Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! We forgot last Friday

Sorry Blog readers - we forgot to fill in the events of last Friday.

We said our farewells to all of our first hosts (very sadly - any future hosts need to know that the bar has been set very high) and Barbara (Kirsty's host) was prepared to kidnap her and hide her for the rest of the trip. Jim and Mark (they had used a bit of common sense - for a change and Mark had picked up Sarah and Sally) proceeded to their exchange point to the Prescott Rotarians. We had a minor stop at a 'frontier village' along the way to get together (and where we practised our best cowboy/girl strut) and Jim made a small presentation to the girls as a memento of his being with us for the last week - and much appreciated it all was (both the gifts and Jim's support of our visit).

We met at the rendezvous point at Cordes Junction and Jim handed over to another Jim (Clemens) our new driver. We headed off to our meeting with the Rotary Club of Prescott where we were welcomed by President Brian Sheldahl. this was our first experience of a 'singing' Rotary Club (led by Zack) and we just hope that we were able to hold up our bit in the singing stakes. The presentation seemed to go well and we fielded a number of questions at the end of our program.

Following the meeting we went to meet a PDG (Past District Governor) of the District who is in a nursing/retirement home and (unfortunately) not in the best of health - but still very sharp and delighted to meet with us and obviously held in high regard by the Rotary members of the Prescott area. Ray Meaghan is a former Coast Guard sailor and recalled his days of going to the Antarctic and having R&R in Sydney (although he wouldn't elaborate on exactly what he got he got up to!). He stated that he didn't care so much about meeting me but was very pleased to see the girls - I think that he could have been a bit of a rascal in his day. It was more about the state of his health tho' and he didn't care about me seeing him in this state of health but was concerned for the girls!

We then headed off for a brief/short(!)/quick walk up Thumb Butte (or Butt as Caroline calls it!) with Mike King. The Butte overlooks Prescott but we only got halfway up as we were due to meet the Mayor at 4.00pm - thanks to the Rotarians who got us nice and 'sweaty/glowing' before this event!! We did a quick change and headed off for our appointment with the Mayor.

Mayor Marlin Kuykendall is a delightful man (forget about politics) who welcomed us into his office and spent an hour with the girls explaining his role and approach to the tourism industry in Prescott. He is only recently elected but shows great enthusiasm for his term and the challenges ahead. He was particularly interested in the roles that the girls have in their regions and was interested to determine our reaction to our visit to Prescott - so much so that he has invited us back to his office next Thursday morning for coffee (and whatever) before we leave the area. We managed to get the obligatory shots/photos with him and departed to be picked up by our host families.

I headed off to Scott and Christina Scott's place with their sons Charles and Colin. they are great hosts and the boys (all three of them) are totally into model trains. They are all over their back yard and around the ceiling on the guest house (my room). This has to be seen and experienced to be believed - but more about that later