Good News / “SAD” News – 01/26/2012
Good News – Tucson Senior Olympic Festival
- Thrills and Agony
Milly and Fred entered 4 events each in the 5 day Tucson Senior Olympics. Pickleball was held at Voyager RV Resort where we stayed for the month of January. Voyager taped one of their Tennis Courts to add 4 Pickleball Courts to the 7 that they have normally. With eleven courts and their excellent organization, the matches went off without a lot of wait time. There were manny, many matches to play!
Fred gets pumped up,
Wins Singles Gold Medal Match but gets Silver Medal age 70-74
In the first event on day 1, Fred lost his first match to Bob Helvie from St Georges, Utah & Voyager, in a fairly close match. Fred proceeded to win the losers bracket and faced Bob Helvie in the Gold Medal Match. It was quite a thrill to have your name called out of the loud spreaker system, “Bob Helvie Versus Fred Dunfey in Gold Medal Match on Court xx”, where the court had spectator seating and where linesman call each line. Milly got the word via speaker system since she was playing a womens doubles match. Fred soundly defeated Bob Helvie 11-3, 11-4 to force a playoff round. Bob told me that he was going to raise his game and he did. I lost the playoff round 15-6. Bob was awarded the Gold and I accepted the Silver, feeling every bit the winner even in defeat!
Tough Arizona Tournament Lessons
Milly won the Women’s Doubles Silver Medal in a 3 team round robin in her age bracket. She faced outstanding teams (4.5 players). Milly says some medals are unearned.
Milly and Fred went deep into the skill 3.5 level Mixed Doubles. We started playing at 8 Am and finished at 3:30 PM with little breaks between matches. We lost our final match after Fred missed a put away shot on a match point for us. If we had won and won our next match, we would have been in the medal rounds. Just as well, we were finished physically.
Milly went deep into the women’s singles 60-64 age. She lost to both the Silver Medal winner and the Bronze Medal winner. She found the competition very tough. There were also a lot of players entered that were all good.
Milly and Fred both took IEBPROFEN and applied ben gay frequently to get through these events. We decided that trying to play in 4 events was too much. We needed to pick our events spaced out to give our bodies some relief.
Milly couldn’t swim after the tourney because her legs had seized up (Hamstring strain?) .
We saw the nations best play in the upper skill level matches. We learned how the short game is played by watching the best play each other.
Interesting, we met several players from NH who came to Arizona to play Pickleball in the Winter. Fred also met a man, Bob Ward, that he worked with 20 years ago. We used to play Tennis after work. He now lives and works from his home in Tucson.
To see Tournament Results, click link at left.
Here are some Pictures taken of Milly and Fred during the tournament play:
“SAD” but Exciting News – Dunfeys to leave Upper Valley
Milly and I have fallen in love with a small Del Webb community nestled in the foothills east of Tucson, Arizona. We have purchased a new home there and will be moving to Arizona as soon as we sell our Eastman home. We will be returning to New Hampshire the first week of February to prepare our home for sale.
If you are surprised by this, so are we. We never thought of moving to this area of the country. We came here to experience “big time” Pickleball and contemplate the possibility of wintering here in an RV. After visiting several homes of friends in the area, we started to evaluate living here full time.
Our new home has beautiful mountain views in all directions. We couldn’t let this opportunity go. It is located in Del Webb Rancho Del Lago Active Adult Community in Vail, AZ.We purchased a recently completed “Bisbee” model home (1880 Sq Ft, 2 Bed, Den) that borders the amenity complex that includes 2 pools, 2 tennis courts and 2 pickleball courts. The community will consist of 520 homes when fully built out. There are currently about 150 homes built. Vail is 20 miles east of Tucson in the foothills of the Rincon Mountains.
We are very thankful for over ten over ten exciting, pleasant and heavenly years at Eastman. It is a wonderful place to live. We will miss Eastman and New England but are looking forward to this new adventure in our lives.
Our financial performance indicators suggested that we might consider downsizing our Eastman house. We thought we might buy a condo at Eastman. On our winter trip, we planned to visit places that we felt might be good for us as alternatives. In South Carolina, we liked The Haven near Hilton Head and Del Webb Charleston. Both were smaller active adult communities. We planned on visiting some Florida communities on our way back to look at the South Carolina again. We discovered that real estate taxes and other expenses were lower in these other locations. For example, the Del Webb Vail, Az homes have Solar Panels installed on the roof which guarantees that the average monthly utility bills for gas and electric will be less that $75.
Milly and I spent many hours during this trip discussing the pros and cons moving to a new location. The thought of moving to Arizona was even more mind boggling. We have children on both coasts but our families both are based in New England.
In our new location, we can walk to most activities in which we will regularly participate. Our new Catholic Church community (St Rita in the Desert) is only a 5 minute drive. It is very active and a good spiritual community. We have been attending some daily and weekly services there since being in Tucson. The soon to be built grocery store will be a similar distance. There is a County Park (Colossal Cave Mountain Park) 5 minutes from house. See Pictures of our visit there yesterday below.
While looking at Del Webb at Rancho De Lago, their pickleball players recruited us. We were invited into their homes, out to diner and to play numerous times. We attended a community brunch where we found everyone friendly and accepting of easteners. The pickleball players wanted us to help raise the level of their play. They just created a Pickleball Club. They gave us a Club Jersey as we left to go back to NH.
We have also taken some pictures of our new home and the views from it to give you an idea of what we are moving into. The Del Webb website provides pictures and decriptions of the community.
