Coming to Texas

---

Well, I'm not quite in the mood to be blogging about the trip down here with April, but I guess I need to now or I'll never want to do it! Ok.. sooo April and I left on Tuesday January 12th 2010 at about 2:30pm. It was supposed to be a lil earlier but my youngest brother had a lil hang up with his truck and I was just so nice to help him out with it. lol. Anyway, the two of us and Kubby of course headed down to Texas. We took 44 all the way to Oklahoma then took 35 down to McKinney Texas, which is a town on the outskirts of Dallas. Going through Oklahoma was absolutely ridiculous. I really do not appreciate that state and the toll roads. I think it's pretty much ridiculous to be able to put a toll road on an interstate. But I guess that's just my opinion. I will say this.. I am a terrible passenger! April can attest to that. I drove most of the way the first day which was like 10-11 hours. Then all the way the second day which was another like 9 or 10 hours. Surprisingly, I don't mind driving long distances like that. Like I said, I'm a horrible passenger and I'd rather be driving then I would riding. Although having April there was a godsend because I couldn't have made it that far the first night if she wouldn't have been there. Kubby handled the ride really well too. The second day he got a little bit more restless.. but considering that April about killed him the first night and then I the next day.. I'm sure if I were him I'd get restless too lol. I had a spot cleared in the back of my truck for him to have room to lay down and run around a bit. It was all good until we about got lost in Oklahoma and April slammed on the breaks to try to catch an exit... and all the stuff fell all over him, I'm really surprised that it didn't hurt him. But then I did it the next day, well a similar situation, I was hitting the breaks or something and all the stuff fell on him again. It wasn't good but it was actually kinda humorous, all I could see when I looked back was his little head sticking out from under all this stuff. Poor thing. Anyway, the second day when we could actually see what was going on in Texas I started making some interesting observations. First off, I had no idea how interesting the architecture was in Dallas. The overpasses are SO tall. I know it fits the stereotype of Texas ("everything is bigger") but it's still really neat. They tower over you as your drive up to them. Also, if anyone that does not live in Texas has ever met anyone from Texas they usually have this insane pride of Texas and most people I've met from Texas always seem to feel they are superior than anyone from a different state. Well it is obvious that everyone here has a huge pride for Texas. Within the architecture everywhere is their Lonestar symbol. In Dallas everything looks very nice and it all screams "YOU'RE IN TEXAS!!!" As we kept driving further and further South there was something else that I realized. This was the only state I have been in where more people are flying their state flag than the US flag. On top of that, individuals, businesses, schools, even banks that flew the state flag and the US flag.. would have both flags at level heights. Now, in Missouri it is illegal to fly the state flag at the same height or higher than that US flag, and I've been told it is a law because it is disrespectful to fly the state flag as high as the country's flag. It shows that the state is just as important or more important than the country as a whole. So I was kinda taken aback by all these institutions putting the Texas state flag at the same height as the US flag.. I really thought they were taking their state pride a little too far. I will note right here that since I've been in Texas I have learned that this is the only state (I think it's the only state anyway) where it is not illegal to fly the flags at the same height. I was told it is this way because Texas was its own entity at one time, like it's own country basically, so that is why. I also learned that most people in Texas do not know that other states have laws about the flags and how high you can fly them. Anyway, just an interesting tidbit of information that I found out while I was down here. Anyway.. back to the drive. Oh, as we drove further south we noticed spanish being more pronounced throughout the communities. April decided to ask the cashier at a McDonalds if it was required to be bilingual to work there (since the drive-thru menu had an english and spanish side)..April asked the attendent (who was clearly of latin descent) in spanish.. when the attendant looked at her like she was crazy..April asked her in english.. and the attendant still looked at her like she was crazy. lol it was quite hilarious, especially since when we pulled forward the cashier was talking to the drink lady at the 2nd window in spanish. Anyway, I have since found out that the lady was probably just astonished that a black girl knew spanish and didn't know how to respond. Apparently it kinda messes with people if you are not latin and you speak spanish, or if you are latin and you don't speak spanish. They give you blank looks and it takes them a minute to catch up to the conversation lol. So anyhoo. The drive concluded in Pharr Texas. We found a hotel and the next day we started apartment/house hunting. It is always an experience going to a completely new place, driving around looking at apartments and trying to find a place to live. You never have any idea if you are making a good decision, if you're in a good area, or if you're getting screwed or not. We asked the locals A LOT of questions about the surrounding areas. I was going to work in Pharr, but everyone said not to live there. Everyone said McAllen and Edinburg were the places to live. The Rio Grande Valley is an interesting place. It's basically one big city, but it's divided into like 4 cities, Pharr, McAllen, Edinburg, and Mission. The streets are continuous through the cities and so you're on a road and you could pass through basically all 4 cities and never change the street name or anything. So this is relevant because it basically just confused the crap out of April and I. We would see an apartment was on a street, but we wouldn't know whether it was Pharr, McAllen or somewhere else. All the things I heard about Pharr I didn't want to live there.. so it was difficult trying to figure it out. Lol and there aren't any city limit signs for real. On some streets but not others. It's kinda crazy. I ended up living in Edinburg. It's a little farther away from my work than McAllen, but it's where the college is and I figured I'd be able to meet more people my age this way. So as well as finding an apartment I had to find a furniture place that would rent me furniture and all the housewares to go into it. This was kind of a funny story. We had called one apartment place that said they could furnish the apartment. They give us the name of this girl, I think her name was Brandi or something like that, that would be furnishing the apartment. We asked her if she could provide furniture to different apartment complexes, she said that she would be willing to do that. So I was very excited because this opened up a ton of options for me. Plus it was very reasonable (like under 500 a month to furnish everything in my apartment, even down to bathroom rugs and silverware). So, we find an apartment on Thursday night (which was only a day of searching, that's right we busted it out!). So I'm so excited that I will be able to move into a place before I actually start work (which was Monday). So we call Brandi and she says she will try her best to get furniture and stuff in there on Friday. I also had to go get the electric and the water hooked up, as well as swing by my job to meet a couple of people. So April and I were so pumped that we found a place and everythign was falling into place, no repeats of Arkansas! Well Friday we get bad news. Brandi said that she wouldn't be able to get the furniture on Friday and the place she goes through does not deliver on the weekends. So obviously we were bummed. My company had sent me a couple of numbers of places that provide furniture and housewares as well... so I decided to call and see if I could get something comparable in price that would deliver on the weekends. Well, the first number I called, I'm talking to the guy, and I give him the address and he was like "oh have you been in contact with Brandi?" uh... what? Wow... I just called the company that Brandi was going through, awesome! I can at least cut out the middle man even if I don't get my furniture on the weekend right? Well I talk to him for a second, he transfers me to someone else, I tell her what my situation is and she decides that she has no problem sending her crew out on Saturday to deliver my furniture! Score! So I put my order in and April and I are so excited. When Brandi called back, she was not so excited about the ordeal. haha. Oh well, it's business, and I wouldn't have had to call around if she could have gotten it done on Saturday. Anyway. The ONLY real snag that I had moving this time was that my electricity was not turned on until Monday. That was no good. But Saturday afternoon after the guys dropped off the furniture, and cleaned everything, and filled up my pepper shaker with individual pepper packets (LMAO), April and I headed to South Padre Island (again, April, that is South Padre Island haha). It was not the warmest day. Actually the weather was not that great while April was here, cloudy and kinda cold, but still in the 50's and 60's. I think it even got up to the 70's while she was here. Which considering it was like a windchill of -10 or something when we left Missouri, we were LOVING the weather. Anyway, we went to the beach and walked around for awhile. Kubby was pretty hilarious with it. He barked and chased everything, he didn't really know what to think. But he was very playful and cute with it. Although he did get irritating with the birds. It was funny to let him run at them when they were all chillin on the ground, but when he was chasing them as they flew around.. not so fun. lol. Even though it was really stressful those times when April was here, I think we both really benefited from the journey together. Seeing the ocean again.. man it was awesome. Crazy, I had just gotten off my cruise 8 days before.. but I already missed the ocean and it's just amazing calming effect it has on me. So now I am living happily in a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment with a fenced in patio in a gated community about 20 minutes from my job. Kubby likes it too, there are a lot of dogs in this neighborhood so I can let him bark and explore and no one really cares 😊 I guess that is all I will write about the drive down here. Although there is so much more. It was a crazy experience, and it really helped me get back to me. I had kinda lost that somewhere along the line, but I'm back to it now. And hopefully with frequent visits to the ocean it will stay that way. I am calm here, and I feel like I can be myself and fit in just fine (even though I am definitely a minority). Oh April and I went to a dance club too on Saturday night, which surprisingly enough I found out later that the club we chose to go to was supposedly not in the safest area lol. We made it in and out just fine and there weren't any metal detectors at the door or anything. We drove downtown McAllen after we left the club.. it was kinda crazy lol. It is basically one street full of bars and clubs and everyone cruises up the street over and over and talk to people in the cars. There were a lot more people than I expected to see there. I'm pretty excited to go again and actually do more than just drive around a little bit lol. We had to get to bed though because April had to be at the airpor at like 6am for her flight back to St. Louis. Too bad she didn't wake up until 5:40am or so and I lived like 20 minutes from the airport lol. So trying to get her ready and out the door and then to the airport was CRAZY. She almost missed her flight, when she checked in the lady was like "well you can try to get through security real quick, but you might not make your flight" It was pretty intense for like 15 minutes until I got her text that she made it. 😊 Whew! Good thing it was too early to be crowded and it's a small airport anyway. So anyway.. that was the trip down. I will write more about my job and my adventures around here. I am going to upload some pics of Kubster at the beach too. 😊 he's fun.

---