Why-Homing

The rest of the drive through Nebraska was very quiet except for Parker’s little voice drifting from the backseat. It seems that boy knows every word to almost every song that comes on any given radio station. We crossed over into Wyoming at 1:25pm MST.  The mesa’s are amazing to see all around. It was fun to listen to the boys talk about all they were seeing, “dad what happened to the top of those mountains?” “Dad, where are the buffalo?” “Dad, are we really going to live here, there aren’t even houses!?”

 I was impressed to see wind turbines across Nebraska and Wyoming, which according to anyone that I talked to before I left are kind of behind the times.

 I think the most inspiring thing I’ve seen on our journey to Cheyenne is the unified pride that is exhibited across the country.  So many places were flying these HUGE flags that were breathtaking in the wind.

We arrived in Cheyenne at around 2:30pm MST. Took the picture but it was blurry :( unfortunately you only get one chance. 

We had called prior to our arrival to go and see two of the homes on our list (during the drive we were able to narrow our search down from seven to two of the homes) and base housing. When we arrived on base we were shocked when we came down a street and saw two of antelope just standing beside the road and even more shocking, they didn’t even care that we were driving by. When we pulled up to the office where Jonathan will be working we noticed that there were about 20 antelope all around the parking lot and grassy areas. It was definitely a nice welcome.

 We all went inside and met the very small command, including the Skipper (the Commanding Officer) who couldn’t have been more welcoming. After checking in with the NOSC (Navy Operational Support Center,) we took the Jetta off the dolly with the intention of dumping it at a U-Haul location in town as soon as humanly possible. We went into the housing office and filled out the necessary paperwork, while the boys chased these two bunnies we saw around. PS1, the guy who is our sponsor for the move, was very helpful in getting everything lined up. We have noticed one huge thing about the area though, everyone is so freaking nice!! It is very reassuring to know that the people here are as nice if not nicer than the people back home. We left base to go drop the dolly and view the homes. We get to the U-Haul place and find that it is closed an hour earlier than it says. We decide to look up any other locations and find that they are all also closed early. So we grudgingly head off to look at the homes. On our way to the first house we ended up at the wrong address because we didn’t realize that there is a 4^th street and a 4^th avenue,  and the 4^th street address is in the very undesirable area. Once we got to the first address we find it is absolutely wonderful, with two exceptions—No dishwasher and no backyard. The house was built in 1926 and has almost all of the original character, including a shelf and cubby for an old rotary phone and a phone book slot. It is a five-bedroom house with a den and a sunroom. It is located in the historic district in Cheyenne. The people who own it are very nice (the lady is so much like my dear Ms. B that I can barely contain my excitement) and they live next door. When we were getting ready to leave the couple across the street came out to meet us and turns out the wife grew up in this house and not only that, but both the neighbors are the people who lived here over 20 years ago. They have three kids (13mos, 2, and 4). We left there and headed to the second house which is across town a ways and we get there at the agreed upon time and the lady is 40minutes late. At this point the house better be awesome because I’m tired and hungry. We ended up talking with the neighbor for about 30 minutes, and he is retired Coast Guard and Navy. Very nice guy and he told us a lot about the area and the property but nothing he said overly sold it. When the lady shows up we go inside and it smells like someone or something died in it. I couldn’t concentrate on the tiny over-priced place for the awful smell! We leave there with a unanimous decision that if we can’t be on base house number one is the winner. We go to Chili’s for dinner and our waitress was so nice and she told us so much about what to expect and about the cool festivals that are coming up. She was incredible and so was our dinner—which considering our other experiences was a definite check in the win column! After dinner we went to the Frontier mall to find the Sprint store and get my phone fixed. We find the store wait for an hour and then find out that they can’t fix it but will replace it, although it’s going to take about a week. I asked for a temporary phone and it took another hour to get it hooked up. Needless to say at this point I’m exhausted (I hadn’t totally adjusted to the time difference and I haven’t totally recovered from the lack of sleep due to being sick earlier that morning). With the help of a friend, shout out to Bryan for saving our cans and finding a hotel in yet another impossible situation where they were all booked and nothing is available.  We had to go back on base to get our clothes out of the Jetta, which was quite a drive in the dark and considering all the main roads are under construction so you have to detour through these quiet neighborhoods. Jonathan was so sick of the empty dolly at this point because without the weight of the car it is so dang loud that it sounds like (okay as I’m writing this I ask Jonathan to tell me how to describe it he stomps off and goes “NO YOU'RE NOT BRINGING ME BACK THERE!!”) empty metal trashcans full of bolts, screws and hatred. As we drive through the neighborhoods and around the detour the dolly is clanging and clattering to hell and back. Between my exhaustion and the look on his face I’m dying of hysterics in the passenger seat and both boys are cackling loudly in the backseat. It’s hilarious, don’t ask me why but it was the funniest thing I’ve seen/heard in a while. The thing is unless your doing approximately 28mph you are going too slow/fast to make it quiet. So every bump or even tiny pebble in the road makes it slam all around. As we finally approach the gate I’m crying laughing and both boys are snorting. The guy at the gate is probably 19 and he is laughing his tail off at us which in turn makes me laugh harder. Once he checks our ID’s he says “have fun,” too which Jonathan replies with a terrific one liner—“Have fun listening to me for the next five miles.” That sent me over the top. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was too funny. We get around to the Jetta and he decides he’s going to take the dolly off and leave it there because he’s *&*%*& tired of listening to the chorus of his nightmares (the dolly and all of us laughing at him) that is going to send him to hell. “I’m not going to hell because of my lack of faith, it’s because I just woke up half of Mayberry for the last 20 minutes with this freaking dolly.” We try unsuccessfully to unhook it for about 20 minutes before he got pissed again, kicked the tire and gets back in and drives out. We make our way noisily to the hotel and go to sleep.
 

The next morning we go and drop off the dolly (YAY!!) and then go back to base to check in with the housing office. They have nothing new to tell us (go figure) so we decide to take the kids to the park and have lunch. We go to the commissary to get lunch food (once again overwhelmed with how nice the people are--and they make killer sandwiches!) and then drive over to the park. On the way we see a lot more antelope and as we actually get to the park we see a male sitting less than 50 feet from the playground. He lazily gets up when we get out and strolls about 5 feet and rubs his antlers on a tree before slowly strolling away. While the boys were playing I saw a prairie dog darting around a tree before racing into a hole in the ground. It is amazing to see all the wildlife. We discuss the houses and decide that we will not spend another night in a hotel and if housing doesn't call us back by 1pm we will go with house number 1. 

Kickin' it in Kansas!

Made our way across Missouri into Kansas City and stopped at the Great Wolf Lodge. When we got out of the car it was so windy it took my breath away. The resort is directly across from the Kansas Speedway which is a sight of it’s own. We had a blast, the kids especially loved the bucket that would dump 1,000 gallons of water every five minutes. We were able to let them roam around on their own because we knew every five minutes they would be back under the bucket. 

We packed back up and left Kansas City at around 3:30CST. This time our technology failing was my phone, dead to the world. FUN TIMES—NOT!! Quiet drive until we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. Another excruciatingly long terrible experience—beginning to think our stops are doomed. The bright side was the hilarious story that I have to share!! You see this afternoon I had asked Jonathan to run out to the car to grab our dry clothes to change into after the waterpark. He thought he’d be smart and change the bag so he wouldn’t have to carry my black and pink monogrammed bag through the resort and in doing so he forgot his underwear along with both the boys—so they were all going commando.  Our waiter took forever to bring out our ketchup at dinner, so Jonathan goes over and takes a bottle of ketchup from another table. As he went to sit down his pants catch on the back of the chair and came down a fraction, not all the way but enough to be considered a healthy moon. After his face turned blood red and he fixes himself he asked if the people at the table behind him were laughing. As it turns out the three men at the table behind him were 2/3 blind. Which worked out for him but then he started to retell the story and I had to remind him that they probably have exceptional hearing and even if they didn’t see it they definitely heard all about it.

We decided we should probably just stay at a hotel at that exit, but unknown to us there were a lot of local events going on and so there were "NO VACANCY" signs everywhere. It was like being on Carolina Beach anytime from May 31-early Sept. We drove through every little town from Lincoln, Nebraska which is where the University of Nebraska is, until we finally 3 hours later found a place in Hastings, Nebraska. Never heard of it—don’t worry neither has anyone else. Just before we stopped I happen to see a sign that was very appropriate and definitely felt like it was put there for me to see. I was exhausted, tired of looking didn’t have my phone or Garmin to search with, and just wanted one place we called to say they had a room and then out of nowhere I saw this sign. 

We ended up at this super shady Super 8 where we slept. The next morning I woke sick as a dog, and could barely stand up long enough to walk from the bed to bathroom (sorry for the TMI) and just wanted to leave. I staggered down to the car, took some very strong nausea medicine and went to sleep for the next three hours. During that time Jonathan told me that he saw a guy that was hitchhiking to Cheyenne, but we agreed that we have seen entirely too many episodes of Criminal Minds to every pick up a hitchhiker again. Once I woke up we stopped for lunch at quite possibly the only restaurant (and by that I mean an Old McDonald’s per Parker) on the interstate for 100’s of miles.  I quickly took a baby wipe bath (EWW--I KNOW) and got dressed so that we could eat. I was so excited to go inside and hear Darius Rucker playing on the overhead. As we stood in line, and also while we were eating people began trickling in a few at a time and every new person knew everyone else there. The thing that seemed odd to me was that it was approx.. 10:40am and there were people of every walk of life in there. Question: Do any of them have jobs? How can they all just go to McDonald’s at 10:40 in the morning. It was really strange. It seemed like every person in the place was either related or friends and nobody else found it weird that no one was at work. But we did get a few strange glances, as being the “strangers.” I guess not many people stop there. We stopped for gas and saw for the  time in my life a sign that said “pop” instead of “soda.” I guess that’s normal here but I had to take a picture. Once we were back on the highway we got detoured through this uber tiny town and as we passed the town school we all got a good laugh because there was a four-wheeler parked in the parking lot next to all the other cars. Little did we know that non-traditional vehicles were a common method of travel—a quarter mile up the road we saw a tractor parked outside of a tax office. 

Lincoln, Lincoln, Watcha been drinkin'?

We had a late start, but had breakfast and started off again. Came into Indiana at about 10:35 am EST, and started across America’s farmland. It’s breathtaking how beautiful the bright red barns are against the rolling hills and varying shades of green. The whole of the farmlands are amazing! 
About an hour and a half into our drive we spotted a sign for 
Lincoln’s childhood home/farm. 
We pulled off and Garmin immediately lost us and it took us about twenty minutes to find the Lincoln Park. Once we did, we were pleasantly surprised to find a very quiet but beautiful and interesting mile hike—where we passed Lincoln’s mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln’s burial site and then ended on an amazing piece of farmland. It’s misleading because as you pull up you think ‘okay, maybe there will be a marker in the general area and if we’re lucky a couple relics.’  Instead we came upon a 100-acre farm with the original stonework that is blocked off, but to the right was a replica cabin, smoke-house, woodworking shop (Thomas Lincoln—ole’ Abe’s father was a carpenter,) a stable, and a vegetable garden. There was a nice young man—aptly-named Tom there to tell us all about the farm—and show us around. Everything they had there was in working order and the furniture in the cabin was all made in the woodworking shop using the tools that they would have used in the 1800’s. The horses are used to pull the plows across the fields and the vegetables and the eggs come from the garden and chickens. With fire burning and smoke coming from the smokehouse I was less than surprised to find real meat inside—but impressed at how good it smelled. 

Needless to say it was well worth the stop.  Hiked the ½ mile back to the car and pulled back out to the tiny town with the one Subway restaurant the one bank. Stopped in to eat at the Subway and came back out to get gas. Got in the truck and turned Garmin on and—HOLY CRAP all of a sudden all our maps are GONE!! WTH?? Good thing the truck has a Navigation system!! Oops—don’t know how to use it so out comes the manual and then for a crash course lesson in using it!! Also discovered somewhere in there we crossed over into central time.
 Crossed over into Illinois at 1:30cst—nothing lost here!! I’m not sure what time we crossed over into Missouri but we drove through St. Louis and wow!! The gateway arch is beautiful! It was quite a site to see!! Didn’t stop to go inside due to the tow-dolly, but did drive through downtown and got to see it from pretty much every angle. It was beautiful!
Stopped for gas in Wright City, population 3,119, small and very interesting-the people seem very “drugs or jesus”—but I was tempted to ask the guy at the gas station how they adapt the very precise numbers on the population sign. What if someone is born or dies?? How accurate is that sign? The best thing I saw in Wright was this crazy cool antique wrought iron cemetery fence and sign. I loved it, could have been in a Goosebumps movie! Most of Missouri looked like Indiana, I’m tempted to believe that the majority of the west is corn and wheat fields—very  calming and pretty. Stopped for dinner at Sonic—yes I know another exceptionally healthy choice, but out here in the middle of nothing there aren’t a lot of choices. Attempted to sit outside but it was crazy windy and according to Parker smelled like “horses—well actually horse poops!” Continued on through Missouri and its a lot of the same gorgeous rolling hills, dotted with sprawled out farm house and the occasional interstate town. Also, much to Parker’s dismay the John Deere tractor is not as popular, instead a red tractor with what seems like a German “K” name is the tractor of choice. 


We started playing Mad Libs until the stories began to take a turn that made me giggle like a schoolgirl—totally inappropriate! It’s pretty cool to see all the water towers across all the states. To me it’s very comforting to know that even this far away things aren’t that different from home. We’ve also noticed that fireworks must make up 50 or more percent of the different interstate town incomes. 
                                                                       
There was one called Pyrocity, which kind of freaked me out and was awkward explaining to Nick as he read it. It continually blows my mind hearing Nick read out signs, plates, and city names. We switched to Bluegrass Junction Sirius to put it all in perspective.

West Virginia, Mountain MaMa

Around 3:50EST we crossed into the West Virginia mountains. After watching a video of old school superhero movies both boys fell asleep while we cruised along the WV turnpike—who knew WV had a turnpike?!? And good grief was gas expensive there, $3.59 was crazy after seeing it for $3.03 in VA. The temperature had dropped like crazy, it was only 71 degrees up there. We woke the boys up when we got to the first long tunnel to get them to hold their breaths through it, and they both did it, but then immediately fell back asleep! Typical Booton boys!! Stopped for gas at this station in W. Berkley and inside there was a stand with yellow, black and pink shirts with “COAL” written on the front. I knew WV was a coal miner’s state but Geez, talk about pride. Listening to Mumford & Son’s felt appropriate for this part for some unknown reason. The boys and I were playing the License plate game, we quickly marked off at least 12 states, and Nick was doing most of the reading. WV has the most beautiful bridges I’ve ever seen! It’s  a small detail compared to the natural beauty but definitely a nice touch. Charleston’s state capitol building, with a gold dome, and the green hues of the side, is very unique. Nick was overly excited when we drove through Putnam County—his best friends last name. After searching for a nice local diner and failing miserably, we stumbled on a 7-Eleven…YAY!!!!!!!!

 We ended up stopping at an Applebee’s, usually a safe boring choice. It was AWFUL! It took forever for them to get our drinks (water all around.. should have been simple but.. NO), to get our food orders, and then holy 30-40 mins before we got our actual food!! The water tasted like “whole milk, ya know D-milk” per Jonathan.  It had started to rain lightly before we went in and we were hoping it would stop while we ate—for almost an hour and a half! But true to our “black cloud” it started raining even harder! We had to dash across the parking lot and I looked like a local to WV—I had to take my shoes off because I didn’t want to get them wet so they stained my feet and I was wearing a long skirt hiked up—looking so HOT!



I’ve always loved driving through the clouds but it’s incredible right after a heavy rain and the mountains were hot and so it was steaming. Crossed into Kentucky at 8:25pm est, went over this incredible bridge, still not sure of the name but it was all lit up with this plant/factory type structure, either way it was really neat with the water tower as a back drop. Also got a science lesson—who knew deer squat to poop like dogs?!? Saw it first hand as Parker noted—awkward!! The sun setting in Kentucky over the mountains was breathtaking! Trying to get a good picture with the pouring rain is hard. 

Touched base with the Booton’s at 8:30pm est, then sat back and enjoyed the view with my 7-Eleven cup-o-heaven! 

Its amazing that at 9:00pm est and it was still so light out!! We were literally chasing the sunset! Saw a pick-up truck with a brown tarp over the back that was light underneath and frayed on the ends and it looked like a bear hide over this furniture—we were all like “NO WAY!” Alas, it was just plastic but after Jonathan and Morgan’s conversation about animal fur our minds jumped there immediately. After an unfortunate unmentioned event::cough cough:: Jonathan doesn’t listen to Phonda after she told him that if he would listen to her this trip could be amazing ::cough cough:: we were set back about an hour when we stopped for gas at 10pm est in Mt. Sterling. Arrived in Louisville at 1am est. We both thought the Best Western hotel was going to be sketch because Garmin brought us in a backasswards way but much to our surprise—very Nice!

Days Like These

The Hampton Inn in Eden, NC has many a memory for me in the last 2-3 years. The staff is always overly friendly and the breakfast is pretty darn good. It being the best option by far—considering some of the other “hotel/motels” offer amenities that include your drug of choice and some people of the—umm—how do I say red light variety? (and I don’t mean “stop”) at any given time of the day—except maybe Sunday—hey the phrase sweating like a whore in church had to come from somewhere—and churches there are a plenty—I digress. After spending a couple hours with my Grandma Jewel, an amazing woman who I couldn’t possibly love more, we headed north crossing into VA after only about 10 minutes. Here we started our “No Negative Wyoming” comments rule, in order to try and put a positive spin on our trip. The Virginia mountains are among some of the most beautiful landscapes in America—at least of the America I’ve seen!

 A quick stop at Lover’s Leap
and we were off again—Jetta in tow. Erich Church and Jason Aldean provided the musical back drop for the Appalachian Mountains. 

“Turn it up a little bit louder,
 Turn it up, I love this song,
Come on girl, the world is ours,
Lets do somethin’ right or wrong,
Life is short, lets go live,
 Ain’t no time for wasting time.
 Days like these, they go by way too fast.
Yeah, days like these, you wanna make ‘em last

Rest your feet up on the dash.

Leave your toe prints on the glass.

Sing it like you mean it, baby.

Close your eyes and lay your head on back…… “
 ~Jason Aldean “Days Like These”

Some Damned State Near Canada.....

The long goodbye that was leaving Wilmington can be described as nothing less than emotionally and physically exhausting. We were categorically packing boxes—and by that I mean making an OCD flow chart--each box:to each room:from/to each house—which was trashed once the Navy drove a stake through the heart of my sun, sand and surf dreams (a.k.a. Los Angeles). Once Wyoming became real, a few choice words and scowls later, we began house hunting and trying to build a base before we began trekking cross country. Little did we know that the cost of living in Cheyenne is outrageous and our allowances from the Navy haven’t been updated to meet the increase caused by new money to the area. We narrowed our search to seven properties and are anxiously waiting for the opportunity to view them. Only three had pictures, and two of them are tiny compared to our previous two houses—ex. Out house in Florida was approx.. 2000 sq. ft. and our townhome in Wilmington was 1400 sq. ft. and the two that are closest to our housing allowance are 850 sq. ft. and 950 sq. ft. My furniture wouldn’t even come close to fitting in that space. We had to wait on orders to make any future progress, so to fill the days we had many playdates and spent lots of time at the pool and the beach (which y’all know is going to be the hardest part about moving away.. THE BEACH).

                                    

                            

                           

After months of agonizingly slow progress, Monday June 11^th we got our golden to ticket—a mere four days after the news of going to Wyoming—the orders we needed to get the ball rolling finally came through. Now only 6 days later we have:

*arranged temporary housing for 10 days once we get to WY *packed our house into an 18ft. block in a semi-trailer and the remainder is packed between an immaculate trailblazer and a towed Jetta that is bursting at the seams with the help from some pretty incredible people—especially the Taggert crew, Dan, and Bryan.

*Scrubbed, painted, repaired and kissed goodbye to the 1400 sq. ft. we’ve lived in the longest

*bid our teary farewells to family and friends across the beautiful state that is North Carolina—the hardest part of being in America’s “Frontier Navy”

*Loosely planned our roadtrip with short stops in Raleigh (I know, I know—it was Father’s Day weekend after all) Eden, Louisville—inspired by a decade + of derby parties, Kansas City—both Missouri and Kansas for a night and a full day at Great Wolf Lodge to placate the munckins and then the final leg to good ‘ole tumbleweeds and buffalo—Cheyenne.