Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Elena asleep at Aunt Kayli's house

As I predicted, it's been crazy, hence long time no blog. I chose the above title to specifically refer to that, but I can't explain it more or you all with think even less of me then when I posted pictures from "Are You Being Served?" that apparently were a little too risque for some. Hee. Hee. Anyway, you should all just listen to NPR more. The type of plane Leo flies

So here's my crazy week last week.

Monday: Pack the car and run all the errands I needed to, to get ready for when Leo would be taking the car to Chicago the next day and I would be home bound. Pick up Leo at the airport. I don't even remember what else, but I know I was busy till midnight or more.

Tuesday: Finish loading stuff in car. Pack Leo some snacks. Everything is ready to go at 9 AM (we're not really early risers), when Leo gets a call from Mesa airlines saying he needs to be in Chicago Wednesday morning at 4 AM. FRANTICALLY, I unload part of the car, pack all mine and Elena's stuff, get Leo's stuff out, call my sister and beg her to let me take Olivia (9) along with me as now I'm driving to Chicago. (Otherwise car rental bills will wipe us out). Leave Phoenix by 11 AM with Olivia, drive 40 mins outside the city, get a call from Leo saying we forgot to unpack his shoes he needs for his uniform, drive back to Phoenix, give Leo his shoes, and start out again. Meanwhile Leo's trying to find a flight to Phoenix, lands one to Denver and then Chicago, but ends up not being able to get on in Denver and so doesn't reach Chicago till 1 AM. Basically the drive is uneventful, we stayed that night in Santa Fe, and I've driven most of that route many times before. Holbrook and Gallup are two of the ugliest cities on earth.

Wednesday: Santa Fe has ridiculous highways, and to get to the I-25 N you actually have to go South on the 80 (I think it was the 80, forgot now), anyway, so we ended up taking the 80 N to Taos and then met up with the I-25 N. It was a lovely mistake. I loved Velarde, it was just a cool town. Really scenic, but still sleepy. I think Taos is my kind of town too. If you took some small Montana city and traded all the Lucky Lil's for spas and all the liquor stores for art galleries, you'd have Taos. I loved Eagle's Nest (another town) too, I think our next reunion should be there. It's kind of like Cache Valley but smaller valley with no big town in it at all. I also passed several Old West places, Cimarron, Pike's Peak, Kit Carson RV Park (ok so that wasn't one of them). Other cool things I saw, another RV park that had decorated the river banks with a flock of plastic pink flamingos. And a herd of cows being painted by a larger herd of artists (that was near Taos). It's also really pretty between Colorado Springs and Denver. And then we made our way uneventfully to Ogallala, Nebraska where we spent the night.

Ogallala

Thursday: Iowa is by far the prettiest state we drove through. All the farmhouses and barns are clean and tidy, the land is rolling and green. I think if I could chose a Midwest state to live in, it would be Iowa. We stopped at The Danish Immigration Museum and saw an old Danish Windmill in Elkhorn, Iowa, where Olivia kept pointing out all the Rasmussen names and exclaiming over how it was spelled the same as our last name. Hee. Hee. We also stopped at the BP there and it was so funny because five old men (at least in their 70's or more) in overalls were sitting around a card table in this brand new gas station, it looked like the old general store must have been torn down and the new BP station built up around them. That night we stayed in Ronald Reagan's hometown in IL, I don't know the name though. Elkhorn: At the Danish museum, mainstreet and the windmill

Friday: Made it to Chicago around 11 AM, met up with Leo at the Thrifty car rental. Went looking for apartments. Looked at pathetic low income housing that we made too little to even qualify for. Stupid, idiotic system. Then we ate at a delicious Chinese buffet and stayed the night at a friend of a friend's, Bernardo's. He didn't speak English, but he seemed nice. He's from Acapulco and actually speaks quite a bit of Polish as all the people he works with are Polish. Interesting.

Saturday: Looked at more apartments. Finally decided on one we saw the night before. Leo flew out. Bernardo went to a party. Olivia and I French manicured our nails.
Sunday: Kayli and Brett came and picked us up to take us to Indiana!!! We fly out Thursday to Phoenix, and then I'm taking a connecting flight to Farmington to pack our moving van. That's right, myself, only me. With an 8 month old baby. Leo has days off but Mesa is famous for changing schedules at the last minute, so he's not even going to try to get back to Farmington, because there's only two flights a day from there so he doesn't want to get stuck there. Hopefully people from our ward will be kind and help, because really I really can't do it all myself. We'll see what happens.
Elena eating icing