| SOUTHWEST MEMORIES |
| I have had a passion for the Southwest United States since I was 11 years old. My mother and father went on vacation to Tucson, Arizona for the first time .... and I fell in love immediately. I was born and raised in Michigan and the southwest was a totally foreign concept to me. My father, who was from the Traverse City area of Michigan, was not very comfortable in Arizona ... too dry and brown. But I loved it. Two years later, when I was 13, we took yet another trip to Tucson. I still loved it and my father still didn't. My father died when I was 16 and my mother and I decided to move to Tucson, where her dear friend who happened to also be her aunt, lived. We stayed there for about 10 months. While I was there we lived in the desert in an area that borders Tucson Mountain Park ... a place of beauty and wonder. Soaring saguaros ... and lots of other cacti. Mountains and space ... SKY and sunsets. I loved it and when we went back to Michigan I was not happy. After I graduated from high school (in Michigan) we went BACK to Tucson and stayed about another 10 months. The employment situation at that time was very bad and I couldn't get a job ... which I needed to do to help support my mother. So we again headed back to Michigan. For the next three decades I pined for Arizona ... dreamed of taking my husband to see the places I loved so much. But we couldn't afford a trip there and so I didn't get the chance to go back to my 'adopted' home until after my mother died in 1992. At that time I reconnected with a long lost cousin who had lived in Phoenix for 20 plus years and we arranged to go visit her. Hallelujah!!! I was going 'home' even if just for a visit ... AND I was getting to take my husband with me and show him my beloved Arizona. That was the first of three trips to Phoenix where I became enamored all over again with the southwest. The walls in my home reflect my love of all things southwest ... my photos albums are filled with photos from there .... and best of all my memories of a place I would love to live continue to grow. These pages are devoted to my love, my hopes, my dreams ... all of the Southwest which I adore!! |
Please visit my other "Southwest Memories" pages at the link listed below. Lots more pictures, stories and information on the American Southwest, and more specifically .. ARIZONA. |
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