Day 7 - Tempe and Home It was with mixed emotions that I watched the sun come up Friday.  This has been a wonderful vacaton, one that I couldn't forget if I tried to.  Life calls though so tonight it's back to reality. I used the same background image on this page as on the index page because it is a montage of several of the photos that are most meaningful to me and bring out the most important aspects of my trip.  I also used it both at the beginning and the end because what was important at the start was still there and still important at the end.  That being, primarily, the people. We rode the Light Rail from Phoenix into Tempe, AZ today just to see the sights.  There are several cities that, to me, appear to run together to comprise "Greater Phoenix".  I'm sure the residents of those cities would rather they were described as individual cities but to an outsider such as myself it was one large city. Tempe is the home of Arizona State University's oldest campus and as such the part that I saw was reminiscent of many "College Towns" in that there were many shops and restaurants surrounding the area.  We stopped and ate lunch in one of them and then headed back so I could pack everything up for my trip home. I had said so long to Russ and Ron the previous evening at dinner, KC had an appointment that afternoon, so AGirl dropped me off at the Southwest Airlines gate at Sky Harbor Airport for my flight home. On the long flight back east I thought about all the places I had been and the things I had seen in the past week.  I thought about what I was going to write on these pages and about how I was going to try and describe everything.  I finally just gave up because there was no way to do it.  I can post the photographs, I can write a little bit about what I saw, but I can't describe the feelings and the sun and the scenery.  Photographs never do justice to a scene or a person because they are flat and detached, and they don't show what the photographer was feeling or thinking at the moment the shutter opened.  They only bring back that moment to the person who took them, and I can easily remember every single moment.  I can't transcribe that into words though. I can mention the friends and the people but that doesn't put them into perspective or show their individual personalities or relate everything they did to make my trip more enjoyable.  I know for certain that these two ladies have been fretting over the schedules and details since this trip was finalized in early December.  One of them loaned me a place to sleep and the other loaned me a bike to ride.  KC even called me from the grocery while I was on the way to the airport wanting to know what kind of pastries I wanted for breakfast the next day before we left for California.  How do I get so lucky from time to time and run across friends like this? I don't know even how to express how much I appreciated being able to take this trip.  Being able to get away for a week, forget some of the pressures I have at home, enjoy some perfect weather for a change, see things I've never seen before, and enjoy the company of some very special friends means more to me than I can ever express.  All I can say is thanks for everything, guys!  I'll be back, I always keep my promises. End of ride ... Copyright © 1997-2024, Scott A. Craig, All Rights Reserved Site Use and Privacy Limitations