Wandering Wahls

The Space A odyssey has ended. We went Wednesday to Andrews AFB to wait for a spot on a C-17. However, we were the only ones not chosen. It was a fun wait due to meeting Lt. Gen. Loren Reno. He walked by us and introduced himself when he noticed we were waiting to travel as a family. He chatted awhile, congratulated my wife on her service, spoke German to the kids, and then hot the DV Lounge. What a great guy! The kids got a big kick out of meeting a General!

As we were walking out, defeated by Space A, a woman walked up and asked Mary Claire if she was a retired Air Force nurse. She had seen the USA Today article and recognized Mary Claire. We chatted for a while and tried to convince them to do the same trip.

Overall, it was fun –- even if we went back to the RV as opposed to going back to Germany.

Next up, last night, was a drive to BWI Airport to try the Patriot Express one last time. We arrived to see about 55 people waiting for 36 available seats. Our wait didn’t last long. We took our defeat in hand and took the kids to the USO for a late-night cookie treat. Once there, we met three fellow Space A’ers we’d met at Andrews. The last time we saw these travelers they were getting a car to drive to Dover AFB to try and hop to Travis AFB from there. At BWI, they had bitten the bullet and bought tickets.

The military community is very tight, and it gets tighter when you’re trying to Space A. We all sat around the USO and laughed about our experiences. We also were able to help two Naval Academy students trying to fly to Germany for a few weeks. Those two took off for Dover to try and make a 0330 flight, and we took off for Andrews to attempt a 2300 bedtime in the RV.

This morning, a friend in Germany emailed us that Ramstein is in full PCS mode and that all families were going out of Ramstein — not commercial. This news doesn’t bode well for a Class VI category family on a time schedule. Thus, we’ve made a decision and decided to stop the Space A attempts. Instead, we’ll get on with the RV trip. The kids are really, really disappointed because they were so looking to seeing their friends, spending a day at their old German school, and having a German beer (oh, that was me). MC and I are sad too -– we had a lot of friends we wanted to see who were graciously ready to host us. With the news of Ramstein, the only way we could do the Germany trip is commercial, and that is too much of an expense at this point. Oh well -– off to the monuments of D.C. And maybe to the MOAA offices -– if you all hear an air-horn in front of the MOAA building, it’s the Wahls!

We’ve made it to Washington, D.C. We were last here five years ago before we PCSed out to Germany after a two-year tour here. The time was wonderful — DC is a great city. As such, we’re anticipating many things to see and do. We have many old friends here, museums to visit as part of the kids’ road-schooling, and many old haunts to drive by. The kids especially want to see our old house in north Arlington, Va. We also want to meet the staff at MOAA who so kindly and efficiently receive my e-mails and post them for both of my readers to see.

However, before we dive into the depths of D.C., we want to take advantage of Space A flights to make a return a visit to Germany. We haven’t made plans with anyone because we anticipated we would be flying out shortly on one of the flights from BWI or Andrews. Our first attempt was for a 2 a.m. showtime. We tried to get the kids to nap early in the night. This worked great: the sing-song rhythm of “I can’t sleep” soothed my ears all evening. Then, we showed up at 0200 but were promptly and politely told there was no chance for a Category 6 status that night/morning.

The next night, we drove to BWI for a 1900 showtime and sat waiting anxiously while they called off the names. I think we were the last signup in the last category: we were the only ones left after approximately 60 people made it on to Space A. Then, a quick trip back to long-term parking and down to Andrews for a 2200 showtime; alas, the flight was postponed to 1000 the next morning. Off to the RV to sleep (“Sleep in your clothes, kids.”). Next morning: flight canceled. So here we are with flights out today from BWI and Andrews. The travails of Space A Travel. I can’t complain though, the flights are well priced.

I hate to keep on the same topic, but we’re still getting emails as a result of the USA Today article. The number of places that have been suggested intrigues me. Some are suggesting a specific location because they’re trying to sell a house, which is fine with me. Others have suggested areas that they wish they could move back to after having left. And some are suggesting the places they found after a military career and an ensuing search for a hometown. Oh, and someone has suggested that I set up a contest among cities to auction ourselves to the best bidder — now that was an interesting idea.

Right now, Utah and Whidbey Island have been suggested the most frequently. There are a lot of New England towns (along with invitations to visit the senders of the e-mail). And, of course, the Texas contingent has suggestions.

The purpose of this entry is to ask the MOAA readers their suggestions. I know some have offered ideas before, but I thought it would be interesting to hear from those readers who searched for a town after their retirement about what they would suggest. How about it?

Well, as you know form the last blog, our story made it to USA Today. We thought it would be a fun article to buy 20 copies of for keepsakes. What we didn’t expect were neither the comments to the article’s Web link nor the e-mails we’ve received. We must have received over 100 in the last two days.

The e-mails have been extremely kind and supportive of our trip which is really nice. The senders also have been telling us of places to consider, especially of places we might have missed. We’ve gotten suggestions from Alaska to Florida to Maine. The most frequent spot suggested has been Utah, with lots of small Midwest towns close behind. Surprisingly enough, no one has suggested California — they must not read USA Today. If you have a suggestion, please feel free to let us know at wahlsacrossamerica@mac.com.

The best e-mails have been a few families who have invited us to stop at their house on our next leg of the trip through New England. We have invites to Delaware and Vermont, among others. We’re organizing these invites so we can take advantage of the offered home-cooked meals and warm showers.

One last thing, we’ve posted some more photos of our trip at our Web site, as well as a couple of fun movies with the kids. Check them out at our Web site.

We are in Nappanee, Indiana at the Newmar headquarters (they manufacture our RV) having some warranty work done. We stay at the site, and the RV is picked up at 6am, usually by an Amish person (it’s interesting to see these 40+ ft RVs being driven around by Amish), and then dropped back off at 2pm. This process repeats itself until the work is done.

During the morning, the RVers congregate in the guest lobby for coffee, conversation, and (for some) sleep. For us, we stay in the lobby until about 8am. After, we head to the local diner for a $2.00 breakfast, then to the Nappanee library for schooling.

I wanted to relay the story we heard yesterday from an RVing couple, whose experiences don’t make me feel too bad about my mishaps. The couple, maybe in their 70s, have been full timing for years. He was a little curmudgeonly, but in a good way (retired Navy) and she was more personable. They were outgoing and had a quip for almost anything, as well as an interest in other people’s activities.

Anyway, their story: We were talking about whether any of the wives drove. She said she drove quite often and enjoyed it. The husband then volunteered that he taught her in a grocery store parking lot:

• He: “She didn’t do too bad, only ran over a grocery cart and a pedestrian.”
• Me: “A pedestrian?”
• He: “yeah, didn’t see him. Knocked him over and broke his leg.”
• Me (amid laughter): “You’re kidding, right?”
• He: “No. She ran him over and broke his leg. We thought he was going to sue”
• She: “We were pretty relieved.”

I don’t know if the hilarity of hearing this in person comes across here, but it was the best RV story we’ve heard.

As a final note, look for USA Today on Monday. Our story is supposed to be the feature article in the Life section!

Editor’s note: “The road is home for family traveling USA in their RV“! has been posted to USA Today’s Web site. Check it out!

Two the reasons for our trip are to see old friends who we were stationed with, as well as to catch up with family members we haven’t seen in awhile. Denver allowed us to do both and to hear first hand some fun news.

We first saw friends we knew from Nellis AFB (in Las Vegas, NV for non-AF readers); our first base after our marriage, and my introduction into the military way of life (sometime I’ll write about wearing a hat in to the Nellis O’Club on a Friday night much to the amazement/joy of a bar full of fighter pilots who were in town for Red Flag). Paula Maloney (I mention names not to name drop but because the military is a small enough world that someone reading this – one of you two – might also know Paula) was our oldest child’s, and our, first Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She was not only helpful and calming to two new parents, but she and her husband Don became good friends. Paula and Don now live in Genesee, outside of Denver, and had us over to catch up after many years as well as try to sell us on settling in Genesee – an idea that we’ll consider.

Next up was visiting Mary Claire’s niece, Katy. She lives in an old loft in downtown Denver and is the manager of the spa at the Denver Ritz (I met Katy when she was 15 and now she’s manages the Ritz’s spa – wow). What made this visit extra special (besides the Thai food we had for dinner) was meeting her fiancé of 3 days. Katy is a great person; loads of fun and professionally successful for obvious reasons. Her fiancé, Adam, is the same: engaging with our kids, well-versed conversationalist (didn’t use “sweet” or “like” as an adjective even, like, one time), well traveled, and good looking (my wife tells me) – all in all a great match with Katy, and a welcome in-law.

We knew seeing friends and family during our journey would provide memorable moments, but this stop offered a special moment for us. To all you upcoming retirees, think hard about getting an RV and experiencing your own moments like ours.

We have left Colorado and currently are in Shenandoah, Iowa, for a few days visiting my mother-in-law’s former hometown. Towns like these make my wife and me more confused about where to live. There are beautiful stately homes on beautiful neighborhood streets for not much more than the price of our RV. We could afford to live here and travel in the winters.

Anyway, about Colorado: What a beautiful state. We enjoyed Fort Collins, Denver, Genesee, Colorado Springs, the small ski towns, and the national parks. We also enjoyed some media time, much to our kids’ delight.

First, we hosted a reporter from USA Today, Craig Wilson, for an evening. He’s the writer of “The Final Word” column and came out to interview us for a feature article in their Life section (I’ll post the run-date when I know it). We were a bit nervous at first (I imagine he also was — spending the night in an RV with a strange family of five), but we had a fantastic time (and a barbecue). Craig is a really nice guy and it was fun chatting with him over a glass of wine, talking about life in general (the photographer was much the same — we would have loved to have hosted both even outside the interview). He was a great interviewer and made the experience very easy for us (hopefully no quotes will be printed out of context!).

Next up, the local FOX station interviewed us for their morning show. We arrived at the station in our RV to find their cameraman filming our entrance to their parking lot — talk about a nervous drive; I didn’t want to mess up parking the RV while on camera. Then the reporter and weatherman came out to ask some questions, have a tour of the RV (hosted by Anna), and ask us about being a military family on the road in an RV. As with Craig, we initially were nervous, but the reporter and weatherman made life easy and also gave us great tips about settling in Colorado.

If you want to see our interview, go here and click on “Searching for a Home.”

The kids were so excited by these media opportunities they now think they want to be on Ellen or Oprah — though, to the best of my knowledge, they haven’t seen either show. So, from Joe: If you’re reading this Ellen or Oprah, e-mail us!

Happy May Day! Hope you found a nice, anonymous May Day basket on your doorstep — or maybe you found new workers’ rights depending on how you celebrate the day.

Speaking of the latter, we are in Fort Collins, Colo. — home of New Belgium Brewery, maker of Fat Tire beer. We stopped here because of the story behind the founding of the brewery (not for the free samples, mind you). The founder bicycled through Belgium tasting the beers from the various abbeys and breweries (I like anyone who bikes and tastes beers along the route; I tried that many times in Germany). He then returned to Fort Collins and started selling beer out of his basement, and, more recently, from a new 850,000-gallon capacity brewery. The best selling beer, Fat Tire, was named after the bike ridden around Belgium.

From his tours of Belgium, the founder brought back not only beer recipe ideas, but also a European spirit of employee- and environment-friendly workplace ideas. Regarding the latter, the brewery (impressively spotlessly clean) was the first wind-powered U.S. brewery. New Belgium also uses the methane from their waste to help brew their beer. There are other impressive recycling methods the brewery uses, trust me on this. However, I was on my third sample by the time the wonderful hostess explained them to the group and forgot the details.

In the spirit of International Workers’ Day today (I’ll be taking the kids to storm a few storefronts and banks later), I wanted to touch on how New Belgium also impressed me with their employee policies. For example, on an employees fifth anniversary, they are taken to Belgium for a tour of the country (though I’d recommend including Germany for some really good beer). All employees also receive a special edition New Belgium bicycle after one year of employment. The employees also get a paid holiday on the birthday of St. Albert of Metz (Germany), the patron saint of breweries. As a good Catholic boy, I can appreciate this particular religious tradition.

I was so impressed with the whole place, I’m thinking of seeing if they need a 48 year old with a university teacher/marketing background who likes to ride bikes (we’d even accept logos on the side of the RV).

One thing did surprise me though. With all the positive employee-friendly European traditions that were copied, the one employee-friendly practice the founder did not bring back from Europe was the standard of a four week vacation for all employees. Employees at New Belgium start out with the U.S. standard of (a depressing) two weeks and earn more time with seniority. I really would have been impressed if New Belgium took the truly progressive step of starting a new U.S. standard of giving all employees a truly family-friendly benefit of decent holiday time. Maybe with time they’ll change things. In the meantime, I’ll still accept a job.