So lately I've been a bad bad blogger. It's been three months since my last update. Shortly after my last update I got the job offer from Phoenix. Taking the job was a hard decision because every time right before I would hear from this company I would hear from the feds just a couple hours before saying they are moving the process forward. No exaggeration. Just a couple hours after every federal update my new company called me. I talked to several friends at ICE and they told me to just take the job in Phoenix anyways just in case. They said it's pretty much a done deal with the feds but don't ever hold off on another job until I have a start date. So I took the job knowing that in 6 months or a year I might be moving back East for training in Georgia.
So this new company wanted me to start pretty quick. It's still with ICE at their operations center but it's a different company running this part of the contract. They wanted me to start training October 1st. I had already giving my previous employer a six week notice and had to cut it down to 2 weeks. On September 30th I was on a plane to Phoenix for two weeks of training.
After the first week of training I decided to sneak out of town and I drove to California to surprise my twin for our 31st birthday. A five hour drive and I was in Riverside at my parent's house. The next morning we woke up and went to IHOP. My sister came in the door and was surprised to see me. The best part was that is was a double surprise. We had breakfast and then I told my sister I had to run an errand really quick. My errand was to pick up Natalie and Adri from the airport. We pulled up to Cassandra's house a bit later and she was surprised again to see who was in the car. I think Cassandra was very excited to see us all there. She wrote a whole blog about it.
That afternoon we went to March Air Museum with my Aunt Sharon's family. The next day we had a party at Cassandra's house before I had to make the 5.5 hour drive back to Chandler. I brought Natalie and Adri back to Chandler with me so Natalie could find an apartment, look around, and see that Chandler is not anything like the barren Mojave desert. I think she was pretty surprised to see how clean and well landscaped the area is. And the food around here is phenomenal.
After finishing up my two weeks in Arizona I went back home to telecommute for the next month. It worked out pretty good telecommuting because it gave me a lot of time to work around the house and prepare for the move. On top of all the moving I had to take out four palm trees in the front of the house. One of them had butt rot and once one gets them they all have to go. Natalie's family came over and we got all the trees removed with no injuries or damage. I called up my landscaper and he got me a 17'+ Live Oak to replace the palms. Between that and all the other cleanup that was done my house was starting to look a lot better.
On November 7th my Dad flew out to help pack up the truck. On the 8th we spent the entire day packing up the UHaul. I was surprised it took so long. I was expecting it to take a few hours. At 7PM we still had a long ways to go. Then a group of people from church showed up and knocked out a big part of the work in an hour. By 10:30 that night we finally closed up the truck and did some final cleanup in the house preparing to leave the next morning. The plan had been to get up before the sun and drive up to Pensacola to go to a park I've been wanting to see for years. That night I decided I needed to revise my plans.
On the 9th we woke up and went through the house several times making sure everything was ready to go. I don't think we finally left until after 9AM. Now it was time for a 40 hour drive. Everyone, except my dad, had doubts that I could keep on schedule with my drive. Little do they know when I get behind the wheel I'm a machine. I once drove from Tampa to Oklahoma City (18 hours) straight. By sunset we were already on I-10 moving towards the one part of the state I have not been to, the Panhandle. We stopped at a rest stop that was also a state park sometime after dark and this is when I finally let my dad take over driving for the last hour or two. We finally stopped at a Hampton in Crestview, about 30 minutes away from Blackwater River State Park.
The next morning we got up early and went to Blackwater River State Park. This is the park I have been wanting to go to for years. I wanted to go ever since I saw a picture of a wooden suspension bridge going through the forest. We searched all over the bridge and couldn't find it. The park rangers didn't even know where it was. We had fun hiking some trails but no wooden bridge. Finally on our way out we stopped at a small store for snacks and the guy knew where the bridge is. He said it's in Blackwater River State Forest, not the state park. But by this time it was already pushing noon and the park would have been 30 minutes out of the way, meaning 30 minutes to get back and all that gas in a UHaul. I reluctantly had to decide to move on and not see the bridge. Next time......
That afternoon we pushed through Alabama, Missasyphilis, Lousiana, and entered Texas. I was told that Louisiana has bumpy roads and it was no exaggeration. The worst driving of the whole trip. A couple hours before we got to San Antonio we stopped at a taco shop in the hood and had the best carne asada tacos I have had in years. It was a little taco shop located right off the freeway next to roach coach/tent setup in the parking lot next to it. The taco shop had all those bright red tiles, a 1980's tv with Mexican news channel on, and one of those half steps down into the bathroom that is so small that you don't see it but just enough to make you trip. It was super ghetto, just the kind of place where you find the best tacos. It was so ghetto that we had to eat our amazing tacos in the truck to make sure the truck didn't disappear when we were eating.
A few hours later we tried to stop at a Hampton but they were full. So we tried another hotel in the same parking lot and they were full. At this point we were about an hour from San Antonio. So I started calling all the Hilton, Hampton, Embassy Suites, and Homewood Suites around. I probably called 15 hotels and they were all booked. Finally right before we got to San Antonio I found an Embassy that wasn't full. I think it was now around 1:30-2AM and we were beyond tired at this point. So after overpaying for four hours of sleep we got some breakfast and headed to the Alamo.
I didn't feel like trying to take the UHaul downtown so we took the bus, only a couple miles but about 45 minute ride. There happened to be a marathon that day so we had to stop further than normal and do a bit of walking. My dad had been told that the Alamo was the size of his living room. I wish his living room was that big. It's pretty small for being a fort but a 1 acre living room would be nice. In the middle of the fort was a really impressive Live Oak. The branches grew down to the ground and this thing went from one wall of the fort to the other. I took me 4-5 pictures just to capture the whole tree. After the Alamo we walked the Riverwalk before going back to the hotel. The Riverwalk was pretty cool. It's the kind of place my wife would probably like to go for dinner and a gondola ride.
Again we got back to the road around noon. We passed Welfare and Comfort exits and kept waiting to see Hope and Change next. We ate some pretty decent Mexican food in the middle of nowhere. Everyone in the restaurant wore cowboy hats. I had no idea people still wore those things. The plan was to stop in Las Crucas, NM that night. Instead we pushed through another 45 minutes to Deming, NM where it was freezing cold (25 degree low that morning). Another four hours of sleep and we were up ready to head to Chandler.
By noon we were in Chandler unpacking the Uhaul. Right on schedule. Take that doubters! Five people from church showed up and we had the truck unpacked in an hour. The only problem was going from a five bedroom house to a two room apartment meant we had so much stuff crammed in that we could hardly walk. After a cold shower (gas wouldn't get hooked up for three days) we took the truck back, got a rental car, had some dinner and started working. But by 8PM I was so tired I was ready to just crash on the floor. My Dad setup my bed though and I was out. He managed to stay up a couple more hours and keep on working.
Tuesday we worked all day trying to clean up the apartment. We went to one of my favorite restaurants that night, El Zocalo, and then picked up Natalie and Adri from the airport. Wednesday I had to work and then take my dad to the airport for a long, 56 minute flight home. He had plans to come back the next week to take a spare queen sized bed from us and bring it to his house for our visits. No more sleeping on the floor when I visit.
So that's the quick break down of all the fun I have been having lately. This move was stressful in a lot of ways but a lot of fun in others. I'll post another blog about all the house drama this later this week, that's the stressful part. But the move itself was a lot of fun. It's been great spending a lot of time with my Dad lately. On the drive we had so much to talk about we didn't even turn on the radio until we were almost in El Paso, 34 hours into the 42 hour drive. After the move my dad came out to pick up the bed and we had some fun hiking and shooting. Another blog on that later this week too. Natalie has been at home with Adri and life has been a lot less hectic, with the exception of constant worrying about the house in Florida which hopefully will be coming to an end soon. It's been good being close to my family and being able to make it out for all the holidays. It's looking very likely that this will be the last year my mom has any clue what the holidays are about so we couldn't have moved at a better time.
My new Live Oak Tree
The rest stop in Missasyphilis
That really big Live Oak at the Alamo
Cypress tree at the Riverwalk
About an hour out of Chandler
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