From Darla Mae
9.7.2020 and now… Some thoughts from Alabama
On August 28th I left the RV and flew from Portland, Oregon to Phoenix, Arizona where I met up with Nana to begin our adventure. Let me first say, I regret nothing. I do believe that if I had spent one more week in that god awful metal box our family might have shrunk from four to a mere three people. Also, I would like to make it clear that I did not leave because “there was no wifi” as my mother had taken to telling people. In fact, I don’t have WiFi where I am now either so there is your rebuttal to that.
After spending a day in Phoenix, me and Nana took off on our long journey to Monroeville, Alabama. Nana’s aunt died a little while ago and she decided to move into her old house here so she and I drove out with her dog Scout, and Papa will join us later. We drove three days in total, 9 hours the first day, 12 the second, and 4 the last making a grand total of 24 hours. We traveled through Arizona, New Mexico, lots of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and finally Alabama.
The day we got here Nana’s cousin, Billy, and four of his grandchildren (my fourth cousins or something like that who I absolutely love) arrived here as well from Georgia to help out. They stayed one full day and let me tell you, it was quite the day. All day long there were four children, me, Nana and Billy, a dog, painters, window people, floor people, mover people and contractors running through the house, tearing up carpets, carrying freezers out of the basement and giving estimates on prices for everything. Billy gave the kids the job of getting all of the nails out of the wood floors after the carpets had been torn up so that kept us occupied almost all morning. It also happened to be my first day of school so I was figuring out how to somehow get on zooms with no WiFi. It was awesome.
That was only our first day here. The next day we did some more work, and got rid of some more things, but then they left and it was just me and Nana and Scout. At first, I was in a bit of distress. I realized it was just us, in this huge house with not really much to do, and I really missed my cousins. But, then I had to remind myself that there was actually plenty to do not to mention me and Nana had lots of exploring to do in this new place. It also helped to remind myself of my alternative option (the disaster of a house on wheels) and I felt much more happy to be here. My worries quickly faded away in the following days.
The moving trucks with all of Nana’s things will get here later this week and we have gotten rid of almost all of the furniture and other random things that were left, so we have one very empty house. (Also I think I should add that this house has eight beds in five bedrooms, and three bathrooms. It is very big, with lots of space to fill up.)
Since our kitchen is now pretty much empty, we had been eating out a lot, which has been quite the adventure considering we are in small town Alabama. So far, it has gone much better than I expected, there are quite a few local restaurants that are actually very good and we have now tried almost all of them.
We have also made many trips to Walmart and today we plan to go to Piggly Wiggly! Yesterday we decided we wanted to explore the little downtown square with a couple little shops and boutiques. It was very fun, there were around four or five cute little stores we went in and a coffee and ice cream shop we got sandwiches from.
Since there is no Wifi here I spent around four hours the other day at the Monroeville library doing all of my school work, which was actually very nice. It is quiet in there, and I enjoyed eavesdropping on everyone else who came in. This school year is very strange but in some ways I am actually very happy to have some work to do again.
Overall it has been quite the adventure and I am very happy to be here. I am so excited to see the house begin to take shape more because Nana has so many plans for it, and I know it will be amazing. There are so many decisions to make! Yesterday Nana joked about us doing everything there is to do here and then being very bored, and I think that is quite a possibility so we will have to wait and see on that. Nana’s other cousin Dale is coming when the movers come with her stuff so that will be exciting to have more company. Sorry my pictures aren’t as pretty as mom’s, we need to work on taking more. Also I don’t write nearly as well as her but I tried my best. I hope everyone is doing okay. Sending lots of love from Alabama!
Darla
