giving thanks in Chino Valley

After spending a couple uneventful nights in random parts of California (Chowchilla and Needles) we landed in Phoenix Sunday afternoon – later than we anticipated because we had to stop and finally resolve our coolant issue, and because we forgot Arizona is now an hour ahead of California. (AZ doesn’t do daylight savings, in case you didn’t know, so for part of the year they’re the same, but once CA “falls back,” they’re an hour apart.) We dropped the coach off with the mechanic early Monday morning, and after I scored an early check-in time at our hotel (one good thing that came out of that two-week delay in Alamagordo was I became a platinum member at Choice hotels), we proceeded to waste time running errands and doing laundry until we could check in at 1pm.

Unfortunately, we ended up not making the 1pm check-in time, because as we were sitting at the light to turn into the hotel, BOOM – a car ran into the back passenger side of our poor Honda! I guess she didn’t see the light turn, and when the truck next to us stopped, she slammed on her brakes, but couldn’t avoid hitting him and then bouncing into us, and ended up squished between us. The Honda suffered some body damage (see pics), but thankfully no one was hurt! We all pulled into a gas station to work things out, but she wasn’t sure about her insurance, so she called her mom. Turns out mom had taken her off the policy two weeks ago and told her she had to get her own insurance, which she had not done; so we’ll end up paying a $250 uninsured motorists deductible.

About two hours later, we finally checked in to the hotel, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

The mechanic finished installing the leveling system at about noon Tuesday (Deron LOVES the new system) and we headed up to Chino Valley, where the Christensens welcomed us with a delicious lasagna dinner. Laura and I had another pedicure Wednesday morning, and then Deron and I prepared a pot roast, mashed potatoes and green beans dinner in the coach and brought it over to the house for us all to enjoy together. Thanksgiving Day was full of food and fellowship – it was so sweet to be with our dear friends on our first #nomadlife holiday!

This morning the Christensen home was transformed into a Christmas wonderland – supplemented by a few items Laura, Rylan and I found at a brief Black Friday trip to Hobby Lobby. Tonight, after a brief visit with Jamie’s brother and sister-in-law and cousins, we all cuddled up (all five dogs as well) in the cozy living room, as per our new routine, to watch Jeopardy. We’re here until Wednesday, so we’ve got lots more hang out time planned – but it will definitely be bittersweet to say goodbye, knowing we probably won’t be back for a long time.

PS I’ll post pics and stuff next Friday about the rest of our time at the Christensen’s, but since we’ll be back in San Diego for the next two months after that, I’ll scale back my posts to once a month until February, when we’re back on the road again.

praise & prayer

Please join us in praying for the girl who hit us (Stephanie) – she ended up with a totaled car, several traffic citations, and a very angry mother. Deron and the truck driver were very sweet and patient with her, but she’s not going to have an easy time of it for a while. When we left Phoenix on Tuesday morning, her car was still sitting at the gas station next to the hotel (with the detached bumper laying on the hood).

In other news – we’re so pleased and thankful to hear that Savanah planned and prepared her very first Thanksgiving meal for her husband and some friends in Texas and it turned out GREAT!