A few days ago, Nate, Todd and I left the cold and snowy Kansas City for a warmer (but only by 20 degrees) Enterprise, Alabama. The reason for this move, as many of you know, is because Nate begins the last phases of his flight school at Ft. Rucker. Now I know I said we are in Enterprise, but it is only five to 10 minutes away from the Ft. Rucker gate.
Sorry, I'm getting a head of myself by wanting to tell you about this little town. First, I will start with the move. We unloaded our storage unit in 2 feet of snow into a 14 ft. Uhal with help of Nate's younger brothers Tim and Ben. Let's just say their help was much apreciated because me + walking + ice/snow = not the safest/smartest thing in the world.
The next day we dug the car trailer out of the snow, loaded Nate's car onto it, loaded ourselves and hit the road. P.S. Todd got his own seat in the Uhal which he very much enjoyed.
The drive in total was 14 hours. We went through St. Louis then down through the West side of Kentucky and decided to stop in Nashville to break up the trip. This is where one of the best and funniest, at least in our heads, stories of the trip took place. We stopped to get gas right outside of Nashville. When we pulled in there was a car with about five or six punk-rock teenagers listening to music, talking and smoking and as soon we stopped so did they. One of the guys ran up to Nate all excited and asked if the stuff on the hood of the Uhal was snow. Nate said yes and they had a quick conversation about where we were coming from and where we were going. Next, this is the best part, the kid asked if he could touch it. He then asked if he could have some of the snow to make snow balls, Nate smiling, said yes and the kid and his friends had a mini snow ball fight in the parking lot of the gas station. I LOVED IT!
The next morning we got back on the road and a little after we crossed into the state of Alabama we started to see Confederate flags, trailers in the woods, and trucks compensating for egos. Then a little while later, we saw a huge..and I mean HUGE Confederate flag, then while passing it we read the sign that was below it, "Son's of the Confederacy." Nate and I just looked at each other. I guess that was the best way to welcome us to the South.
Throughout the rest of our Alabama drive we saw some more things that made us look at each other and smile that same way. Two of the other best things were as followed: A big sign reading "Find Jesus or the Devil Will Get You" and A guy walking around a cemetery with a shot gun in hand.
Now I can get to Enterprise and all of its glory. To start with the town is much better than Nate's last Army residence, it actually has a feel of Manhattan, KS only the Alabama version. So it's not that bad of a spot, except they don't have a Target or any bigger/nicer restaurants like Chili's.
As for the base, it has more of a national park feel than an Army base feel. I guess that's good for Nate because he goes there everyday. It also has a lake on it with cabins, fishing and areas to camp.
Finally, Nate, if you didn't get this already, is not living in base housing but in a town house with one of his Kansas National Guard buddies. The town home is really nice, cookie cutter, but nice. It is a three bedroom, two and a half bath, backyard, washer and dryer place. I helped Nate go through everything and helped make his room a home away from home. Todd also enjoys the town home because of the backyard where he runs around like a crazy puppy.
Speaking of pets...no we did not get another dog...but I got Nate a little fish tank for Christmas so he could have something relaxing to look at when he came home. We picked out the fish tonight and named them Thing 1 and Thing 2 (If you can't figure out where we got the name from I don't know if we can be friends any more).
As for his roommate, lets just say he talks a lot, I mean a lot. Hopefully Nate being here will help with the roommates social skills. What does Nate get out of the deal? That's simple, someone that is at least a phase a head of him in the whole process. That means Nate can help him study which in turn gets him head of the game.
Well I think those are all the major points I can think of at the moment. Now, Nate is still getting his paper work done and is expected to start the real stuff in a week or two. If you are wondering when he will be done, that's a good question. His orders say he will be done Sept. 30, 2011 but it really depends on how fast the Army can put their act together. As for me, I head back to Kansas City with Todd on Thursday to continuing teaching and working on many new endeavors, but more on that later.
For now Nate and I will be enjoying our last moments together until one of us can visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment