One Year in Mississippi

Today is our one year anniversary of moving here to Mississippi. One year without getting on a single airplane, lovely. Our trip here from Misawa was a nightmare. We lived in a very small town in northern Japan and were traveling with a dog, a cat, a three year old, a 16 year old, and one ton of luggage. Here is what I blogged last year about our journey...

---

Old black water, keep on rolling
Mississippi Moon wont ya Keep on shinning on me?

We were listening to the radio and the song, began to play on the radio just as we were driving past the sign WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. We all sang along. We hadn’t planned on driving into Mississippi, but we missed our connection in Atlanta. We were put on stand by to get onto the next flight into Gulf Port, Mississippi but we did not make it on the plane. Our pets and luggage however did make it on the plane without us. They put us on standby for the next flight leaving four hours later. We had already been traveling at this point for 26 hours. Not a lot of sleep happened during this period. So we opted to rent a car instead of waiting four hours to be told we wouldn’t be on the next plane either. We schlepped ourselves to the car rental place, paid a small fortune and rented the coolest car, don’t have any idea what it is but it is smoking hot.

The drive from Atlanta to Biloxi is supposed to take about six hours. However, our sleep depravation caused us to have to stop a lot and switch drivers. The one not driving would sleep like the dead the one driving started to drift off a bit. When we finally made it to Mississippi we were all awake and feeling quite a rush of excitement at entering our new home state. Mandy had to use the restroom and we could not find a single gas station open at 2 a.m. I did however know where the Wal-Mart is located and so we all took a potty break at the local Wal-Mart at 2 a.m. with our two kids. We of course hadn’t really slept in 33 hours, hadn’t showered or brushed our teeth, what they must think of us. We decided as long as we were there we might as well pick up a few things. $70 later we were back at the car. We decided as long as we are near our new home we can do a drive by. We pulled in the driveway and looked at our pretty new house, it was 2:30 am by now. Then we decided to drive past Mandy’s new school and finally we found our hotel. Lucky for us Jeff’s new boss went to the airport for us and picked up the animals and our luggage and dropped it off at our hotel for us. So at 3:30 a.m. we had arrived at our hotel and so had our pets. We fought for the rights for the first shower. I lost and had to take the dog for a walk.

By the time we had unpacked our suitcases enough to find some clothes and our soap and toothbrushes, and we had all showered and ate it was 5 am. Jeff and Mandy had to go to the airport because we were missing one bag, one of Mandy’s bags and the airport opened at 5. I got Lily cleaned up and I got the cat and dog bedding all cleaned up and the litter box all set up etc. By that time it was 6:30 and Jeff had to go into work to sign in and Mandy and Lily were watching TV and I laid my head on the pillow and rested for about an hour. This was now about 40 hours into our trip. We then had to get going to our final inspection of the house and then to the closing.

After we closed on the house it was around 11 and getting pretty close to the 48 hour mark in our journey. Of course I had rested my eyes for an hour or a moment here and there but not really all that much. At least I had showered. Anyways we decided to try and register Mandy for school. Next week is their spring break and today is the last day they would allow us to register before the break. I thought it might be nice for Mandy to have her school book over the break so she could figure out what is what. They gave me a huge packed of paper work to fill out and it was so difficult to get my brain to function well enough to remember Mandy’s name, age birth date etc. I was hilarious, what a spectacle to see me at almost 48 hours try to concentrate enough to register Mandy for school. They gave us a list of items we needed to get like a health certification of her shot records from the health department. She gave me directions to the health department and it made sense at the time however, that was before all the paperwork and when I arrived at the car I had a hard time remembering the directions. Then when we finally found the health department they wanted three phone numbers of people who could verify our identities. I am sure you know at least three phone numbers but I know zero phone numbers off the top of my head. How often do I call people in America? I could give you 100 email addresses off the top of my head but no phone numbers. It was a half an hours drive back to the hotel to get the numbers. So we worked very hard and “remembered” 3 phone numbers. Then we looked at the list and they needed some other documents that required us to actually and really drive all the way back to the hotel and then back to the school. Half an hour each direction. We had to do it right away or they wouldn’t allow her to register for two weeks because of spring break and something else I really can’t remember it all. Brain was fried. I somehow convinced Jeff who doesn’t really know his way around yet to go back to the school and Lily and I stayed here and went to bed. Of course I had to walk the dog, feed the Lily, and update my blog first priorities people.

Jeff and Mandy came home and we all slept like the dead for 8 solid hours. We were then hungry so we went back to Walmart this time at about 11pm, with our three year old. Took the dog for a walk, ate and no one would let me on my new lap top computer which I begged and pleaded to buy. My early birthday and early Christmas present. I had to wait until they all went back to bed to get a chance to play.

So, now I am back to bed it is almost 2 am, I am going to sleep until 7 and tomorrow we are going to rescue our car which has been in storage for four years.