I guess using the word Milghan in the title of last week’s blog was too much of an in-crowd joke. People who have read my Walker Family books know that Milghan is the Tohono O’odham word for Anglos, and Chuk Shon is the old Indian word for Tucson. Any questions?

Tomorrow the packers come and the following day the moving truck arrives. So right now, in the relative peace of a Sunday morning, I’m working on my blog several days early.

What are the things I’m going to miss most about Tucson? The answer: What I’m doing right now, sitting in the sun-dappled shade of the patio, laptop on my lap, writing the blog and listening to the mourning dove calling back and forth to one another. Noisy traffic may be hurtling by on Fifth, just outside our block wall, but the dove remain totally above the fray. And what shade it is! The two magnolia trees, right next to the patio are about to blossom. The palo verdes in the back yard are ablaze with yellow blooms. The accidental palm trees, ones grown from dates that happily landed next to an irrigation pipe, are springing up here and there in the yard. Since these are offspring of our grove of native Arizona palms, we welcome each and every one. The oleanders we planted just inside the exterior wall are alive with blooms—white, pink and red. Just outside the back gate that leads to our “back forty,” our family of pack rats is busy doing what pack rats do, and I guess they win. We’re packing to leave. They’re not.

We have several patches of desert spoon scattered around the interior back yard. One of them was in very bad shape last year, and I had our gardener give it a crew cut. This year it’s back and blooming, and the humming birds love it. In fact, here’s one of those right now. And speaking of our gardener—Ephrain Cervantes. I’ll miss him, too. He’s been our gardener since we bought the place, but he was also the gardener for the owners before us. He’s actually looked after the property for more than thirty years. I hope the new owners keep him on. He’s the one who knows where all the irrigation lines are buried.

So being on the back patio early in the morning is very high on my list of things I’ll miss about being in Tucson. Orange blossoms come in as a close second. I grew up in Bisbee. It may be Arizona, but it’s also at a 5000 foot elevation, so no orange trees there. When I came to the University of Arizona and smelled my first orange blossoms in the spring of 1963, I was utterly enchanted, and that sense of wonder hasn’t gone away.

Next up would be eating Texas Ruby grapefruit, still sun warm, from the tree we planted just outside our bathroom window. We start picking the first ones in late February and have them fresh off the tree all through March and April.

This is a long, flat house. I’ll miss the interior 200 step laps when I’m getting my steps because it’s too hot to walk outside. And for cooler walking, I’ll miss the manicured circular pathways in the back yard that can turn into 1000 step laps. In Seattle I walk inside when it’s too cold or wet to be outdoors.

The past eleven days, in addition to the sorting and packing, we’ve been conducting a farewell tour of all our favorite places. Naturally, that means food with a capital F. Unfortunately Lerua’s is gone, so we couldn’t have their green corn tamales, but you can’t beat the red chili and paper thin freshly made flour tortillas from the Anita Street Market in Barrio Anita. We’ve had taquitos and margaritas at the Guadalajara Grill; we’ve savored escargot at Le Rendezvous; we’ve divided gigantic sweet rolls four ways at Gus Balone’s; we’ve feasted on well done corned beef hash at the Hungry Fox; we’ve devoured the Girl Scout cookie based dessert at Feast.

As far as Tucson dining establishments are concerned, there was only one fail. Omar’s at the Triple T—a place where my folks always stopped for deep dish apple pie—was a huge disappointment. It was fine a month ago when I stopped there on the book tour, but by yesterday, it wasn’t the same place. For one thing it was nearly empty. Nonetheless the service was impossibly slow, and when our food came, it was dead cold. If butter doesn’t melt on your french toast or your pancakes, something isn’t right. When the people at the table next to us finally got their food, only half of it came. They got up and walked.

But what were we doing at the Triple T yesterday? We were on our way to Bisbee for the day. Our friend and decorator, Jim Hunt, has been with us on this packing adventure, advising us on what we should leave behind and what we should take, and deciding in advance, if a piece of furniture is going north with us, where the hell is it going to go. But by yesterday we were pretty much done with all that, so on our day off we went to Bisbee.

Jim has read all my books, but he’s never been to the scene of the crime, as it were, and this was a golden opportunity. We booked a 2:00 PM Lavender Jeep Tour. We met up with Gary Dillard, the tour operator, at 2 PM in the lobby of the Copper Queen Hotel. When he came in, two people came tagging along behind. They were long time fans of mine from Phoenix who were doing a 35th anniversary trip to see Joanna Brady’s Bisbee. When the wife figured out they were going on a tour with me, she told her husband that he was good for their anniversary, Mother’s Day, and her birthday as well.

The tour was a two and a half hour adventure. On the open Jeep trip out to High Lonesome Road my new glasses blew right off my head. Fortunately Jim Hunt caught them before they blew right out of the Jeep. That ride also turned my hair into a fright wig. With the help of conditioning shampoo, I finally got rid of the last of the dirt and tangles this morning. But Gary is terrific. He drove us up and down the narrow streets of town, all the while delivering an easy going narration that’s full of historical interest with plenty of fun tidbits included for loyal J.A. Jance readers tossed in on the side.

We finished the evening with dinner at Café Roka. After having such a spectacular failure with the Triple T that morning, I was worried that Café Roka might also have fallen from grace. It has not! The food there was absolutely glorious.

So tonight is our last night here at the house. When the evening is over, the TV will go off for good. The cable boxes will go back to Cox. The Wi-Fi will be shut down. And tomorrow we’ll move to the Arizona Inn where we’ll enjoy reveling in their gorgeous flower filled beds—poppies or snapdragons anyone? We’ll spend the next three nights there while coming back to the house during the day to oversee packing and loading.

As a storyteller on the reservation I learned the a story must end where it begins, and so it’s entirely appropriate that we’ll be ending our Arizona sojourn at the Arizona Inn, the place where we couldn’t stay on that long ago June day when we first arrived.

As for all my favorite people—my Tucson-based fans? Don’t worry. It’s not as though we’re leaving forever. I’m sure we’ll be back for the Tucson Festival of Books and on book tours. Just think of me as Arnold in the Terminator.

I’ll be back!