Have you ever been to Arizona?

It's been a hectic past couple of weeks, so let me apologize up front for not adding to my blog.

The newspaper's annual Pride edition will be published March 29, and it's a long process to produce the special section. Plus, my wife and I spent three days in Arizona (March 7-9) watching our daughter play golf for Ball State University.

Have you ever been to Arizona? We hadn't, and it was a wonderful experience.

I had no idea what to expect. The tournament was at the Rio Verde Country Club, which is a retirement-type community about 20 minutes outside of Phoenix. We stayed at my wife's youngest sister and husband's home in Fountain Hills.

My brother-in-law was correct when he said no one really "lives" in the country like back in Indiana. The majority of the people live in the "metropolitan" areas. The country is Indian reservations, and lots and lots of cactus, rocks and mountains.

Sound ugly? It's not. It's different, but beautiful. It really is a different world out there.

As we walked the golf course each day, we got a first-hand look at the difference in landscaping. Instead of lots of well-manicured lawns (grass) and tons of flowers, all the yards had landscaping rock for grass, and the yards were full of different kinds of cactus. There were even orange and grapefruit trees.

The temperature was in the high 40s at night and mid 70s during the day. By the end of May and early June through September, the temperature is in the triple digits.

Rachael didn't play as well as she would have liked, but Ball State finished ninth out of 18 teams. That's a big improvement from last year's 18th out of 18. Notre Dame won, and they had a player who was 2 under for the tournament.

My wife and I are looking forward to another visit to the southwest, and hopefully we can spend a little more time exploring the area.