Welcome to Lawton

So our first full day in Lawton (Thursday) was a little less than glamorous.

I had a pretty positive outlook about moving.  In my mind, when I thought about moving, I referenced my move to Columbus.  Lots of people complained about Columbus, and I didn't think that it wasn't that bad.  When people complained about Lawton, I just thought--Oh, it won't be that bad.  I didn't even worry.  After my first 4 hours here, I began to think that not worrying was a huge mistake.  :/

Just kidding.

But, we had a bad day.  A really bad day.

We started with our Plan A: Going to the on-post housing office with the resolve to sit there until they gave us on-post housing.  We were pretty confident with this plan as  1) We knew there was a lot of housing on Ft. Sill and 2) We thought that telling them that we are volunteering to take a station here would make them like us more...or something.  It didn't work.

So we left post and began exploring our list of rental properties.  I've never seen so many outdated, smoky, dumpy, wallpapered houses--with doors rotting and cracked windows/glass doors (thank you, wind storms) in my life.  We ended the day less than discouraged.

That evening, after stuffing ourselves with comfort foods at The Cracker Barrel, we drove around to explore a few more neighborhoods.  The sky turned horribly black and the wind started blowing so fiercely that everything was flying through the streets.  (Everything=paper, clothing (why?), dirt and hail.)  And we made it back to the hotel just before the tornado sirens started going off.  Did I mention that it was a bad day?

After crying, praying, and remember that God does have a plan for us, we set out to continue the search on Friday. 

We have found a few places that could work, but nothing that we feel great about yet.  A number of the places would require us staying in a hotel for another couple of weeks until the house is available, etc.

The good news is that last night we met up with our friends, Beasley & Charli, from Fort Benning.  Beasley is currently in the Captain's Career Course.  Seeing them was like seeing Americans in Paris...I wasn't sure if I should cry or just kiss their feet.  We've had so much fun with them and they've been so gracious to let us crash at their place.  They've also taken us to some great restaurants in Lawton.  Tonight we went to a place that was featured on The Food Network...who would have thought?  More on that later.

For now, it's back to house hunting.