August 31, 2002
Kathy and I drove to Flagstaff (165 miles) to have lunch with Tommy and three of his friends (one was his roommate, and the other two are suite-mates). We took them to eat at Salsa Bravo ($75 cash, includes tip). Good talking to them about their classes and major, etc. Tommy’s roommate is from Eager and is going to be a civil engineer like his dad. Another kid is going to be in the restaurant and motel management and the fourth kid doesn’t know yet what he will major in. I brought Tommy the new redesigned Rolling Stone and he brought it to lunch. Wants a subscription (evidently Jann Wenner knows what he’s doing).

After lunch we went back to the dorm and picked up Tommy to drive out to JJ’s and Robert Chenault’s house in east Flag to drop off several boxes of stuff. On the way I was asking T about JJ and how he came out in court and T winced and said, “Oh shit, I missed my court date yesterday.” Well that put a lid on his enthusiasm. He was supposed to go to court to take care of his lack of tags ticket and now he’ll have to pay a fine. We drove back to his dorm on old 66. Really heavy traffic all the way. Dropped him off and headed south to take the cutoff to Sedona. Lots of traffic there also, but we made it. Such a beautiful drive. Lots of campers (Labor Day weekend) and foot traffic at Slide Rock. Cruised thru Sedona (several live bands on the main drag, vendors), wanted to take the turn to Cornville, but it said Page Springs and I wasn’t sure if that was it, kept going into Cottonwood. Drove around looking for a Dairy Queen for Kathy. Finally asked a local and found it in NW part of town ($4.50 cash), took off and drove over to I-17 and headed down Black Canyon, talking about our kids and whether they’ll amount to anything. Verdict still out. Got to CC at about 6:15, went to Blockbuster and got three DVDs and popcorn ($14 cash), came home and watched “The Royal Tanenbaums” with Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson, etc. Mike Melrose raved about this flick, but I just thought it was quirky (6.5).