Enjoying the Emerald Coast Kinda Life

It's weird, but we settled into beach life almost instantaneously upon arriving in Pensacola/Navarre.

The change from living in San Diego to living in Navarre is pretty extreme. First of all, San Diego has a population of over a million people. Navarre has just under 30,000. In San Diego, we lived in a very densely populated neighborhood where privacy was nonexistent. We could look out the back of our house and see I-15. And hear it for that matter. Where we're located now, you have to drive out on a state route for a ways, then turn off onto a county road before you turn again into our neighborhood which consists of three streets. Heheh. There's a dirt road that runs parallel to the main road in our development. A red dirt road at that. We live near NOTHING. It isn't convenient to bring home takeout for dinner. The nearest Target is something like 20 miles away. The nearest mall is an hour away. And I LOVE IT!!

We go to the beach at least once a week. The beach is only a few miles away. Have you ever been to the Gulf Coast of Florida? I've been to beaches at the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in America and the beaches here are the prettiest out of them all in my opinion. Pure white sand and water that's so clear that you can look down and see your feet and fish and stuff even in water so deep that you can't touch bottom. It's also a pretty blue/green color. Sometimes it's so calm that there are barely any waves at all. And I mean no waves as in, no white caps. The water is also bath water warm. In San Diego, the water is cold even in July and August. Tingly, prickly cold. In all the years I lived there and for all the many, many things I love about San Diego, I was never a fan of the beaches. They're too cold and there is never anywhere to park.

Navarre's motto is "Florida's Best Kept Secret". We definitely have tourists, but there's only a few resort-type hotels on the beach so it's never wall to wall people. If you drive a few miles down the road to Pensacola Beach, you'll find a typical, coastal tourist town with hotels everywhere, a boardwalk, and swarms of people. They can keep it. I love the laid back atmosphere of Navarre.

I know it's early and I'll probably be changing my tune come Christmas shopping time, but I don't even miss the amenities of living in a big city. Here, I get outside all the time to walk the dog, chat with the neighbors (Yes. You read that right. I actually talk with my neighbors and they're super sweet and even invited us to a neighborhood 4th of July party.), poke at the flowers and plants in my yard, or go to the beach. Everywhere else we've lived, getting out of the house always meant going shopping.

Tonight, we drove to the beach after the Mister got home from work. It was after six and most everyone had gone home for the day. We sat in our chairs in the sand while the sun set, gathered everything up and went home for dinner about an hour later. What'd you do tonight??

Having Finally Arrived in Florida

This move is probably at the #1 spot for bad moves. It has been the most unorganized, ill-prepared, rocky, full-of-surprises move we've made in 16 years.

On the California side:

Our movers were idiots. They showed up to our house 1 1/2 hours late and with only one guy to pack. Every other move we've made with movers, they were able to pack us up in one day because they bring at least three people. This took two entire days.

Then, they were told that we were estimated to have close to 12,000 pounds of household goods. We ended up with just over 9400 pounds and they still didn't bring a truck big enough to hold everything. 1/4 of our stuff was hanging out the back of the truck, strapped in and open to the elements. I can only assume (and fervently hope) that they loaded our stuff onto a bigger truck before they left for Florida. But this means that our stuff went from our CA house, to a small truck, to a big truck, and eventually, to the FL house. Ideally, you want your belongings loaded and unloaded as few times as possible to avoid damage.

They were done packing and loading on Wednesday, June 12, but still haven't called to let us know our delivery date and time. They were supposed to have (and told me they would) call on Thursday. This has me worried.

We also decided to have my car shipped rather than drive two cars in tandem. This company, too, has been incommunicado. The Mister sent them an e-mail on June 10 and we still haven't gotten a reply. At this point, I'm figuring my car is in Mexico at a chop shop. Oh. And the Mister accidentally left his keys in my car. Not that big a deal since I have copies.......except for the key to the cartop carrier. We only had one of those. Luckily, I was able to find a place that could make us a duplicate key for only $35 versus the $200 it would have cost to buy another one.

Lastly, the military housing people forgot about our moveout inspection. When you live in base housing, you have to have one of their people walk through and make sure you cleaned and didn't leave anything damaged. This caused us to get on the road 1 1/2 hours later than we had planned which caused us to get to our first stop in El Paso, Texas pretty late. Asshats.

And to top it all off...The Oldest child came down with this really weird rash on her leg. People on Facebook thought it was my rash because she was embarrassed for people to think she had ringworm. It def isn't ringworm. Anyway, a couple days after the rash, she got a really inflamed throat. It's absolutely disgusting. I've had tonsillitis a few times but my throat never came close to her grossness. I managed to get her into the doctor on June 12th, the day before we left San Diego. The doctor wasn't sure what was going on but guessed it was viral and that whatever was causing the rash was also causing the sore throat. He took throat cultures just to be sure. He called me today, SUNDAY, to let me know she actually has strep throat. Can you believe he called me on a Sunday? AND, he called in a prescription to a nearby pharmacy here in Florida. I so love him and am going to miss having such a great doctor. :(

On the Drive East...

The car drive east was relatively uneventful considering the 1977 miles we covered. We ran into some weather in New Mexico which spurned dust storms. The Youngest child now hates New Mexico. Then we ran into some rain in San Antonio. Then some really bad traffic in Alabama. The traffic added about an hour to our last day of driving. And wow! Louisiana drivers are rude asshats and that's saying something from someone who is used to California drivers. It's like they sent people from Louisiana to LA to learn how to drive like an idiot.

Now that we're here, things are going pretty good. Kinda got a shock at the hotel when they told us the price for the pet fee. As a result, we snuck the cat in. So, I'd feel bad about that if the pet fee wasn't MORE than the room fee. Plus, our pets are trained and do their business where they should. We're staying in a brand new Hyatt Place. It's really nice. After three days in the car, we appreciate having a living room area in addition to the bedroom area. The bathroom door has a tricksy lock though. Tricksy, tricksy lock. The Oldest child called me this morning (the Mister and I were getting lunch) asking me, "How do I get out of the bathroom?" I laughed so hard that it was a minute or so before I could answer her.

Navarre Beach at sunset

Last night, we drove out to Navarre to see the new house. It's in a great, private neighborhood. It's so quiet and all the houses are well maintained. The yard has flowers and plants in it that I'm sure I'll kill in the next month or so but they look nice for now. From what we could see from peeking in the windows, the inside is clean and nice too. Oh. And there's a whole stack of firewood in the backyard so we'll be set for when it gets colder. Right now, it's in the high 80's with tons of humidity. I love it.

We drove along the coast back to Pensacola (which was a really long drive because much of it was in 20 mph zones for nesting birds, heheh) and ended up getting dinner in Pensacola Beach. I had forgotten how crazy Pensacola Beach is in the summer with all the tourists. C R A Z Y!!! We ate at a really neat restaurant that backs up to the beach. Our table was literally right next to the sand. I could put my foot in the sand from my seat. When we were done eating (and we had awesome food) we just stood up and walked out to the water. You know. After paying the bill. It was so cool!!

So, assuming that our household goods haven't fallen of the back of the truck and my car isn't in pieces in Mexico, things are good on this end of the trip. We're hanging in the hotel until tomorrow morning when the rental manager guy will finally let us in the house. (Apparently, they don't work weekends.) Even if everything is lost, we're insured. We only own a handful of things that are irreplaceable so it won't be total devastation. Even so, my next blog post might be from jail after I do violence to some people if this turns out bad. We've never had our shipments be so up in the air before. It's disconcerting.

Bottom line, I'm thrilled to be here. I've never lived so close to the beach before. Maybe I won't be saying this should a storm roll through, but for now, I love where our house is located. The dog and cat we most excellent travelers. Better pets don't exist. The kids were good. No flat tires this time. Life is good.