Getting Settled...

We're getting somewhat settled into our apartment in Escondido. Becky chose some of our stuff to be put into long term storage and some to come to the apartment. I think we're finding that more stuff should have gone into storage. Our house in St Louis had a great deal of space. Our apartment in Escondido does not. Moving is always an eye opening experience - finding out how much stuff you have accumulated - a lot of which you could probably do without. Anyhow, the picture to the right is Stephen standing on the deck at the entrance to our 2nd story apartment. The fact that it's on the 2nd story is significant as I'll explain later.

The moving truck arrived promptly at 8AM to bring our stuff. It was one of those really big 18-wheeler rigs. The moving company had called ahead and asked if they would be able to get the truck to our apartment. The lady in the apartment office assured me that they have trucks like that come through all the time and there shouldn't be a problem. Well... she was wrong. The truck could not even make it through the entrance to the complex, much less make it down to where our apartment is at the back of the complex. So, the movers decided they would need to bring a second, smaller moving truck to ferry our stuff from the big truck, to the small truck, to our apartment.

Since I needed to get to work, they went ahead and unloaded my car while awaiting the smaller truck. That went just fine and around 10AM, I left for work. I had a meeting at 11 so I couldn't wait any longer. At 12:30, after my meeting ended, I called Becky. They were still waiting for the small truck to arrive so they could start unloading. I'm sure they must have been getting frustrated. Eventually, they were able to get everything moved in. When I came home from work that night, the scene to the left is what greeted me. The apartment which, the day before, seemed to have lots of open space, now had walking trails winding through stacks and stacks of boxes. All except for one rather large item.

Remember how I said that the apartment was on the 2nd floor? Well, that was not our preference. In fact, Becky had told me to make sure we got one on the ground floor. Things don't always go as you would want. No first floor apartments were available so, 2nd floor it is. The movers took a look at the steps and the landing leading up to the deck and said, in no uncertain terms, that they were not going to move Becky's piano into the apartment. It was going to go into storage unless we wanted to pay a piano mover to bring out a crane and lift the piano up to the deck. We called the movers and they were not at all encouraging about the prospects of success, so we resigned ourselves to having the piano stored away.

Below are some pictures from our apartment. From these, you can get a picture of where we live.


We've made some progress unpacking, but not a lot. There are more important things than unpacking boxes - like going to Sea World, BBQ's on the beach, Six Flags Magic Mountain, surfing, and taking Stephen camping. But, hey, that's stuff for another blog entry - maybe.

I keep hoping that the realtor will call us and say, "Hey! Good news! I sold your house today!" So far, that hasn't happened. We're praying and trusting God and waiting on Him. I'm certain His timing will be perfect. Please, keep us in your prayers.

Allen

Something new on the blog...

Hi, everyone. I've added something new to the 'Life Part Two' blog. As you may remember, Becky and I wanted this blog to keep connected with our friends and family all around the world. And that has been happening. To date, people have read our blog from 6 countries including China, Boliva, South Africa, St Vincent/Barbados, Kazakhstan and, of course, the United States.

I have added a feature to the blog which will, hopefully, make this thing work even better. On the left side of the screen, you'll see a place to register your email so that you will automatically be notified of updates. This is a totally free thing and really easy to do. All you have to do is enter your email address and click 'Submit'. Feedburner will then ask you to confirm that you are a real person who wants to subscribe. A window will open with a series of letters. Enter the correct letters in the entry space and Feedburner will then send you an email to request confirmation that your address is correct and that you are actually the person who is subscribing. Once you receive the email, click on the provided link and you're done.

Feedburner assures me that you will not be receiving any spam or other unwanted emails. This is a reputable company providing a real service. Many other blogs use them for this same service and it seems to work well. You'll only receive emails when we update the blog. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Give it a try.

By the way, I also have the blog setup to automatically notify me by email whenever any of you posts a comment. Feel free to write whatever and keep in touch. Be assured that we will receive your input and be glad to hear from you. At the same time, anyone else who reads the blog will be able to see your input as well, so we all stay connected. Pretty cool, huh?

And finally, yes, a new blog entry is coming soon. I hope...

Allen

Driving back to San Diego…

So, after our weekend in Phoenix, we made the drive back through Yuma and into San Diego. The part of the drive from Phoenix to Yuma is... well… pretty plain. It’s mostly just mile after mile of desert dotted with cactus, sage brush, and lots and lots of sand, oh, and lots of “Land for Sale” signs. Just after you leave Yuma, however, it starts to get interesting. There is an area called the Imperial Sand Dunes. This area is only a 3 or 4 miles wide but is several miles long. It’s just big mountains of sand as far as you can see. There is a scene in the 3rd Star Wars movie where Jabba the Hut takes Luke and Leia into the desert to feed Luke to the sand worms, or something like that. This scene was filmed in these sand dunes just outside Yuma. That's Jabba's ship in the photo. The Star Wars team wanted to donate the $2-million dollar prop to the city of Yuma, but the city didn't want it. So, they chopped it up and burned it.

Anyway, when we got to the sand dunes, Stephen and I couldn’t resist stopping to play a little. In fact, I told him, when we left Phoenix, that we'd stop to play in a really, really BIG sand box. He was excited.

It was HOT, but it was a dry heat so it wasn’t so bad. We started climbing up one of the dunes and found it very hard going. 3 steps forward, one step back. We played around, running down massive hills of sand, making sand avalanches by stomping on the ground, and generally just being silly. At one point, I ran down into a valley and didn't know if I'd be able to walk back up one of the walls to get back it. With Stephen's help ("Come on, Dad. Get up here!"), I was able to make it back out, short of breath and sweating like a... well... alot.

Becky and her mom waited for us back at the car. At one point, the border patrol honked and blew their siren but I don’t think they meant us. Whether they did or not, we just kept going and they didn’t come arrest us, so I guess all is well. Here are a couple of pictures of Stephen and I on one of the large dunes.


After the dunes, there is a fairly large stretch of road flanked on both sides by farmland – lush green farmland. That’s right – farmland in the desert. Farmers grow a lot of crops there because they can get in 3 full growing seasons each year. They actually like the fact that it seldom rains, because they can better control the irrigation of their fields for efficiency and crop growth. They grow such things as soybeans, barley, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, rapeseed (from which we get canola oil), and even some melons. I’ve been told that the Imperial Valley, as this area is known, actually produces 80-90% of the lettuce consumed in this country.

After the farmlands, we come to my favorite part of the trip - the Laguna Mountains at the eastern edge of San Diego County. Heading into these mountains, you start out actually below sea level. In a few miles, however, you will be almost 5000 feet above sea level driving among boulders as big as houses. The mountains are covered in rocks of all sizes – millions of them. One of my favorite things in this stretch of roads is a highway sign that says, “Watch for Rocks”. Not “Watch for Falling Rocks” but just “Watch for Rocks”. Stephen and I had fun pointing out the windows saying, “There’s one. There’s another, and another over there.” Ok, maybe a bad joke but when you're driving through these mountains, you’d have a hard time missing the rocks. Check out the pictures I’ve included.
When you first start to enter the mountains, from the desert on the east side, it could be 100 degrees outside. When you get out of the mountains, on the San Diego side, however, you’re back into the lower 70s. It’s a very dramatic climate change right there and you can clearly see it on a Google Map satellite image.

Well, we made it to San Diego later than we had planned so we did not make it to the new apartment in Escondido. We stopped at my company-provided temporary housing and rested. In the morning, on July 28, a big 18-wheeler carrying our household goods would arrive promptly at 8AM to start unloading... but that's another story coming soon.

Allen

A Weekend in Phoenix

Becky and Stephen made it to San Diego last Sunday, July 27th. Actually, Becky, Stephen and Becky’s Mom flew to Phoenix on Friday the 25th and I drove to Phoenix to pick them up at the airport. Yes, I know that’s a long way to drive to the airport and yes, they do have an airport right here in San Diego. Here’s the deal - Becky’s sister Cathy lives in Phoenix with her husband, Tim, and 5 year old daughter Phoebe. We were going there to visit with them.

The drive from San Diego to Phoenix wasn’t too bad. 355 miles through some very nice scenery (which I’ll tell about in my next blog entry). The drive took me through Yuma, Arizona. I’m very familiar with Yuma because, back in 1995-1997, I did a lot of work there upgrading a laser used by the Army to track aircraft and other objects which fly (or fall) through the air. Yuma has changed a little, but it still was very familiar to me. It was kinda’ fun to visit there again. On the way back, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant in Yuma that I used to really enjoy when I was working there. I had told Becky about it many times saying it was the best Chinese food I’d had. Well, after all the hype, the place had really gone downhill and it was not a very pleasant experience. Oh, well. I guess in 11 years, things can change a lot.

So, back to the story…

As I was saying, we went to Phoenix to see Becky’s Sister Cathy. Actually, we planned the trip so that we could be there for Phoebe’s 5th birthday party on Saturday. Phoebe did not know we were coming and was very surprised when she answered the door and Stephen was there saying “Hello”. She was really excited, I think. Her party was fun – 17 kids were invited. Cathy and Tim brought in Jungle Jill the animal trainer to entertain the kids. She brought with her all kinds of animals including a monitor lizard, Colorado bullfrog, a long-haired rabbit, a silky chicken and, just for fun, a rather large boa constrictor. The kids really seemed to love it. Here’s a picture of Phoebe holding the boa.

Phoenix was hot – over 110 degrees during the day. At night, it cooled down some - enough to be outside for a little bit without sweating too much. It was good, though, because it really made me appreciate the weather in San Diego that much more. It’s monsoon season in Arizona and, in the evenings, there were some really amazing sunsets and cloud formations. In the distance, you could even see it raining, although the rain never reached us.

It was a good visit. We had a pleasant time together. Stephen and Phoebe got to play together and had a lot of fun.

Oh, I almost forgot. Liz Kiernan, an old friend from Chatham Youth Group days, drove down from Bullhead City, Arizona to be at Phoebe’s party. That’s a 5-hour drive for her. Liz has been a great friend to Becky and me and had gotten to know Tim, Cathy, and Phoebe from her time in college in Lincoln, Nebraska. Tim and Cathy lived in Lincoln, briefly. When they needed someone to watch Phoebe a couple of times, Becky connected them with Liz and it worked out great. Liz is sooooooo good with both Phoebe and Stephen. She really has a great way of communicating with young children and it was a joy to see her interacting with them.

We all had a good time, and Sunday morning, we packed the car and headed to San Diego… that story will be in the next entry.

Allen