Laura and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend

At the end of July, Peter and I attempted to fly out to Spearfish, SD to look for a new place to live.  It unfortunately did not leave me with warm fuzzy feelings about Spearfish.  I should have known how things were going to go that weekend by how they started out on Friday the 29th.

Curse you Murphy and your stupid law!

Part of the Transfer of Station deal with the Forest Service is a trip to your new town to look for a place to live, all on the government's dime.  Sounds great, right?  Well, yeah, we thought so, too.  We left Friday morning by hopping onto a tiny little plane at the Gunnison Regional Airport.  The ride from Gunnison was nice.  Everything left on time and we made it to Denver in time to snag a little lunch before we had to make our connection to Rapid City.  Unfortunately our 30 minute delay turned into a five hour delay.  They changed gates on us three times and would not give us any explanation as to why.  I get it if there was a mechanical issue.  When flying, I want everything to be safe, but five hours of waiting with no explanation or apology was ridiculous, and we did file a complaint with United Airlines.

Peter looking very annoyed at the Denver airport.

"Do I really want to get on this thing?"

Eventually we boarded another tiny little plane and made it safe and sound in Rapid City which is an hour drive from Spearfish.  Unfortunately it was too late for Peter to meet up with his new boss, but at least our hotel was really nice.

The next day Peter and I spent the day looking at places to live.  The only problem is that everyone in Spearfish apparently hates dogs.  I have never been to a more dog unfriendly place in my life.  No one would even consider renting to people with a dog.  The only place that would allow a dog was clear down in Lead.  It's only about twenty-five minutes away but the drive is very gnarly with twisty turny roads through a canyon.  It would be very difficult to make that drive into work and school every day during the winter.  The town of Lead itself is very small and the roads are very steep.  The house we looked at was somewhat run down and it even slanted significantly.  If you placed a ball at the back of the house, it would roll all the way out the front door without any assistance.  It was almost comical.  After considering all of the pros and cons there were definitely too many cons.  So it was a no go.  By the end of the day I was emotionally drained.  I know it had only been one day of looking, but I was so discouraged and worried about my Natasha.  I was nearly in tears.  I have put a lot of work and love into her to be a good dog, and though she's nowhere near perfect she is still my dog and I am very attached to her.  There is no way I will give her up voluntarily, but I am terribly worried that I will be forced to.  I will exhaust all of my options before that ever happens, though.

The slanted house in Lead

Sunday, we got up early and headed back to Rapid City to catch our flight back to Denver.  Of course, we missed our exit to the airport, and the next exit wasn't for about twenty miles down the road.  By the time we got turned around we had only twenty minutes until our flight left.  We didn't know anything about check-ins prior to flight, so when we tried to pick up our boarding passes we found out that the airline had given them away!  We were furious!  We saw nowhere where this information was posted and we don't fly enough to know these little things.  We managed to get our tickets transferred to a later flight, but unfortunately we would miss our connection from Denver to Gunnison because it was the only flight that day.  We would be effectively stranded in Denver.  By this time I was in tears, feeling helpless and frustrated.  So as we sat in the Rapid City airport waiting for our flight to Denver, I got onto our laptop and found a rental company that would do a one way car rental so that we could drive home from Denver.  I was relieved that we were going to make it home that day.  All I wanted to do was sleep in my own bed and snuggle with my doggy.  But of course there would have to be one more problem, right?  Once we had boarded the plane someone was sitting in Peter's seat, we double checked Peter's ticket and the woman's ticket, and sure enough they had the exact same seat numbers.  I have to hand it to Peter.  He deals with stressful situations far better than I do.  He remained calm throughout everything.  I was freaking out again because I thought we were going to be stuck in Rapid City, but the flight attendants moved things around and found Peter a seat.  An hour later we finally took off and landed in Denver.  From there we got our rental car and drove four and a half hours back to Gunnison.  Exhausted and emotionally drained, I crawled into my own bed.  Sleep didn't come easily as I had much on my mind, and I was exhausted the next day at work.

I'm trying to look at Spearfish with optimism still, but our whole trip left me with a sour taste in my mouth.  The Forest Service will have to provide housing for us for at least a month, so hopefully during that time we will find a pet friendly place to live.  A month from now, I hope I will look back on this experience and laugh, but it's hard to be optimistic when you can't see what the future holds.  I just have to put my faith in God right now, and pray that things will work out for the best whatever they may be.  In my short experience in this life I have found that things always work out for the best, even if I can't always see that.  When Peter was laid off from his IT job five years ago, I thought it was the worst thing ever, but it set Peter down another path and into a career that he has thoroughly enjoyed.  A bad thing at the time turned into a positive thing down the road, and honestly the best thing ever.  I am hoping that Spearfish will be the same way.  I wrote on my Facebook page a few days ago that maybe I should move to Australia instead.  A friend told me not to bother because the flight there is even longer.

Thank goodness for friends to put things into perspective.

Things will get better.

They always do.