Ready or Not... Here comes Life!

Well, about five days ago, I arrived in San Antonio, Texas.  Four days ago, I applied for a job with Travelocity and got a call back and initial phone interview that evening.  Three days ago, I did an in person interview and that evening got an offer from them to become a sales agent with their company.  Yesterday, I got my confirmation email and took a drug test, that I of course past.  Today, I finished my online paper work and submitted it, printed additional paper work to fill out tonight, saw an apartment with immediate availability that will let me have Bloomers and Chris, it is small but clean.  I sometimes think that life moves really fast for me.  When I talk to people about this move to San Antonio they are a little shocked at how quickly it is happening but I think that I am just making up for all the time I used to find this place.  I wonder if I had spent less time finding this place, if things would be moving slower.  Is God just being really nice to me or am I being set up to fail?  I like to think that this is just a blessing because God knows that I need one.  Maybe it is naive but I still think God cares about me enough so that when I can't figure it out on my own, He sends me a little help.  So I am going with, Thank You God!  As for San Antonio, I don't think it has hit me yet that I will be living here.  Today, I was thinking about this weird woman dancing by the Alamo when I was there and it hit me that I am still in that city!  The city with the weird woman is the city that I am in right now!  This may sound crazy but I had started to think that I was just going to end up back in South Dakota and that I would never get out.  I don't think that there is anything wrong with South Dakota, don't take that wrong, I will always love it but if you spent your whole life saying that you wanted to leave and you had never made it you would understand.  It isn't South Dakota so much as it is wanting the potential of somewhere else.  I wanted to try to live somewhere new and different.  I will hope for the best here.  This city has more people in it than the state of South Dakota so I just hope not to disappear into it.  I really want to meet some nice people and start making friends.  Wish me luck, please everyone.  I just might need some.

Well... This may be it!

I am in San Antonio, Texas and I may just end up living here.  Why you ask am I picking San Antonio?  Mostly because I am just about out of money.  That isn't the only reason though.  This morning it rained.  That may seem like a silly reason but when you are me and it rains in the middle of a draught where you are at, you take that as a sign from God and just hope that He wasn't saying this place is super depressing, move on.  Last reason?  I applied for a job this morning and got a call back this afternoon.  I interview tomorrow and if it works out I start work on Monday.  If that isn't a sign I don't know what one would be.  As for San Antonio, this isn't really where I expected this trip to lead me.  It is hot and dry here and those are not my two favorite things.  Part of what I loved about Oregon was that its cool and wet but here I am in Texas.  I can't complain too much though.  It is November and I'm able to wear shorts, the Alamo was nice, other great parks and if I say I am from San Antonio people know where that is on the map.  The things I like the most about where I am are the hostel that I am staying at and Church's Chicken.  The San Antonio International Hostel is gorgeous.  It is an old mansion that they converted in to a hostel and in the busier season I think it is a bed and breakfast.  For $25, I get to stay in a room with a really nice bed and tonight I will be relaxing in a claw foot bath tub.  That is what I call value.  As to Church's Chicken, I was hungry and I figured that it would be a shame to not eat fried chicken.  I choose Church's because of all the people in the parking lot.  I went in and a nice lady told me that the special was a leg and a thigh for a dollar!  I got it and am now ruined.  It was exquisite!  The best chicken I have ever eaten!  So, if I get a job tomorrow, I will stay and live in San Antonio.  If I don't, I will leave.  At this point, it is up to God!  Do your best for me Big Man!  Please?

Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns

Roswell was fun.  The International UFO Museum and Research Center is strange to say the least.  There are tons of displays of "evidence" supporting that a alien craft crashed in a field nearby and a large collection of art and such of what the aliens would have looked like and what they look like in the popular imagination.  Along with the evidence of the Roswell crash there is support of alien life forms interacting this us in other forms.  IE abductions, ancient civilizations, crop circles and flying saucers.  All you would expect from the place.  Only cost $5 to got in and had free WiFi so it was all was good.  Overall, the town of Roswell, New Mexico is cute and dry.  Pretty much what you would expect from a desert city.  The village, what the signs say instead of city in New Mexico, is larger than expected and the people in this state have been some of the friendlyest I have met so far.  Today, after buying a fanny pack at Walmart, I headed to Carlsbad Caverns.  This place would have been worth the money but since it was covered by my federal parks pass it was free to get in for myself and the two random strangers that I met in line and haven't seen since.  My pass cover three people so I shared.  It is beautiful down in that cave.  The big room is a little over a mile of walking but not really strenuous and has tons of great formations.  I didn't do any of the ranger led tours.  The big room and the original entrance are self guided and were enough for me.  I went down the elevator, walked very slowly around the big room loop, went up the elevator, then walked down the original entrance that smells rather strongly of what I'm sure is bat poop, around the big room loop very quickly then up the elevator.  I thought about trying to walk up the original entrance but two things prevented me from doing it.  One, it was too late when I got back to the main room and two, it was over a mile walk going up a 20% grade 750 feet.  Down was good enough.  I highly recommend coming to the caverns though because as cool as the caves in the hills are this one is a totally different experience.  I'm told that the ranger led bat show is awesome but it is only from May to October when the Mexican flat tail bats are migrating to this area but the bats are mostly in Mexico now.  They still let you sit and watch the bats come out, I saw at least five, but there is no range there to answer questions.  They told me that the colony of bats that live there in the summer is from 250,000 to 500,000 bats strong, which is why the entrance is covered in poop and smells funky. Anyway, this place was splendid and it was an experience that I loved.  Oh, and I almost forgot to say, Carlsbad Caverns has flush toilets in the cave.  Yes folks, flush toilets 750 feet below the surface.  How could I not love them?  Off to Texas tomorrow.  Lone star state, prepare yourself.

Taos and Santa Fe

Well, I did pass briefly through Colorado but since the only thing I did there was buy gas I'm not counting it.  On my arrival in Taos, New Mexico I found that it is an easy place to be homeless.  Yeah.  I slept at the Walmart and then showered at the Youth and Family Center.  Total expense.$2.  Yep. Cheap persons dream and of it hadn't gotten down to 20 degrees that night it would have been perfect.  While in Taos I visited the Pueblo village and took a tour from I nice young man.  You do have to pay to go into the village and there is an additional fee to take pictures but the tour was free.  I learned a lot including the fact that I am way too fair skinned to wander around with out sun screen on in New Mexico.  Yep, I was nice and rosie by the time I left.  I went downtown in Taos as well.  I will just say that there are a lot of art galleries and leave it at that.  That afternoon I drove to Santa Fe where I stayed at a nice little hostel and made my decision to go to Roswell.  Nice staff lady and hot shower make for a happy Emily.  I walked around a really cute little neighborhood and talked to a nice man who made Santa Fe sound like a great place to live.  This morning I woke up to a white world.  I think it is a bit funny that the only places it has snowed on me are both in deserts.  Anyway, I got to Roswell today and to town is really quite cute and the UFO Museum, there is only one, is cheap and a strange mix the serious on the crazy.  Having fun.  How you are as well.  Until next time...

Home.

For the first time, when I woke up today all I wanted was to be home with my family or settled down.  I thought of just stopping and staying where I was and the thought didnt sound half bad.  It may sound odd but even when I was in Oregon and thinking of settling there I kept going because I wanted to know what would come next.  Today, I woke up and just didn't care anymore.  All I wanted this morning was to sleep in a bed that was all mine, to go to a job and not need to think about finding one and to not get on my car again for a very long time.  Thank God I'm super stubborn!  Not even I am allowed to stand in my way.  So I got up and toured around Taos, New Mexico and moved on to Santa Fe.  I will love my new home and I will know it.  I will not give up...

Utah gave me PMS!

Okay, that isn't true but I didn't really like just about everything about Utah.  My friends that where sure that I would get stuck in Utah where wrong about that.  My Utah visit can be broken in to two parts: Salt Lake City and Arches National Park.

Salt Lake City:

I would be lying if I said the people here aren't friendly but that is also part of this places problem for me.  EVERYONE was super friendly to me.  It kind of freaked me out!  The people here where a little on the pushy side and that is okay but it seemed like everyone that I met in Salt Lake wanted to be my best friend and I am just not comfortable with that.  I am a friendly person but this was overdone even for me.  Example?  At the hostel I stayed at, clean but kind of creepy because people live here instead of just staying as they pass through, some guy sat down and started chatting with me.  This I am okay with chatting, chatting is normal.  The part where it gets weird is where after about 5 minutes of acquaintance he asks where I'm from and if he can come visit me there.  He never asked my name!  I pointed this out and he said he was getting to that, so I politely excused myself and spent to rest of the night hiding in my room, that was really my roommates room since she had her dresser, mini fridge and her stuff was everywhere.

Arches National Park:

This place might have been able to redeem Utah if the campground had had showers.  I think that if I am going to have to pay $25 to get in the park and another $20 to camp that you should provide showers.  Everywhere else I stayed that I paid more than $15 to sleep at I got I nice hot shower for my money.  Sure I don't expect Walmart to provide me with a shower but I don't have to pay to sleep there.

The good stuff:

Now that I have complained extensively about the things I didn't like, which is why I say it gave me PMS (I feel super bitchy), I will say that Utah was Beautiful.  It took all that stark vastness that is Nevada and made it wonderful by allowing me to get closer than I would have thought possible.  In Arches National Park you are able to hike right up to these wonderful natural monuments and see how large and wonderful they really are, making you feel small and insignificant.  In Salt Lake City you can take a tour of the Conference Center and if the weather is nice go up and the roof and see this great garden that is planted there.  I highly recommend it.  You can also go up in the Business Building and have great views of the city.  Wandering Temple Square is fun but fair warning to all my non LDS friends, there are a lot of missionaries there.  All the LDS tours are free and the guides didn't try to push and agenda that I could see but answers are given from the Churches perspective, so you might just want to let them have there way, these are the churches buildings and I would advice at least respecting that no matter your views on the church.