Flagstaff, Arizona

I don’t golf, but still I join Chuck on this year’s trip to Arizona, prematurely agreeing to check out his choice of our winter retirement stomping grounds. I’m not old enough even to think of retiring, but Chuck gave up work two years ago, and since I’ve finally bought this laptop, the awful truth is I can follow him anywhere.

A day in Scottsdale has me pleading, “Maybe Flagstaff?” hoping that a town beneath the San Francisco Peaks within two hours of the nearest Phoenix traffic jam might be a workable alternative to Scottsdale, which puts me in mind of an Arnold Palmer look-alike contest. Besides, for decades I’ve thought of Flagstaff as the place I’m meant to be, though when we’re finally wheezing north in our grumpy rented Nissan and Chuck asks, Why Flagstaff, the only thing that comes to mind is something I read about the highest per capita number of unemployed PhDs and a bit from the AAA Tour Book about a lumberman’s mansion built a hundred years ago of hand-split shingles.