Since December 20th, it was almost like a game to ask where in the world are the Morales's now. I am so sick and burned out on travel that it is ridiculous.
Myself and John stayed up all night leading up to our flight, and departed for Frankfurt International about 4:45 am. It was -2 F and it was snowing. When I stepped out to help John clean off our windshield before we got onto the Autobahn my wet hair...froze. After a rather uneventful trip and turning in our rent car we breezed through customs and boarded our first flight of the day. Which turned out to be delayed. Which made it our most peaceful flight and airport experience.
Oh yes. We had 2 layovers..one in Dublin, the other in Chicago with Chicago being the longest at 1.5 hours. Can we detect an issue here already? We ran through Dublin and customs, and barely made our second flight of the day. Which..turned out to be delayed as well. We almost didn't make our last flight of the day except for the kindness (yes, TSA can be kind) of a TSA screeners heart. She had seen our assault packs and made a call in that screening checkpoint (the line was literally an hour long) for all active duty military to come up to the front. It was just us, and another Morales (unrelated) that came forward and were sent on our happy way. After running for our flight, we sat back in relative satisfaction until Denver.
In Denver we reclaimed our luggage, met up with Deb and John Sr and began the long trek and drive to Mesa, AZ. In those few days myself and John switched countless timezones, traveled 40+ hours, and got varying levels of sleep.
Christmas with the Morales's was awesome. Thank you guys for your hospitality again, and it was so fun to just chill with his parents. We flew out December 28th for my hometown, and spent a few days there before flying back on the 31st. I enjoyed getting to spend time with my parents and family although there is so much to get done in moving of my stuff to El Paso.
It was another long drive to El Paso on the 1st. It took us about 6-7 hours (we caught the wrong highway at first) to drive through pure desert. There were even signs warning of possible dust storms up ahead!
Our first weekend here we got American cell phones (yipee!) and kind of explored around El Paso. The post...is huge. The city...is even more huge...and there is mountains surrounded by lots and lots of flatness so El Paso seems to sprawl out over the southwestern portion of Texas and into Mexico.
There is still so much that needs to be done. Housing, inprocessing, registering for school, doctors appointments for me, moving our stuff down here...that sometimes I wonder if we will be settled here soon...or if it will take half a year to get everything accomplished. My impatience to get things accomplished isn't even helping the situation very much either.
It was "fun" for me to read about your trip from Germany to the good 'ol USA! And, it was great to see you guys again and you seemed so happy and laid back... Well, El Paso isn't that far away and we hope to see you from time to time. Good Luck in getting settled in Sooner than Later. Love you, Grandma Morales
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