We closed out our Des Moines apartment and drove out of Iowa on October 22. On November 27, our moving truck arrived, and we and all of our stuff spent our first night together in our new home in the Village of Oak Creek, just south of Sedona, Arizona. So our limbo hiatus period (including finding, buying, and closing on a new house) was 36 days long, far shorter than we had expected it to be, which is deeply pleasing. We’ve got all of the boxes unpacked now, most of the furniture placed (except for some new things we have on order), and are at the art-hanging stage of the process. It’s conceptually possible that we’ll be past the setting up phase this week, so that we can get on with the settling in phase. Ahhhh!

While our focus has primarily been on getting into the house, we have continued to explore and have adventures and appreciate our new surroundings. Of particular note since my last photo report, our experiences have included:

• Discovering that the javalinas (collared peccaries) that we were seeing in and around the yard at our temporary AirBnB in Sedona were actually living in the crawl space under our house!
• Hiking the Transept Trail near our new house, from which we can easily look down onto our neighborhood from atop the rocks north of it.
• Hiking up to the top of Bear Mountain, one of the more strenuous walks we’ve done in a long, long time, with some hairy hand-work, slippery screes, cactus-lined chutes, and other challenges, all worth the incredible views all along the trail, especially at the summit.

I’ve captured pictures of those and other activities in a photo album, as one does, if one is me. You can click on one of my suggested contributions to home decor (below) to see the full gallery. I suspect that when I post a final “house set up, family settled in” album, this particular display may be subject to change. Unless Marcia never turns around at the sink, anyway.

I think my Saturn V model looks great in the dining room!!