Thunderstorms, Camp Chairs and Missiles! Oh My!

It's been a wild and wacky couple of weeks for us as we settle into life in the desert. First, we've FINALLY found and "moved into" an apartment on the west side of town. It will serve as our base for the next few months as we go on the house-hunt. Unfortunately, it's going to be another week and a half before any of the stuff the Army moved for us gets delivered to our apartment. Until then, we're "camping" with sleeping bags, an air mattress, plastic dishes and reclining camp chairs! Here are couple of pictures of our redneck set-up ... until all our furniture is delivered.

Check out our AWESOME TV base!

Hanging out in our new camp chairs

We also got to experience our first couple of thunderstorms, complete with big lightning strikes, really loud thunder and hail the size of Atomic Fireballs. Thankfully, there has been no flash-flooding yet, but we must be close to the 8 inches of average rainfall for the area! However, rain here is nothing like we're used to. It rains for about 5 minutes and then it's gorgeous and sunny!

Finally, the first week we were here, Cam was invited out to the missile range to watch a small demonstration of Patriot Missiles. Check out the video below that Cam shot and produced (with theme music and everything!) First, there's a shot of the Patriot Missile launching platform truck, the first missile shot, the second missile shot, and (if you look closely) the small puff of smoke showing that the target was hit.

"Down in the west Texas town of El Paso ..."

... We DID NOT fall in love with a Mexican girl, like the old Marty Robbins song. In fact, after our first full 24 hours here, we hardly fell even in "slightly like" with El Paso. It definitely a change of pace from the Pacific Northwest, with desert landscape and temperatures reaching the high 80s! At least it's a "dry" heat...

The area does have some interesting topography. As you can see in the photo below, the Franklin Mountains sit right in the middle of the landscape and city. El Paso has grown on the east and west sides and meet around the southern edge of the hills.

Another "interesting" feature of the area: Juárez, Mexico is thisssssss close. As you drive through on Interstate-10, the city of El Paso is on the north side of the freeway and Juárez is directly south. El Paso and Juárez comprise one of the largest binational metropolitan areas in the world with a combined population of 2.5 million people. This little tidbit, however, does not entice us to cross over the border into one of the hotbeds of the Mexican drug wars. In fact, all military personnel are forbidden from visiting the city.

We are still in the process of getting all of the Army paperwork in order and trying to find a place to live. We are currently holed up in the Ft. Bliss Inn (converted barracks) and are frantically searching for an apartment or duplex around town. Thankfully, the inn has air conditioning which will come in handy when the temperatures spike in the 100s later this week. Good thing I packed some 1000 spf sunscreen (O.K. only 75 spf) to protect our lily-white Washington skin.

Journey to El Paso

It's been a long couple of days on the road for us, but we've finally made it to TX! We've been in 6 states (WA, OR, ID, UT, NM, TX) and watched the scenery change from desert to forest to mountain and back to desert. We've driven through clouds of bugs in ID and a tremendous thunderstorm outside of Moab, UT. We've eaten waaaaaaaaaaaay too much junk/fast food AND we're very thankful we have satellite radio!!! We've also nearly finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!

On Friday, after starting out with a nourishing Sputnut and goodbye hugs from Mom, we spent the day traveling through OR, ID and UT. We were able to stop by and see Cam's old BofA manager on our way through Boise and made it to Salt Lake City for our first night. It was interesting to see how this large metropolitan city had closed up shop so early on a Friday night. It was kind of difficult to find a place for dinner!

On Saturday, we made it to Albuquerque for our second night's stop. We saw the beautiful painted deserts of southern Utah/northern New Mexico. We passed the Arches National Park north of Moab, UT and would have stopped had it not been for the HUGE thunderstorm rolling through the area. We also bypassed the 4-corners site (even though it doesn't mark the "actual" 4-corners of the states) on our trek. We'll have to stop by and catch both of those again some other trip.

This morning, after a leisurely start, we made our way past interesting rock features in the desert of NM and finally crossed the state line into TX. On first blush, El Paso isn't as flat as people had promised me. There's a huge mountain/tall hill range running right through the middle of town. However, it is the desert, so there isn't a lot of color to be seen. I've also noticed that the roofs on all the houses are either flat or hardly sloped at all. Must not get a lot of snow around here???

For now, we're checked into an on-base hotel and will be staying until we find suitable accommodations (apartment/duplex/house) off post. We have a post office box on reserve and will email everyone our new address as soon as we get the number (hopefully tomorrow!)

One last Spudnut until our next visit to Richland, WA

A cool arch alongside the highway

Chimney Rock in northern NM

A sign we thought was hilarious! Too cooped up in the car, perhaps?

In the Land of Boxes

After weeks of not having enough information to plan ANYTHING, before we knew it, the movers were scheduled and we were well on our way to our new home. Thankfully, Cam remained in WA to facilitate all the moving activities while I spent my last two weeks at work.

Cam said that it was amazing to watch the packers work. On Monday and 1/2 of Tuesday, they managed to get all of our stuff in boxes and we got to spend Tuesday night living in the Land of Boxes. I was all ready to start building forts with all our boxes, but unfortunately, we had to clean up the house instead. On Wednesday, the movers loaded the huge moving truck in just under 2 hours (which included all the individual trips back and forth with a small van from our apartment to the truck parked up the street since the truck wouldn't fit down the driveway)!

While all this was going on at home, I was hard at work winding down my final days at PSNS. There was a lovely lunch out with practically the whole office and cake celebration on Wednesday for me, during which I received a very nice signed copy of a sub traversing the Puget Sound and my "Fully Qualified RCPE" certificate (finally!). It made Thursday all that more difficult to say good-bye. I made a lot of really good friends at the Shipyard and I hope that we'll be able to maintain our friendships through all the fun, new technology (email, Myspace, Facebook, etc.)

Tonight we're headed out on the first leg of our trip. We're spending the night with my parents in West Richland and hope to have time to see our friends' new house (which just happens to be right around the corner from my parents' house!) Tomorrow, we'll hit the road, bound for our first overnight stop at Salt Lake City. Please keep us in your prayers as we drive the 1700+ miles to El Paso.

More boxes! All the stuff on the bed is what's going with us in the truck!

Cam looking thrilled to be unhooking the washer and dryer

We have a Moving Date!

We finally know the WHEN and WHERE we will be moving on our first Army move! Cam's first duty station will be Ft. Bliss, located in El Paso, TX and our official move date is scheduled for April 30th. The relief of finally knowing the last part of the puzzle was soon replaced by the stress brought on by the thought of all the organizing, packing, and cleaning that must go on in the next two weeks! Good thing Cam's staying in Port Orchard until we move so that things will get done during the day while Kristy's at work. While we are very sad to be leaving the state that has been our home all our lives, but we are looking forward to the challenges of living in the desert.

Since we knew our last days in the Puget Sound were approaching, Cam and I decided to catch one last Mariners game. And boy did we pick a good one! Not only did we get to see the 400th homerun with the M's by the returned Ken Griffey, we even saw the very rare Ichiro grand slam. What a night!

Aren't we cute in our matching shirts?!