Day 11 - Tucson, AZ: Where Dreams Go To Die

On Sunday I traveled the hop, skip, and jump from Flagstaff, AZ to Tucson.  for a visit with my friend Dani from the University of Puget Sound. She was a sophomore when I was a fresh(wo)man -- although she was young for a sophomore and I was old for a fresh(wo)man.

The temperature again tempted me to stay within the confines of my vehicle.

But I was eager to see my friend again after five years and I knew I would be in good hands, as it was Dani who taught me all about swamp coolers. 

She lives with Jess, her best friend from high school, and Jess' fiance Josh. Josh greeted me at the door and let me know that Dani was still sleeping. When she woke up I learned that she was sleeping at 1:00 in the afternoon because she'd worked 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM at the hospital.

She miraculously has a job related to her bachelor's degree -- on the psychiatric ward. My first on-site patient contact in nursing school will be part of a psychiatric rotation and I asked Dani as many questions as I could think of to be sure I'd be prepared.

This is a temporary job for her as she is where I was about a year ago -- compiling transcripts, taking entrance exams, and figuring out which schools to apply to. Except instead of the GRE, Dani took the MCAT as she is planning to become a doctor. And while I am hoping to be of use to women from the neck down, she is hoping to be of use from the neck up.

Dani and I first bonded over a mutual scholarly interest in human sexuality. Then we sat next to each other in Human Sexuality. She visited me a couple of times after I moved to Portland and we spent hours at Powell's finding the strangest books we could. Many of them are still displayed proudly on our bookshelves.

I was also drawn to her immense talent for drawing. Between classes and between shifts, she found the time to create these works of art:

This is my absolute favorite drawing

She sometimes uses images she finds for inspiration and sometimes she uses people she knows.

These are older renditions of Jess.
Recently, she's taken up weight-lifting and thus weight-losing.

This person looks familiar, too

(This is the original picture, taken by Mr. Kris Bell)

And sometimes she uses muses she just finds around the House.

House

By the way, the only drawing medium used to create these masterpieces is a mechanical pencil. Not even the fancy kind, she uses the kind you can pick up at the grocery store:

We grabbed a nibble to tide us over until dinner at a local fast food restaurant called eegee's where we had sort of shaved ice/slush concoctions and tried to beat the heat.

When we returned to the house I met Jess in non-drawing form and must say that Dani's depictions of her are spot-on.

That night we all went to Feast, a fine restaurant specializing dishes made with locally sourced ingredients. Dani made reservations early out of respect for Father's Day (happy Father's Day, Dad!) and they had a special menu for the evening. A special pork menu. As we were waiting to be seated, the chef asked if we were excited to eat, "Who doesn't love pork?" he asked. To their credit, their website conceded: everyone except vegetarians, Muslims, and Jews. As a member of two of those groups, I enjoyed the Caprese salad instead.

Tomorrow I'm here again. Let's hope the heat goes elsewhere.


Odometer Start: 36177
Odometer End: 36441
Miles Driven Today: 264
Miles Driven Total: 2621
Today In/Around: Tucson, AZ
Tomorrow: Tucson, AZ again
States Visited: 5 (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona)
Thanks Owed to Josh for Fixing My Blogger Template So It No Longer Has Formatting Issues I Have to Spend Hours Fixing: 1 million