Tennessee, Here I Come!

Alright, lets start this thing off with the story of my first three weeks here:

Movers came on Monday, April 26th. They were very quick and packed everything up within a few hours. The rest of the day I spent with my family, driving around, doing some last minute errands and deep cleaning the (now completely empty) apartment.

I spent the night at my parents place and woke up, bright and early, around 4:30am on Tuesday to catch my plane from San Francisco to Nashville. I got to the airport on time, no major hassles or delays and was up in the air, on my merry way to Nashville, TN around 6:30am (PST). I had stop over in Houston and connect flights (apparently there are no direct flights from San Francisco to Nashville).
I had approximately 45 minutes to cross one huge, huge airport and get to my connecting flight gate. I made it about 15 minutes early and took the time to relax, go to the bathroom and make a few phone calls. From what I could see on the plane, Houston seemed extremely flat, although I think I could make out the Gulf Coast off in the distance, which was pretty cool. I got on my connecting flight and made my way (finally) out to Nashville, TN.
The plane we were on from Houston to Nashville was the smallest plane I'd ever been on (only 3 seats across) ... It was more than a little nerve-wrecking. You could feel every little bump and bit of turbulance there was (and there was quite a lot!). Thankfully though, I landed safe and sound in Nashville, TN around 2:30pm (CST). The entire trip from San Francisco to Nashville was a long and grueling 8 hours (longer than my trip from San Francisco to Georgia, oddly enough).

For the first time in two long months, I saw Earl! I really didnt think I'd get as emotional as I did when I saw him, but I cried like a little baby. After reuniting we hopped in the (brand new!) car and made our way out to Ft. Campbell/Clarksville, TN. I was amazed by landscape in this part of the state, it was so green! It was raining and cloudy! There were huge rolling hills! There were long, sweeping turns in the highway! There were huge, winding rivers! There were massive rock cliffs! ... Where the hell was I? This wasn't the flat, hot, dry, nothingness, middle-of-nowhere that I had imagined. If I had seen the ocean off in the distance, I would have thought I'd never left California. This place was fantastic!
We got to Clarksville, Earl showed me a few places he had already been. He pointed out some of the gates leading in to Ft. Campbell, and then we drove up to our new apartment. Ah, home sweet home!

Earl and I only had a measley 5 days together, before he had to leave down to Louisiana for 3 weeks of pre-deployment training, so we tried to make the best of each day. We went out in our new car and purposely "explored" the area (mostly by getting lost). I went to a mandatory "Family Fun Day"for Earl's unit out on the post somewhere, met some of Earl's battle buddies, and quickly made myself a few friends. We walked around Dunbar Cave one day, headed out to Nashville another day and then I experienced my first southern summer storm (not realizing at the time just how powerful and damaging it would turn out to be) over the weekend.

Earl left on Tuesday, May 4th for Louisiana and I was now left to fend for myself for three weeks in a place I hadn't even heard of a couple of months ago.
I've tried to make the most of my time here since he's been gone. The few friends I've made here have greatly helped me in adapting to this new environment. I know how to navigate Ft. Campbell better, I've found out new areas (the river front of downtown Clarksville,a few new stores and an Amish community in Kentucky), I've experienced the infamous (and awful) humidy (and amaing thunder storms!), and Im slowly meeting new people and doing new things each and every day.

It's been more than 2 weeks since Earl left, more than 3 weeks since I arrived here, and I think Im doing pretty well so far. Earl gets back sometime in the middle of next week. I am looking forward to spending the next 2 and a half months with him, exploring this area some more and hopefully taking a roadtrip back out to California before he leaves for the big and scary deployment.