sore knees, at least twice a week and Bonnie is walking the circles of LaCholla Hills nearly every day.
We are planning to stay here in Tucson until the Friday after Easter. Then we leave for home, hopefully touring through southern Utah and Colorado, arriving home in Wisconsin about April 20.
