A Single Girl’s Vacation

After my weekend visiting the Joshua Trees, I flew down to Phoenix and made my way north to Prescott Valley to spend a couple of days with Jillian.

But first, I want to mention something that happened while in Southern California.  Perhaps someone can shed some light on our situation and educate me at the same time.

Apple Air Tags

While driving from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, a message popped up on Pam’s phone that said:

“Air Tag Found Moving With You” “The owner of this item can see its location.  Tap to open Find My and see available actions.”  So Pam asked me if I had an Apple air tag and I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.  And basically neither did she. Apparently, it is about the size of a quarter and can be attached to any of your belongings or tossed into a bag or a purse or just about anything you want to track.

So she called her daughter who knew what an air tag was and that although handy in keeping track of your stuff, can also be used in bad ways to do bad things to people.  She was quite concerned for our safety.  So we arrived Palm Springs and checked our belongings to see if either of us had an air tag.  Pam had been on business in Long Beach all week and I had been traveling on planes all day, so either of us could have fallen victim to foul play with an air tag.

All the research I did showed that if you don’t know where the air tag is or where it might have come from, you should go to law enforcement to help you locate it.  Since we were going to an AirBnB in the middle of the desert, I was in favor of going to the police but Pam felt nobody would be interested in tracking two old ladies headed for the desert :). I couldn’t really argue with that.

We determined that because the message did not reappear, we must have picked up the air tag signal from another motorist traveling along side us.

So we had dinner, headed for our AirBnB in Joshua Tree and forgot all about it.

Any thoughts?  Concerns?  Smart remarks? 🙂

Jillian

So onto the fun stuff ………….

My daughter, Jillian, has moved to Prescott Valley, Arizona where she is a Property Manager for a 240 unit apartment complex.  But it’s not just any 240 unit complex, it is a complex in the first phase of being built.  When I go there, I don’t expect Jillian to take time off work, I just like to hang out with her, cook dinner, watch her favorite shows and spend quality time with my Grandson Nikko.

But not only did she take a couple of days off to entertain me, I got to see her in action managing all the goings on at her complex. 

 And it was pretty exciting! 

She is managing the vendors that are tasked with fixing all the problems they encounter with each new unit as it is completed.  This is in addition to managing the office and maintenance staff and interviewing potential new residents.  Although she took two days off, she was still working by way of phone and emails, as many do in these post-covid days.

She kept apologizing for all the interruptions but I was into it.  I loved watching her in action and learning all that is involved in a new startup apartment complex.

However ………

there was fun to be had so our first day was a trip to Sedona where we had lunch, did some shopping and sightseeing.

Are you all familiar with Sedona?  It is absolutely gorgeous!  The landscape in Arizona is like going to another planet.  New Mexico is similar but there is no other state that is even close to the landscape in Arizona.  

Prescott Valley is at 5,500 feet elevation so it is a little cooler than Phoenix or Sedona.  Sedona is 4,500 feet elevation but it is considerably warmer.  On the day we were there it was almost 70 degrees.  Pretty nice for January.

My second day there we went to breakfast at one of Jillian’s favorite breakfast cafe’s where we had a wonderful breakfast with excellent service.  Unfortunately, I forgot to pay the bill and leave a tip.  I gave her my credit card and she brought it back with the bill and I stuck it all in my purse. 

Crap!! 

We must have been engaged in some pretty stimulating conversation is all I can think.  Unfortunately, she came running after us and after searching through my purse, I figured what I had done and was quite embarrassed.  I went back in and completed the slip and gave her a generous tip to make up for my mistake.  After taking care of the server, I looked at my daughter and she said “Great!  I’ll never be able to come back here again”.

Crap!  I really screwed up!

Watson Lake

So next on our agenda was Watson Lake, a reservoir in Prescott.  Now that literally looks like another planet.

Agree?

It took my breath away!  Pictures don’t do it justice.  We went back to watch the sunset but a storm was coming in and the sky got too cloudy to put on a show for us.  Bummer!

My Happy Place

The next morning I was back on a plane headed for Sacramento to go up to Clearlake, my happy place with Kevin.

It was good to see him after a week of running around like a single girl 🙂

I missed him!!