Time To Go! Post #2

It wasn’t until the fall of 2007 when I knew, that I knew, that if I suffered the frosty claws of a Syracuse winter one more time, I would just croak! All the typical reasons that prevent people from following their dreams, relocating, or making major life changes were now dwarfed in comparison to facing another winter of gray skies, deep snow, and constantly being cold, along with $750 heat bills that were predicted to increase the following year by 40-60%. I looked at our quality of life vs. the money that was spent just to meet our survival needs and it became evident that we (all New York State residents) were being ripped off big time! I hadn’t been able to afford to take my children to Disney World, yet I was dumping $2000 a month in the garbage between energy costs, taxes, and astronomical gas prices. In those terms, the answer was a no-brainer! Good-bye to all familiar places, people and things that I had held so dear! Hello to the unknown, the road not yet traveled! Hello to Alabama!

Except for driving through Dothan, Montgomery, or Eufaula, I had only spent time in Birmingham, therefore, my plan was to move there with my children. I flew down in February 2008 for a job interview where I was offered the position of Training Director in a large medical facility. I had recently gotten an offer on my house and began selling my household belongings off on Craigslist. I was to start the job on April 10, 2008. It was at that time that Les (my significant other) decided that he would move south too. An avid sailor, he had decided to take up golfing - which beautiful golf courses envelop the neighborhoods of Mountain Brook - in order to help him with the transition and compensate for the lack of bodies of water in that area.

In early March, the whole administration in that facility, myself included, was fired before I even got there to do anything to get fired! Since Les had spent his life racing sailboats on Lake Ontario, I felt guilty pulling him away from the life he loved to a city where there would be no sailing. But now I was no longer obligated to Birmingham. That was when I remembered, “Alabama has a coast!” I had no idea what city was on it so I pulled out a map and there was Mobile, right on the bay. I dared not tell Les as I was not sold on the idea of letting Birmingham go and trying another strange place. If Les found out there was a coast, there would be no turning back!

I googled “Yacht clubs in Mobile, Al”. Dauphin Island, Fairhope, and Mobile clubs all came up and I proceeded to call all of them to get information. Each call was met with a happy, welcoming voice, all of which gave me every reason why we should come and join their club and not the others.

In April, we both came down for a fact-finding/job-hunting mission. I had wanted to move south for over 20 years but there was always a reason not to. A job, friends, our church, the kid's school, the kid's friends, or just plain the thought of sorting through a large house and hauling all that crap 1300 miles south.

As I said in my last post, my first exposure to Mobile had been short and sparse. By sparse, I mean that I saw very little of actual Mobile, but saw a lot of the service road between Airport Boulevard and Cottage Hill. We had decided to look and apply for jobs for 4 days in Birmingham and 3 days in Mobile. Whoever got the first job that would cover our monthly living expenses, no matter which city, we would take it just to get into the south. However, we didn’t factor in the two young girls we had with us and that we couldn’t just leave them at the hotel by themselves all day. Therefore, Les looked for work and the girls and I camped by the pool at the Drury Inn on Airport Boulevard service road.

At days end, Les would come back and tour us around the area. We had an “Airport Boulevard” in Syracuse, only it was called “Erie Boulevard” and had no Palm Trees. We went to see the bay, which must have flipped upside down or something because it was as brown as a mud puddle and it just so happened that the skies were gray the whole time we were here. I saw the shipping ports downtown from the bayway and, having never seen a shipping port before, thought that they were just giant cranes parked downtown by the bay. I had always hated cranes! I had nightmares about them as a child! We tried several times to actually get to downtown but could never seem to reach it. We saw it in the distance from several angles and had gone through the tunnels a few times but ended up in Theodore instead. What is so simple now was an enigma to us then.

On our last day, just as we were heading back to Birmingham for one more night before going north, we somehow found our way to Dauphin Street downtown but I was too stressed, and too ‘Birmingham minded’ to appreciate anything. Les so desperately wanted me to see what he knew I would love; the historical structures, the Live Oaks that tunneled the streets and Magnolia trees! But my heart was so set on Birmingham that, I swear to God, those big trees were invisible, or must have been installed between the time we left and the time I arrived for good in June because, had I noticed them, I would have been hooked right then!

Les received a job offer in Mobile that met our “foot in the south” criteria. I had mixed emotions. No more winter! I was really getting out of there! I was really moving south. To where? A place that looked like Erie Boulevard with Palm trees! Palm trees! That was the saving grace! If there were Palm trees, there was no snow! I could look at traffic and cranes all day, and even big, brown mud puddles as long as there was no snow! Les was to start his job in three weeks which meant rushing back to NY, selling as much as possible, and loading what was left in a 24 foot truck and rebuilding from there. He would leave on May 13. I would stay for the closing of my house and for my youngest to finish school in late June. And people would ask me, “Where are you moving too?” And I would answer them…”A place that looks like Erie Boulevard with Palm trees and a big brown mud puddle!”