When we left Prescott Valley last September we didn’t have an ending date or destination in mind; we just figured we would travel until it felt like it was time to stop. If I’m being completely honest, we’ve had plenty of moments where we wanted to stop (I’m looking at you, Universal Studios - haha) but ever since Atlanta it became clear that we needed to wrap it up in time for the kids to enroll in school this fall. Tucson was one of the places we had been considering, but aside from several short trips many years ago, we didn’t feel familiar enough with it to make a decision.
Dave and I decided to take a weekend trip to Tucson to check it out while we left our kids at their grandparent’s house. However, as we got closer to the designated weekend it started to feel like our kids needed to be part of such a big decision that would affect them so deeply. Knowing that the most difficult thing about leaving Prescott was leaving their friends and school behind, it seemed that each of them needed to have a say in the city and school we would choose to settle in. So I cancelled our plane tickets and we left St. Louis a few days early, bound for Tucson. For the record, if you do the entire drive straight through and only stop for necessities, it takes about 23 hours.
We arrived in Tucson at about 3am St. Louis time and were awoken a few hours later by the Arizona sunshine and kids squealing outside by the pool, and it felt like home. We immediately took a hike in the desert. It felt so good! I knew I had missed the desert but I was pleased to discover that my kids had as well. They were so very complimentary of every single desert thing they could comment on, it made my heart happy. I should have recorded them - it was adorable. The saguaros were blooming, it wasn’t too hot, and the familiarity of the desert felt oh so good.
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