Dallas

One of the disadvantages to being addicted to shopping at IKEA is that
there aren't a lot of them and if you don't live near one, you have to
drive a bit. We're headed to my sister Nancy's house in Oklahoma,
but we decided to drive a bit out of the way to visit the only IKEA
nearby to get some extra things for our house that we failed to
purchase on our last visit to IKEA in Salt Lake City. This also gave us
the opportunity to visit some areas we hadn't seen before on the way,
including southwest Arkansas and Northeast Texas. We bought our
items at IKEA after having a nice simple dinner of Swedish Meatballs
in their cafeteria. I am amazed at how fast the people in Dallas
drive. I don't consider myself a "hick from the sticks" by any means,
but these folks like to move rather quickly. Amazing, since it's so hot
and humid here. I would think this would make folks move more slowly.


On our way back to our hotel, we stopped at a really nice mall, called
Stonebriar Centre. It's pretty upscale and had about anything one would
need. We didn't do any shopping...just looking, but on our way out, we
watched a local hockey club practicing on the mall's own full-sized
hockey rink. Something we don't see much anymore since our rink in
Grand Junction is in a state of limbo. We had a great day and plan to
visit Dallas again sometime in the future.

IKEA VÄRDE

Lynn and I are huge fans of IKEA. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately
for our budget) our closest IKEA is in Salt Lake City, which is about four
hours from our house. We feel they have quality products at reasonable
prices. Since our house was built in 1946, it sometimes lacks some of
the modern conveniences that today's homes are built with. We try to
rectify that by making subtle upgrades. We decided we needed extra
cabinet space in our kitchen and specifically went last month to SLC to
buy this cabinet...The VÄRDE.


Now, anyone that has ever purchased a piece of furniture from IKEA knows
that they aren't always the easiest things to assemble. Oh, sure, there are
plenty of instructions...pages of them. However, the instructions go on and
on and since IKEA and it's products are located in dozens of countries around
the world, none of the instructions have written instructions. Only pictures of
little people happily constructing said product. I cracked up when I found
this photo of how Stonehenge would have been constructed if IKEA had anything
to do with it.


Pretty much the only writing in the whole instruction "textbook" lists a warning in
multiple languages about the ability or to attach items to a wall. If this isn't
"greek" enough to the person putting the furniture together, this warning also
comes in "Greek"!!!


Not exactly having a great track record of peacefully putting constructible items
together, there was no way Lynn and I were going to be able to get the VÄRDE
together without killing each other! Leslie came to the rescue on Mother's Day
and helped Lynn put it all together. I stayed out of the way and organized books
downstairs. (COWARD!) The few times I came upstairs, there wasn't any blood on
the floor and they weren't chasing each other around the room with rabid looks on
their eyes and knives in their hands. In the end, this is the finished product! it
looks great and fits well in our kitchen. Now, if we can just figure out where we're
going to fit Stonehenge!

Our Day Trip to Salt Lake

This time of year, it's easier for us to drive the 4+ hours to
Salt Lake City then it is to drive the same length of time to
Denver since we don't have to go over the mountains. It's a
long day trip, but not overly taxing as it' broken up in two halves.
It's a beautiful drive, with 2/3 of the trip through desert, very similar
to that around our house. The roads are good and not crowded
and the last third of the trip has beautiful views of the snow
covered (this time of year) Wasatch Mountains that are really
close to the city. Of course we made our obligatory stop for
lunch at the In-N-Out Burger in American Fork. I don't
think I'll need to go back for a while since I probably ate
enough food to last a couple of weeks!


Since we're still trying to find a few last things to spruce up our
house this spring, going to Salt Lake City works out well since
it's also the location of the nearest IKEA (actually in Draper) to
our house. We visited an IKEA store a couple of years ago in
Tempe and we decided then that when we wanted to get some
items for our house, we'd make the trip to IKEA. IKEA is known
for its inexpensive furniture and we found exactly what we were
looking for. As fun as it is to shop there, three hours later, I was
pretty tired of shopping at IKEA.


On our way out of town, we stopped by a new grocery store that
we like. It's called Sunflower Farmer's Market. There are locations
in Colorado, but not in Grand Junction. Half the store is filled with
fresh produce and they have a huge bulk food section. We stocked
up on some healthy food to take home and the next four hours
were spent enjoying the pretty drive home.

Southernmost IKEA?

Last summer, it was decided by someone in charge
that this awful color of blue was a good choice
to paint Building 155 here at McMurdo. Building
155 is the central building in town, where people
eat, some sleep, etc. Although I've heard the
comparison before, someone with too much time on
their hands played with photoshop and turned it
into what many of us think it looks like...the
world's southernmost IKEA store. I've seen lots
of cheap furniture in this building, but nothing
for sale!

Time on Our Hands

Combine the fact that it was a cloudy morning with the fact that
my back was almost as red as my Oklahoma t-shirt (too much
pool), it was a perfect day to drive around the Valley and see
some things that needed to be seen. In our case that means
things that are cheap (free?) and what we might stumble upon.
Finding the Desert Botanical Gardens ($15 admission each) and
the Frank Lloyd Wright House ($30 admission each) a bit beyond
our price range, we opted for old standbys. Lynn wanted to visit
a yarn store in Mesa called the Fiber Factory. No, not the place
where Metamucil is made, although that might be an interesting
trip for another time...but one of the "best" yarn stores in the
Southwest. I have to admit that it was pretty nice if you're into
that sort of place, which Lynn is and the people working there
seemed very knowledgeable about Antarctica and Colorado.
However, they thought Colorado was cold all the time...shhhh...
don't tell them it's not!


While I was waiting for Lynn to peruse the yarn store from top to
bottom, I sat on the "man couch" and read a small newspaper
distributed by the Downtown Mesa Association. In it, they talked
about a "favorite" local Mexican restaurant just down the street
named Mangos Mexican Cafe & Bakery. In a word, it was
AWESOME! Lynn had the Chimichanga and I had Enchiladas and
even the chips and salsa beforehand were great. I found out later
that it had received 5 stars on several internet sites. I especially
liked having to walk through the kitchen to use the restroom.
All very authentic and real comfort food. As much as I love Mexican
food, we hadn't had any real Mexican food in a restaurant since
we came back from Ecuador. I love Taco Bell, but that doesn't
really count...neither does our new discovery, El Pollo Loco.


One of the main goals as we headed out the door was to
visit some used bookstores. We've visited both Bookman's
in Phoenix already, so we wanted something less commercial.
We found it walking back to the car from Mangos. The Book
Gallery. A really nice used bookstore, all of the books are
in good condition and don't smell of mildew. Something we've
run across quite a bit in used book stores. Lynn found a few
knitting books and I found a good book on Colorado
geography and then I stumbled across the "Flag section". Yes,
they actually had a small section of flag books. In it, I found
"Flags Through the Ages and Across the World" by Whitney
Smith. He is the man who coined the term "Vexillology".
I used to check this book out of the Naperville and Denver
Libraries and have seen battered versions of it for sale over
the years but never found a really good copy of it. Here it
was. Only problem...$35...Ouch! However, since the book is
already 34 years old and has been out of print forever...plus
the fact that this copy was in pristine condition...I had to bite
the bullet and buy it. Maybe I can sell some plasma or
something down the road to afford it. Later on, I looked it
up on Amazon and the cheapest copy is available for $106.
Definitely not a price I would pay for a book. I definitely
made a good purchase.


I drove by my old condo in Chandler and took a few pictures
since I didn't have any digital copies (yes, that sounds weird to
me as well) and even past the place where I wrecked Lynn's
Camry leaving the Dairy Queen in 1995 (no photos here
however). Afterwards, we were driving up I-10 toward
downtown Phoenix when there appeared an IKEA in Tempe
on the right hand side of the highway. We'd never been to
an IKEA before and we felt like browsing. For those who
don't know, IKEA is a huge (store size) Swedish-owned
household goods store that has locations around the world.
Everything in the store is VERY reasonable and affordable.
We're looking at making some updates to our house in the
next five years so we were really encouraged that we could
shop at IKEA and make some of the changes we want down
the road without bankrupting ourselves. Only trouble is, the
closest location to us is in Salt Lake City. Not very convenient,
but maybe someday.


Lastly, we stopped at the Barnes and Noble (sorry Ben) at
the Chandler Fashion Mall. Mainly because they have free
internet! They've made a deal with AT&T (boo) for free
internet access in all of their store cafes around the country
and if we get a small coffee, I don't feel so bad about
abusing their bandwidth. I'm finding that more and more
places are offering free Wi-Fi although here's the part of
this post where I complain. Our hotel only offers it in the
lobby for free, not in the rooms. If you want access in your
room you have to pay $9.95 per day. How is it that
seemingly every Motel 6 or Super 8 across every interstate
highway in America can offer "free" Wi-Fi access in their
motels, but a "resort" charging much more charges a
ridiculous price to do so. There...that's been bothering me
for the last 4 days and it's off my chest! And yes, I'm
smiling as I type this!