Our trip to Wichita was successful.  We flew in on Saturday evening and got our car and to our hotel no problem.  It was freezing cold outside.  Of course, if anybody has been paying attention to the news, you all know that a huge ice storm just moved through the area, so there was snow on the ground and a super cold wind blowing.  Once we got to our hotel, we decided we would just eat there than try and get lost trying to find something.  Our waiter, decided to fill us in our why Wichita was so great.  One of his reasons was that there is hardly any crime.  People are nice, they are nice to each other, you don’t have to worry about someone shooting you in a dark alley.   We thought, “hmmm, great”.  Seems this waiter, who had lived in Wichita his entire life, never stays in the hotel he works in.  The first night we were there, I was laying awake in bed trying to go to sleep sometime after midnight, when I hear really loud yelling down the hall.  Some guy is just laying into some girl.  And this girl is crying histerically and he won’t stop yelling.  I try to wake Royal up to get his opinion if he thinks this is really bad too, but he pretends he doesn’t hear me.  My theory for why he wouldn’t wake up was because he probably thought I was going to send him out in the hallway to tell them to be quiet.  So, I get up and look out my little peep hole, but can’t see them, but I can still hear them.  I can only really understand the man, because the woman is crying so hard and then she starts going off in Spanish.   So finally, Royal wakes up and is like, ‘what are you doing?’.  I told him I was going to call the front desk and have them come check it out, just in case.  So, Royal gets up, tip toes down the hall to try and figure out what room they are in, and I call the front desk and they send security right up.  We never really found out what happened, but I did hear the women leaving with security, saying that she just needed to grab her stuff and she was going to stay somewhere else.  Sad…

Then the next morning, we get up, eat breakfast, and are waiting in the lobby for a real estate agent who was going to show us around the city and show us some neighborhoods and houses and stuff.   While we are waiting, this small little woman starts screaming at the front desk clerk.  Something about, the hotel didn’t let her boys back in in the middle of the night, because they didn’t have a key and they had to go stay somewhere else.  She was using every profanity in the book, ‘I didn’t pay f***ing $100 to stay here and you guys treat us like sh**.  I know I’m f***ing white trash compared to the other mother fu**ers that stay here, but…” blah blah blah.   Then her son gets in on the action and threatens to physically harm the hotel manager, who they wouldn’t let get a word in edgewise to explain anything.  Then they storm off saying they are “getting their sh** and getting out of there”  to stay someplace where they wouldn’t be treated so horribly.   Well, a few minutes later the hotel security walks through the door.   This is about the time our realtor shows up, so we have to leave before we see the conclusion to all the drama, but as we pulled out of the hotel driveway, 2 more security cars show up and 2 Wichita police cars.   Wish I could of stuck around to see what would of happened.  But so much for the waiter’s “super nice” city!

Looking at houses and neighborhoods was pretty overwhelming.  I couldn’t figure out where I was most of the time, I was completely lost.  The houses were great, really big, all of them have super big basements and doors from the basement into what they kept calling “storage areas”.   But, come on, we all know what they are.  Doors into big cement rooms with shelving, that are completely underground and away from all windows.  I’m sure they are calling them “storage areas” to not scare off people by calling them tornado shelters.  Because we all know, that’s where I’d head if I saw a tornado ripping towards my house.

The next day, we met with NIAR (National Institute for Aviation Research).  They were great.  The job sounds much better than what Royal is doing now.  A much bigger opportunity to be involved in lots of different projects.  Projects from what he is currently doing now with Toray, to working with NASA and the Army and the Airforce, to working with doctors on how to make artifical knees and hips that bodies won’t reject.   It just sounds much more stimulating and interesting.  Royal just wouldn’t have the opportunity for this at the job he has now.  Not to mention that they would pay for any of his graduate studies that he decided to do.  So, Royal is going to accept the job.

So, now we are going to put our house on the market and wait for it to sell.  The people at NIAR said they would wait for Royal until our house sold, so that we didn’t have to live apart, which is fantastic.  That was one of my issues that had to be resolved before I would be okay with moving there.  Time to start packing, I guess.

I’m trying to be excited about it, but that’s not going too good yet.  I’m excited for Royal, but I’m not excited to live in Kansas.  I’ve decided that I won’t totally form an opinion about Wichita yet, because it’s hard to figure out what all a city has to offer until you spend some time there.  But, it’s hard to imagine moving somewhere, where I know absolutely nobody.  I’m sure I’ll make friends, and I’m sure I’ll be fine, I just have to convince myself of it first.  I’m sure it won’t be that bad.  It’s an adventure.  I get to start over somewhere.  I get to get a new house, and that’s a little exciting.  We don’t know when we’re moving, it all depends on when our house sells, so really we could still be around for another year or so!!!