El Paso we are here, Ft Bliss what the Heck?!?

Final day of driving went well – but Ft Bliss was gonna cause trouble for us.  We were on the housing list since May BUT they had us on the wrong list, even though Hubby called 2x to correct it SO on Thurs the 11th when we called from Odessa (one day out from Ft Bliss) a helpful person told spouse, "there is no housing left,  you have to find a place off post - the wait is 4-6 months". Being a man he hung up, claiming there was nothing more he could do. Worried about the fall out from me, he didn't tell me until midday.  I was upset, and called back (Fri morning) asking to speak with the person in charge of SGM Academy (USASMA) housing - of course I got to leave a voice mail. To her credit the manager called me back that afternoon. I asked how the military expects me to find my own housing for a 10 month program, and why if I was on the list since May I didn't get housing? Magically a unit appeared - then she said, “so you will take it?” (it was a different housing area and 'just across the street' from where we were supposed to go - - um, no, I won't take it without seeing it, when can we meet Sat? Oh, we don't work Sat. So we have hotel reservations through Tue, at the on Post lodging. We drove past the tiny house in a neighborhood of young families with infants, on the other side of an 8 lane highway from where we were supposed to be - UM NO.

 On Monday, I went in alone and we discussed how it is their fault - but I haven't heard from you, she says. Are you telling me it is my job to harass you until I get housing? Well no, Around and around we went, then she realized - I have 7 people who were issued housing but have not accepted or returned my calls I will call them again and see if you can have one of these units. 20 minutes later we had housing in our area, 300 sq feet more than the other, good but it is one of the old units. I am happy it is in the housing area with the other USASMA families so we are all in the same boat. Now with an address we call for our house hold goods to get delivered, and they tell him, “I will have to call you back, but I can guarantee it won’t happen tomorrow.” Well this attitude made spouse mad, we aren’t crazy, we expected it to take about a week to get us in the schedule – I don’t understand why everyone here is angry, and not interested in helping. The next day transportation calls back to tell us it will take 3 weeks to delivery our stuff, it is here in storage, but they don’t have enough trucks or crews. Once again, the students know they are coming almost a year in advance – so why don’t you hire 2-3 temporary crews for the busy months when they arrive. BUT WAIT it gets better – we decide we really don’t want to sleep on air mattresses for 3 weeks and we try to extend, they said nope. I can’t blame them we gave a check out date and they took another reservation.  At ACS, Army Community Service, we went to the lending closet and got a Rubbermaid tote full of kitchen stuff, 2 air mattresses, and 2 sleeping mats. We had some blankets and 3 towels, lined up cable to get hooked up – no TV but we have computers.

We survived the 3 weeks, and now have our stuff. Next time more about the really cool city of El Paso.

Day 3 & 4 driving to Texas

Day 3 & 4 driving to Texas

So on day 3 we drive out of Memphis headed to Dallas.  We were refreshed and in good spirits, and we had packing and unpacking the van down to a science. Overall the grand adventure was going well, Big Girl aka Drama Queen had chosen to ride with her Dad each day and they were having fun. Monkey (little girl, but at 10 not so little), Hemi and Mooshu were with me in the van. Moo has taken to hiding in the morning, taking note of the packing activities and disappearing. This resulted in Hubby having to move a bed once and Big girl to poke Moo until he came out, once removed from his “spot” he walks into his crate, and waits for the van to start rolling then he “sings the song of his people” to me in protest. Big girl finds this funny (she came up with the song name) which I believe has to do with the fact that from the Charger she cannot hear Moo’s song.  Monkey spends her time on her Itouch and asleep, so I have become lonely.

I wanted to play an alphabet game and started enthusiastically telling Monkey about the rules, find a word with the letter – not just the letter on a license plate. Even with me yelling out the letters and cheering myself on, Monkey wouldn’t join me. I found the entire alphabet, J was the hardest letter to find, and returned to my NPR podcasts of Fresh Air, and Tell Me More.  The scenery was nice, since we were still in the green farming section of Texas. Lunch was at a Dairy Queen, with a large empty lot next to it for Hemi to walk. At lunch the girls decided to start using the walkie talkies we had and their Nintendo DSs to play with each other between the two vehicles. It was an interesting game, and it meant we needed the cars to stay closer to each other. We found the Ft. Worth Navy Lodge, and got the animals settled.

The Lodge was amazing, a nice room with a small kitchenette and a sliding glass door out back that opened onto a grassy area that lead to the Lake. Big girl stayed with the animals and we went to a Wal-mart to grab dinner and odds and ends. Dinner was fruit and sandwiches. Mike and I took Hemi for a walk beside the Lake it was a very nice night. We found a La Quinta in Odessa for the next night. A short drive so that we didn’t have a crazy long day – remember Mooshu can only hold it for so long.

As we drove toward Odessa the land scape changed to desert and became a bit more dramatic. We needed gas, and found a station (the only one for a quite a ways) it was very crowded, so gas then down the road to McDonalds. Well, after getting gas Hemi started barking from the back as we drove off – “Hey, I need out! Stop and let me potty!” I had to laugh, he is such a good boy no trouble at all up to this point – and even this was just letting me know what he needed. McDonalds had a big parking lot out back for trucks, I drove to the end where there was some green. This odd patch of weeds that had caught tons of blowing trash was the best I could find to walk my dog, I was looking for green so he would not burn his paws on hot pavement. This was gravel, weeds and trash and sadly still hot, the poor boy hopped on his paws as he did his business. Then we had our McDonalds, Big Girl wanted to stay in the van with the pets, she let Moo out to roam the van while she ate - he was a good kitty and returned to his crate before we returned to the road. As we drove up the on ramp, Monkey asked me about the big rocks along the road; “Why did they leave the rocks?” I had to explain that out here in the desert boulders are used for landscaping.

We found our Odessa Hotel and it was early enough for Monkey and I to have a swim before dinner. Hubby joined us at the pool and I found out that he had called housing and they told him, there is no housing for you, the wait list is 4-6 months long go find a place to live off post. At which point he hung up on the lady finding her rude and unhelpful. I was angry to say the least, and planned on calling the next day to get some better answers.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called Rosie’s. It was early so we left Hemi in the hotel figuring barking would bother anyone’s sleep, but I don’t think he barked any. The food was great, real Mexican food made fresh, even the tortillas were homemade. Our next stop is El Paso and the Ft Bliss lodging – hopefully we actually make it the or BUST part is starting to worry me. . . .