Friday night we had a welcomed visit
from Brandon and Olivia. They dropped in to see if there was anything
they could help us with. It was really nice to see them one last time
before we left, and they were gracious enough to promise to look
after the house until it sold. You'll never know how much we
appreciate that!!
So, there were some hectic preparations
and last-minute packing going on that night, until we were just too
tired to anything more for the night. There was always Saturday
morning to get it all done. We'd only have to hit the road at noon.
Well, it was a good plan, until life happened. Steve, our realtor had
said he'd come by at 9 to finalize our paperwork. Which he did, on
the hour. He was also going to take some pictures, but seeing as
everything was still in disarray, he thought it best to come back
later with the camera.
When Steve left, we realized there was
no way we could hit the noon time-limit. Chuck would still need to
make one final run to the storage, and there was still packing and
cleaning to do. It must've been closer to 2 or 3 when we finally said
Goodbye to our dear house, a home that we lovingly built for
ourselves, for years to come. Nothing ever goes quite as planned.
Like all good plans, there's something
called life to mess with them. See, AT&T had over eagerly cut off
our internet connection 2 days earlier. Therefore we didn't get a
chance to google our way to Arkansas, and in my infinite wisdom, I
had either packed away or tossed all of our US maps and our
GPS-thingy. Well, off to a Best Buy we go. We hijacked one of their
puters and set coordinates to Little Rock AR.
When we finally got on the road, after
visiting the storage space again, it was closer to 5, and we still
had a 7-hour drive ahead of us. Oh Joy! It wasn't going to be pretty,
seeing as we had woken up so early too. To my great relief, and pride
, Chuck persevered through headaches, muscle pains, and exhaustion,
and we found our way to La Quinta Inn at Otter Creek at around
midnight. (I sooo didn't want to drive at night!)
The hotel was a little iffy; it needed
some maintenance and updating. It also looked like some shady
business was going on in the parking lot; cars standing, people
standing next to the cars and talking to them. Ok, ok, it looked like
all the drug-dealing scenes from tv and movies. Some of the people
staying there were a little unfriendly-looking as well. There were
also a few police cars on the scene. But our night was good, and even
Kaleb behaved himself. The lady manager of the hotel e-mailed me
later saying that they are doing whatever they can to make it a
better place.
Then on Sunday morning we took our
bearings towards Houston, TX, our final destination before saying
goodbye to the USA. We made a few stops on the way. The best food was
close to Houston, on highway 59. I think it was called Brown's Grill
(or something). One final BBQ feast before Nicaraguan food.
After a long day we finally arrived at
our Red Roof Inn by the airport. Very simple and sparse, but we
didn't need much. It was an easy drive both to the airport and
downtown. See, we still had to get Kaleb's paperwork approved by the
Nicaraguan consulate. I had heard that maybe it wasn't necessary, but
after what happened, I thank God I got it done!
I had been calling the Nicaraguan
Consulate for about 2 weeks, without no one even picking up. I was a
little uncertain what if anything we would find in Houston. We just
decided to find the place and demand an appointment. It took us a
while to find this office building, but lo and behold, there was a
Consulate there! The dude who handled the paperwork didn't speak much
English, and my Spanish is - rusty would be too good of a word to
describe it, but we got everything done, paid our $30 and were done
with Kaleb-related paperwork and we both got a haircut (not that
these 2 tasks are related in any way). We went to eat at Simo's Diner
(great food) and I sported my new bob. We were ready to fly out to our
new life the next day. I do wish it was that easy, but nothing good
ever is, is it.
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