Back home

A week of visiting and traveling has come to an end.

Before this past school year began, my ex-wife moved across the country to Virginia. She took my youngest son, Jason, with her. This was his last year of high school (12th grade).

On Wednesday, June 7th, Jason's high school had their graduation ceremony (in Richmond, Virginia, USA). I was really glad to be there. His mother and I cheered him from the crowd.













Jason turned 18 years old two months ago. Being legally an adult, he decided that after graduation he wanted to move back to my house in Arizona. He has acquired too much stuff to just hop on an airplane, so we rented a U-Haul truck and spent all day Thursday loading up his furniture, TV, computers, and many boxes of other stuff.



On Friday, June 9th, we climbed into the U-Haul truck and headed out.




The phone call.
On Saturday, June 10th, my cell phone rang and it indicated that the call was coming from my home in Phoenix. Had my other son visited my house? No, it was a Phoenix Police officer. He said that my neighbor had found my house's front door kicked in and the door was open. The police officer said that they had searched the house and no one was there. He said that the place looked a bit ransacked. I told him that was really my fault since the house was really a mess when I left. I asked him if any police officers were injured climbing over all of the messy stuff that I had everywhere. He laughed and said, "No."

I called my oldest son, John, in Prescott, Arizona, where he is going to college and where he is staying for the summer sessions. John immediately headed for Phoenix (about two hours away). When John got to the house he reported that he did not see anything stolen - - TV's, stereo, and several computers were all in place. I called my insurance company and they sent a contractor over to patch up the front door. After that, John loaded the more important computers into his car and went back to Prescott.

Since we were then anxious to get home and see the "mess" at my house, Jason and I drove longer days in order to get home sooner. We did not really have much of a travel plan but since I rarely travel across the country I had hoped to be able to make several stops along the way. Instead we concentrated on distance each day.

Yesterday, June 13th, we arrived back in Arizona. First we stopped in Prescott to pick up the computers from my oldest son. Then we arrived at home. After going through the patched up door we saw that the house looked mostly like I had left it - - a mess. But there was added mess in the bedrooms where all of the dresser drawers had been emptied out. (Looking for hidden money or jewelry? - - No, not in my house!)

We still have not discovered anything taken during the break-in, except, I would swear that there were two 2 Liter bottles of Dr. Pepper in the refrigerator when I left (because that is Jason's favorite drink), but we only found one bottle in the refrigerator when we got here. So I am declaring that the only property taken by the thieves was a bottle of Dr. Pepper. (I actually told that to the insurance claims adjuster this morning. Along with the front door replacement that should be under my $500 insurance deductible.)

The big project for today is to unload the U-Haul truck. Next project: clean up the house!!!!!