Hi everyone, greetings from Tucson. After leaving our noisy over night spot at the Flying J, we made an uneventful trip to the Walmart on Valencia in Tucson. Our plan was to stock up on groceries, then go check into our site at Desert Pueblo Mobile Home Village. We were surprised to find the Walmart in disarray, undergoing renovations. We navigated the narrowed aisles, gathering enough supplies to see us through a couple of weeks. We had no car here yet, so shopping would be difficult once we got set up.
Fully stocked, we proceeded to Desert Pueblo and got set up. Same site as in February, very nice here, but fewer people around. The snowbirds won't start to roll in until mid-October. Also, a number of the year-round residents have passed away. We like it here, people are friendly, the place is spotless, but we feel old here. Saturday morning we rented a car so we could go car shopping. Enterprise gave us a good deal, and they picked us up too.
On Saturday evening there was a "picnic" for the community. We showed up, but turned and left when we saw the long, long tables stretching across the room, occupied by rows of white haired folks, all impatiently waiting to be served their "picnic" dinner.
Hungry, we went in search of a small, Greek cafe that was highly recommended online. Marlene was having a craving for a donair, so we were seeking a really good gyro, basically the same thing. We ended up at a great little place called Fronimos (www.fronimos.com) . Here you order at the counter, then wait at a table for your food to arrive. A friendly fellow behind the counter could see our confusion as we looked around, and asked if we had been in before. Replying that we had not, he explained the process and gave us menus to peruse. Marlene decided on the gyro sandwich, a pita rolled around slices of beef and lamb, slathered in Tzatziki sauce and onions and tomatoes and served with a Greek salad. Marlene really enjoyed this plate (even served on plastic!).
I ordered the house special: braised lamb shank in tomato and rosemary sauce, served with saffron rice and a salad. I really liked this meal. The meat was tender and tasty, and there was a lot of it. The rice was light and fluffy, and the salad was made with fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomato, onion and olives. After demolishing our entrees, we eyed the pastry display and decided to take a baklava and a kataife to take home for later. Oh yeah, we also had a lemonade and a Snapple. Total cost of this meal: $28 with excellent food and service.
I had started the horrible task of finding a vehicle to buy. We had planned on something small enough to squeeze into the trailer with Armageddon, so we looked at a few Mazda Miata's, but Marlene found them too small for her liking, and I found them expensive. We went home to rethink our plans, and in the end we decided to buy something suitable for use here and in Mexico, that is small enough to tow behind the motorhome, gets good gas mileage, and fits in enough stuff for a two-night trip in Mexico.
We had learned that if we buy a car at a dealership we would have to pay 9.1% in state and city taxes, as well as a documentation fee of at least $263. We were told this covered the cost of bonding a title, transferring the title, applying for registration, fees associated with title transfer, etc. To me it smelled bad, especially since dealers aren't shy about asking for big money for old cars. We decided to shop privately, and after a lot of looking we found a low mileage Geo Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick) in nice shape. We had to pay more than we really wanted to, but it is a clean little jeep-like machine. We handled the title transfer, registration and all of that ourselves for $42. But first we had to get insurance. Hah... not so easy. Tried online with Geico... application went well, they took my credit card number and gave us a "guaranteed" premium that was very reasonable. Then they phoned and said they couldn't do it because we don't have Arizona licenses. We can't get Arizona driver's licenses unless we are landed immigrants or better.
We also tried a live agent in an Allstate office. She quoted us $621 for six months of terrible coverage (just $100,000 in liability), and we would have to first get 5 years worth of insurance company experience letters and driver's abstracts. NOT.
Finally, I called a nearby agent called EZ Insurance, and the proprietor Josh said they could do it for us. We trekked on over to their little office, and found a small, family run agency with the family actually living behind the office. Of course, this is a Hispanic family. We waited while Josh dealt with a couple of clients ahead of us (both Hispanic), then his wife Elizabeth arrived and offered to help us. A few minutes thought, and half an hour punching away at the computer and Elizabeth was able to get us covered, with much better coverage, and at a lower price than Allstate, and no documents from Canada required. And which company did she place us with? Progressive, one of the ones I had tried online to no avail. Go figure!
We celebrated our success with a couple of drinks, and made arrangements to pick up our new Tracker the next morning. Friday morning we went to the bank to get money to pay for the car, then drove across town to pay for the car and take delivery. The seller was a retired fellow, the neighbourhood Mr. Fixit, and he took his time over the whole thing, but eventually we were ready to leave. Marlene was nervous about driving the rental car, but she did just fine. We dropped the rental off, and then went to register and title the car. A painless process at the 3rd party registration place. We had been warned that the wait at the government registry offices could reach 3 hours!
Friday night we celebrated our successful entrance to the new year (Rosh HaShana) with a rack of lamb that we scored at Safeway. It had been priced wrong, instead of $20.99 a pound it was priced at $2.99 a pound. So we had a nice piece of lamb for $3. We also had my Mediterranean eggplant salad, roast potatoes, green salad, roast garlic, French bread and of course some nice red wine. Now we are stuffed, and decided to update you all about this week.
Pictures above are me making salad, Marlene with the new car and our dinner table ready to feast.
Stay tuned...
