Monday was our last day in Portland and we had to be back at the airport around 4pm. This gave us a few hours to run around and see some more friends, so we started out with a quick breakfast back at the Doug Fir again - yes I do miss that place! Then back into downtown in search of one of Sally's best friends Nick. We knew he was working at a store called UnderU4Men which sells fun & cool underwear for men - you'll never buy your underwear in packs of 3 again after seeing this place :-) We weren't sure if he would be working a shift when we got there, but luckily he was, and even better he was busy changing one of the window displays so we crept up on him and leaped out in-front of the window. After a momentary look of "WTF?" he came running out to hug Sally so fast that they both nearly went flying out into the street :-) It was hilarious. We hung out for a while chatting to him, I checked out lots of underwear, and we all checked out the golf-ball sized hail that suddenly started falling outside. OK I exaggerate, but only a bit.

When we first moved to Phoenix 18 months ago, we were wondering around our old neighborhood one day when we saw the foundations for some new condos called "The Galleries at Turney". We wanted one instantly, but not being millionaires, or related to millionaires, or even just good at picking lottery numbers, we couldn't afford them. I guess they've finished building them now as they've just appeared on Inhabit.com. Check them out in all their Duran Duran cool-ness here.

Today we started out by heading south-west of Tucson to see San Xavier del Bac Mission, the oldest (built in 1700) and best-preserved mission church in the Southwest. Sadly it's so well preserved they were in the middle of preserving one of the towers while we were there, which kinda ruined my photos!

Inside the mission was beautiful, all carved wood and very old paints and varnishes. The carved wooden angels flying above us were all dressed kinda like saloon girls from the Wild West which was funny.

There was also a courtyard area inside the church which was really beautiful, and a small museum that had lots of interesting exhibits. One was a collection of old silver charms that people would give to the priests, the charms were shaped into the part of the body that they were having problems with (say eyes or hands, etc) and by donating silver to the priests, they would ask for God to cure them. Another exhibit was a gigantic old Bible that was painted by hand, with beautifully illustrated pictures of angels, and gold leaf on the first letter of every paragraph.

I'll readily admit I'm a city boy, and like most city boys who like to pretend they're hardy outdoor types I shop at REI. There's not a bike, snowboard or kayak I haven't bought full of good intentions and then stored lovingly in the garage. I like to think of it as 'reverse Dorian Gray' syndrome. In Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", a painting of Dorian ages horribly while he remains as youthful as the day it was painted. For me the reverse is true, I'm aging horribly while all my outdoor gear remains youthful and untouched by time, or gravel, or snow :-)

Cabela's knows my type and probably doesn't care for it much, and I don't blame them. Cabela's is for real outdoorsy people... and red-necks... and I love it! The first sign that something special was about to happen was outside the front door: a giant fire truck painted up with the stars & stripes and a few eagles. Sensational! At first I thought Stephen Colbert was in town till I realized it was for real. But this hardly prepared us for what lay inside...

As you can see from the top picture, which only shows about 1/4 of the store, Cabela's is about 3 times the size of any REI I've ever been in, and has diorama's of real stuffed and mounted animals everywhere. There was mountains covered in real animals and for some reason, a real plane? There was lowlands where elephants watch over lions killing zebras, while nearby cougars chased gazelles. Then they had animal shooting games that dads could play with their kids, 'cause you know, killing Bambi is fun for the kids! Finally they had the biggest selection of guns & rifles I've ever seen in my now obviously very sheltered existence. It was truly a red-neck Disneyland and I was impressed.

In case you were thinking that I'm obviously too principled to shop at a place like this, well I'm probably going to disappoint you. They had some very cool (& cheap) sit on top kayaks, just perfect for tooling around on a lake during the endless summers here... and I think we have the perfect spot for it... in the garage ;-)

Todd McFarlane, inventory of comic book hero "Spawn" and legendary toy designer had a new flagship store opening up out in Glendale (on the far west edge of Phoenix) at the Westgate Center so we decided to go check it out. As we drove there we realized that when we first came to Phoenix over a year ago, Sally had interviewed with a school out here, and we had driven by the Westgate Center and nearby "University of Phoenix" stadium when they were just at the foundation level! How time flies.

Little did we know until we arrived, but McFarlane's store only opened up last Friday, and bar a few restaurants, it is one of the first stores to open in the Westgate Center! That left us wondering around in this gigantic and beautiful outdoors mall that didn't have anything or anybody in it, which felt very weird. It was kinda like watching some 60's European scifi movie where there is only 1 person left alive on earth! Endless buildings all immaculately empty. Kinda like finding the Marie Celeste I guess? Well without the mystery...

Anyway it looks like theres a bunch of cool stores going to be there so we'll have to drive back in a few months and check it out. I'm happy just because there's going to be a Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville here. If you remember our Vegas trip, we ended up in a Margaritaville one night with Tracey, Bren, Bowe & Noranne, and my personal highlight was the girl in a bikini who slides down an erupting volcano into a giant margarita. I thought that kinda thing only happened in my dreams, and maybe the occasional "Something Weird" video ;-) Jimmy Buffet may make crap music, but he sure knows how to compensate on the stage show!

Sally here. So, we bought a condo, as many of you know. It is way cute! We really like it, and we have a pool view. I love our pool--it’s round. How cool is that? We closed on Thursday May 31st and my last day of school was Friday June 8th (a week and a day later). Ross wanted to get started right away. I was stressed trying to get state testing done, get my final test together, pack up my room at school (they change rooms around sometimes), and stuff like that.

I wanted to wait till I was done for the year before we started moving. Ross figured since he wasn’t working he would move us. I was happy to hear that but I was too stressed to care about his moving schedule and him wanting me to get things packed to move. I would come home and things would be gone, like the ottoman and half the couch. I finally lost it on the Wednesday of my last week of school. He was not home when I got home; he was at the condo hanging out and said he would come home if I wanted. I didn’t want. I didn’t really know what I wanted so I went shopping. And it wasn’t the shopping that made me feel better it was driving with the top down singing along to my songs.

I did figure out I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I didn’t live in the apartment or condo really and at school I was packing up everything so the room didn’t feel like mine either. On Thursday I took the cat to get her nails clipped and brought her over to the condo (now the whole couch was moved along with other stuff). I talk to Ross about getting the mattress moved over that night and staying there. I wanted to live somewhere and the condo was the place.

Since Friday was a half-day for me I was home about 11:30am. I had a party to go to so I was not home long. I was back about 3pm and we moved a few small things. Ross was all let’s move this and that and set this up and that and where are we going to hang the pictures let’s get a ladder and get stuff up on the shelf. To tell the truth he was driving me a bit batty. I mean we were in our other place a few months before we hung pictures.

Well, we were out and about running errands when I brought up getting my hair done Friday or Saturday (the 15h or 16th) and he said that was not a good idea. I asked why and he said it was just not a good idea. I probed a little more and he said drop it. I did. I knew something was up—I thought massages after all that moving.

On Friday I got up, had some coffee and was reading a book. Ross showered and said he had to run and errand. I wanted to know when I should be showered and dressed for whatever was going on. He said he would be back in about half and hour and I should be ready by then.

So, I can kinda see out the front drapes but not really. I saw Ross and another set of feet, at first I thought it might be Brian (maintenance guy) then saw they were girls feet so I thought they might be Shelly (sales rep to check out something) but NOOOOOOOO it was Lisa Martin. What the hell?!?

They had been planning for months for her to surprise me for a birthday visit (early of course but who cares). Totally was not expecting that. So she was here thru Sunday early am. We went shopping, to the Botanical Gardens, had margaritas, swam and just hung out. It was great to see her. I still am very impressed they kept it a secret, and I now I know why Ross so pushy about getting everything moved and set up. He wanted it done before she got here.

That has been the excitement around here. Next we are off to Moab Utah for more...

Spent the day up at El Pedregal, a boutique shopping mall in North Scottsdale. It has some very cool architecture in it’s building design & main courtyard / theater area.

Read it and weep people, it’s only early May and here we are starting our first week plus run of 100º+ weather! Now sure that might sound terrible to you, but remember, it is a dry heat...

Actually the big bonus is really the lows, check them out - low to mid 70’s. That means you can sleep with no sheets on top of you, or sleep outside in the hammock that I might be shopping for right now (any hints - email me!). That means you wake up in the morning, and it’s nice and warm. It means the bathroom floor isn’t cold when you go to take a shower. It also means the pool is slowly warming up - yay!

And the only down side is that the late afternoon is a bit toasty, but at least for now I can still live in my boxers - sorry for that image. I just hope it cools down a bit before the end of the month when we have to start moving all our stuff over to our new condo. At least it’s only a few blocks away from where we are now, and my small pickup truck limits the amount of stuff I can realistically attempt to move in any one trip. At least a bit of physical work should help me lose my 10 American pounds... Now if I could just lose the other 20 American pounds I’d really be getting somewhere... like into tighter pants for a start! Damn you Chilli’s :-(

Speaking of moving we’ve been spending the month slowly selling more stuff on Craigslist. If you read our last couple of blog entries you’ll know we’re moving into a fantastic but tiny condo and there is no way all of our furniture would fit so we’ve been trying to pair down to the essentials, and make a little room for the occasional new piece ;-) Being British (we have very small houses over there), a fan of all things japanese (think origami like small living spaces, not schoolgirls... well OK them too) and a big reader of Dwell magazine (great article here on a couple living in a 426 sq.ft apartment) I think we’ll be OK in it, especially as we’re living outside more and more since we moved here.

I’ve sold my 42” plasma and Bose speakers. I know, shock huh? We’re currently watching Sally’s 27” LCD but I think a Vizio 37” might be in my post-employment future. Sally has sold her yellow formica dining room table and chairs, and her old Ikea bookcase. We’re going to replace the bookcase with an almost identical one from Ikea that has a cut-out in the middle for a TV - the cut-out just wasn’t quite big enough for my 42” plasma though, hence why it had to go. I’ve sold a few bits of music gear too but still have a lot of it listed on Craigslist. Sally also got rid of her big pouffy red leather chair, some pictures and a bedroom mirror. Now if we can just find a buyer for our old futon we’ll be in great shape.

And the upside of getting rid of stuff is we get to buy new stuff :-) First is the new bookcase I mentioned above. Second is some patio furniture. We’ve seen a nice love-seat at Target, some great lounge chairs at Pier1, and a really nice sectional couch at Pottery Barn. I’ve also seen a fantastic computer desk at Crate & Barrel, but I’ve yet to find the perfect hammock.

Sally here. There are a few things to add to this condo story.

First a little more about Palmaire, the washer and dryer costs an extra $1500, the black and stainless steel appliances were a couple thousands extra and there was no garage. There was one assigned covered parking spot and the rest of the spots were uncovered and unassigned.

Yes it was very cool funky 60’s place, but there was no way we were getting a loan for the amount they wanted with Ross “retired”. Oh, and get this, you pay more for the ground level than the second story (it’s two stories). People here are so lazy they will pay more to not walk up stairs.

Ross was great about starting the money talk on Sunday morning after we read through a bunch of stuff on Palmaire. It was true, there was no way to get that place and still have a life. We wanted to make sure we didn’t end up unhappy because we were broke all the time.

We had a bunch of places we had e-mailed each other one-day while I was at school. We decided to go drive a round and look at them. We had no idea where they were or what they looked like. One of the places was scary, graffiti on the walls of the homes scary. As, I was the one who figured out what order to see these places we drove in circles a couple times but, that meant we went up and down Indian School Road (a main road here) which is where we saw the sign for The Arcadia Lofts.

Ross went around the block, yeah to him! We parked up and looked at the one bedroom model home—we loved it! We also looked at the two bedroom model and loved that too. After talking to one of the women there, we decided on the one bedroom. These condos come with a washer/dryer unit, all in one. It is so cute! it fits under the counter in the bathroom. I think everyone should get one of these. These condos also come with black and stainless appliances standard! No extra charges for anything. Another thing Arcadia Lofts has over Palmaire is a garage.

And you have to admit the round pool is so friggin cool! Yes it is small but really how much space do we need? All we do is fill it with stuff we don’t need.

When you check out the Arcadia Lofts website—we paid less then they are listing for the one bedroom and the two bedroom prices went up also. Our timing was amazing—we already made money on it and we haven’t even closed yet!

Prepare for a long story, while I tell you all about the last weeks events...

Friday
A week ago Friday, Sally gets home and were talking about what to do for dinner. I say “I want to go to Subway (a sandwich shop for you Brits), but not the lousy one near us, the nice one about 8 blocks north of us.” Well, as we are driving up there, Sally suddenly says "Hang on!!!" and swerves the car onto a side street - she'd seen a sign for some new condos going on sale. The place was called Palmaire ( http://www.palmairecondosaz.com/), and its a condo renovation. Basically it was an old 60's motel or something that is being converted to condos. We loved it and started working out how to afford it but quickly realized that it was way too expensive. We could afford the mortgage, but never do anything else, and we kinda like doing anything else :-(

After getting all excited Friday / Saturday, and talking to the developer, and even taking a contract to read over, we had a big chat Sunday morning and decided it was stupid and we should go back to our original plan of waiting till the end of the year. Sally was heartbroken as she loved them, and I was too.

Sunday
So Sunday, we decided what the hell, lets go out and have a drive around the neighborhood, look at some other condos and houses, just to realize that Palmaire isn't the only place in town. So we spent the afternoon driving around several condos we'd seen advertised but didn't really like any of them. As we’re driving out to Scottsdale we see a guy on the side of the road waving a big sign that says "New Condos!". We drove past, looked at each other and decided to turn around and have a look. So we loop round the block, and start driving down the side street. First we see some condos that are just beginning to be built and were thinking "Why are they advertising there? It's not even finished yet?" Then we notice another sign further on down the street so we drive on down and find another block of condos, so we drive into "The Lofts At Arcadia" and fall in love with them instantly! ( http://www.loftsatarcadia.com/)

They have 2 bedrooms available at the price of the Palmaire's 1 bedroom, and they have 1 bedrooms for a lot cheaper then anything at the Palmaire. They're really small (by American standards) but the lounge has a huge (14ft?) vaulted ceiling which makes it feel a lot more spacious then it is. Plus they have small gardens at the front & back, and except for the summer here, you can pretty much live outside year round - the front wall in the lounge and the back wall in the bedroom are literally wall to wall patio doors that walk straight out into the gardens. And on the model we like, you walk out of the garden and into the pool area. So we go talk to the people in the sales office, they have a mortgage broker guy right there and we get the paperwork started.

Monday
Monday we had to fax him all our wages information. Tuesday Sally had to send him some more info, and he called in the evening to let us know things were looking good and we had a couple of options on the down-payments - 3% or 5%. The 5% was a lot more money down but only got the monthly payment down by $20 so we were hoping to be approved for the 3%.

Wednesday
Wednesday we heard that we'd got the 3% down-payment loan so I ran over to the sales office and put a hold on the condo we liked, luckily it was still available as we got in super early. Because of that we got a reduction on the price, and we don't have to pay any Home Owners Association fees for a year. This is great because the HOA includes all our water, heating and electric bills, so we basically have no bills apart from phone & TV for the next year! In a years time when we do have to pay the HOA fee, it's still cheaper then where we are now - yay! We also get all new kitchen appliances and a washer/dryer in with the cost of the house, so all we have to buy are drapes and we are done. That’s the kind of setup that maximizes your pool time ;-)

Friday
So today we went in and signed all the paperwork and if everything goes OK we should close in 30 days, ie. the end of May. We are so excited :-) While we were there signing, we noticed a newspaper clipping talking about the renovation work going on the and reviewing the place. The overall favorable review included one tid-bit of information that made us realize we had found the right home for us: when it was originally built back in the 70s, it was home to a nudist colony! Sweet, at least if it’s haunted the ghosts will be naked and stoned, something like an adult episode of Scooby Doo I imagine?

Now we have to work out how to fit all our furniture in there. We spent a lot of time measuring stuff so I think we have a pretty good idea. Some stuff will have to go of course, which is always a good thing IMHO - I always say the only important thing is the people & guitars you love - but as a bonus we can now get some nice patio furniture. I think a nice sofa and hammock are in our near future, I’m all for laying in the sun with a good book and a sangria...