I drink from the keg of glory!

Ah, we've returned from the George triumphantly. It wasn't an easy quest ("Quest? What quest?"), but we were sucessful. Let me just say that it is not that easy to find an apartment down there. We walked in to so many places and they had no openings until October, which really doesn't work for those of us moving down there in a week. And then some of the landlords were just crazy. An example: we walked into a housing office, the place was kind of on the low quality side, but not too bad. Until we walked into the office. Or should I say the crammed corner? There was no room in there at all. And the lady at the desk was a bit, shall we say, creepy. She told us she had one opening, but she needed a quiet couple, because everyone in that building was quiet, and she just needed a nice, really quiet couple. OK, that makes me wonder, "So, what were the previous tenents like? Loud? Obnoxious? Doing drugs?" I don't think that was quite the right thing to say to us. Needless to say, we did not return. Another example: we had a booklet that had advertising for various apartment complexes. One page was a whole ad that basically said, "No smoking." Yes, a whole page. And yes, that is really all it said. No information on rent, nothing about square footage or ammenities, nothing except no smoking. In fact, I think I'm going to quote that one for you:

"Tired of living around 2nd hand smoke? Well, we have good news for you! Sunset Springs Apartments is a Smoke Free Community. Smoking is NOT permitted ANYWHERE on the Sunset Springs property--inside or outside of the buildings, in the driveways & parking areas, in the park, at the swimming pool, at the spa, in the clubhouse, on the sidewalks, in the office, at the picnic areas or at the playground

Smoking is not an option at Sunset Springs.

After all, we believe that since you don't have to be around smoke at the grocery store, in a restaurant, at a theater, in the mall, or on an airplace, that you shouldn't have to be around smoke when you are at home.

Come home to Sunset Springs!

We are THE SMOKE FREE COMMUNITY in St. George."

Yes, word for word, that is the ad. I especially enjoy the really long list of places that you can't smoke, in case you were confused what they meant by no smoking ANYWHERE on the property, they spell that out very clearly for you.

Anyways, we have an apartment that we have applied for (the general check for any criminal record or bankrupcy or anything like that), and we should be approved either tomorrow or Tuesday (holiday gets in the way). Now, here is where the real fun begins. After we are approved, we have to get the utilities in our name before they will let us move in. This takes about 2 days. And you have to be there in person to get the utilities transferred. HELLO?! We don't live in St. George, we don't live anywhere close, what the heck are we supposed to do? I am a bit worried about this, even though we went to the utilities office and asked if this would be a problem. She said that it should be fine, we should just be able to go in and sign up, and then move right in, but I'm not entirely convinced. We are going to be moving down there with all our stuff in a moving van, and we might have to wait 2 days?! Not really set up for a lot of immigration, is it? And I guess there is no possible way to do this over the phone. You can do it by mail, and we just might do that, but we'd have to fed-ex it or something. I don't know, it'll all work out one way or another, it' s just a frustrating system. Good old St. George.

And another thing about that city: no one appears to know how to drive. We drove around quite a bit yesterday, looking at apartments, and people were just kind of going wherever they wanted to, whenever they wanted to. It was near chaos. And roads were under construction, and other roads would abruptly end, and other roads wouldn't go under the freeway, it was insane. I guess we won't be driving all over town once we move in, but man alive, it was not fun. I'm not thrilled about that. I'd like to say to all those people who knock Utah drivers, it just gets worse the further south you go. That's my experience.

Now, after that rant, it may sound like I'm not very excited for this move, but I am. These were funny observations, and I'm not holding them against the town as a whole. It will be much better when we are a little more settled, which is soon, and I am ready for this change. I also met Clark's boss, and he is such a nice guy, so willing to help us, and so excited for Clark to come on. This job is going to be so great for him, he will love it there. So, all in all, it was a good trek down there. I feel we accomplished everything we set out to do, and I think I really will enjoy this town.

Now this motherload of all blog entries is over.