A Sign That The Long Trip Was About To End

Monday I will return to talking about places to find friends BUT for the weekend I interrupt the New Town to Hometown series with a silly story from the journey

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The day after my “this town will do” meltdown. We finally saw it. It was amazing. My husband saw it first and screamed at me through the walkie talkies to take notice. I was so excited about it I started clapping and shouting “thank you Lord” ” thank you!”

I don’t think that my husband and I have ever been so happy in our lives about a road sign as we were that day. For the first time in our now 2100+ mile journey we saw the name of our new town written in white on a green road sign . Within minutes we then saw another one with the towns name and “10” next to it.

That 10 stood for 10 miles. Just 10 miles! If anyone over heard our walkie talkie frequency that day they would have thought we had just struck gold for all the shouts of joy we were creating.

Those 10 miles quickly became 5 then 2 and then we arrived in our new town. Our first thought what is with all the pot holes. Our second thought did you see the amount of abandon houses.

You see the recruiting officer who worked with the hospital had sent us a few sites to check out about the area and from them we had the idea that the town was all river walks and pretty historic buildings . The website forgot to mention that our town had been through at least two major recessions and had never really fully recovered.

It was a slight shock for two people raised in tourist towns, one beach side and the other next to a major ski resort. Both thriving towns who kept their tiny less desirable areas hidden from the visitors that were a major part of their economy. In my original hometown I can think of perhaps a handful of rundown houses within the entire city, my new hometown has a few on every street.

We noticed right away however that the people made up for the look of the town. Friendly folks always willing to chat. When we finally unpacked our moving van several weeks after arriving we had our new neighbors and several people from our new church helping to unload it.

These welcoming people soon put blinders on our eyes to the abandoned houses and pot holes: Proving the saying “it is not what is on the outside that counts but instead what is in the heart.”

My new hometown might be in serious need of some plastic surgery but it has a heart big enough to win over this ocean front town gal and her mountain valley husband.

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This post is part of the New Town to Hometown series. Use the links below to dig into the series.

Introduction: My Story

Part One: Becoming Friend Worthy