I suppose it all started with the job search, so I will start the story there. We came to Blythe because I wanted to teach full time. That worked out beautifully. The town was small and friendly and the college was a dream. Dr. Beumel was so supportive of the computer program which I was teaching that the college environment could hardly be better. Irene even got a job teaching a health class which she enjoyed very much. We made many new friends
There was one problem. We had come from a very, very nice area; the central coast of California. Atascadero has beautiful weather, low population density, good services, lots of oak trees and beautiful hills, good schools, quiet rural atmosphere, low cost of living (except for the housing), but it also has very few jobs and the pay is low. So that is why we found ourselves in Blythe - the job.
When the temperature got up to 116 degrees, we were not too thrilled. The monsoon season, the dust storms, the mosquitoes, the flies and the ag spraying did not contribute to our enjoyment. The elementary schools in Blythe were doing as best they could, but the class environment for our daughter Alexis, did not come up to what she had in Atascadero. We even found that there was no board certified gynecologist in town. To top all of this, the house prices were out of line with the area. The kind of house we had been used to did not even exist in Blythe. The houses were small and three car garages were almost unheard of. All we wanted was something around 1800 sq ft. We also kept hearing of problems in the middle and high school. All this led to a slow disappointment.
The conclusion was to search for a better place. The better place would have to be a small, friendly town. It would have to have a college for me to work at. Services would have to be good, and the weather would also be a factor. This did not leave very many places to consider. In fact, the chances of finding THE place became so thin that we expanded our horizon.
During the Spring of 1992, I sent out 11 applications. One position was canceled, I was invited to 6 interviews, went to 5 of them and received 3 job offers. Interestingly, the job offers all came within a day of each other. On Wednesday I received an offer from Modesto, CA, Thursday brought an offer from Auburn, WA, and Friday Hobbs, NM called with an offer. Talk about frustration! Different parts of the country and none of them a clear choice. We even considered staying in Blythe. In fact, Dr. Beumel kept encouraging me to stay with PVC. I suspect he had some personal prejudice in mind however. The way it turned out, perhaps I should have listened. I did work very well with him and I miss that.
The travel begins. Besides my driving up and down California to interview at Modesto, then later at Visalia, I also drove to Thatcher, AZ and flew up to Auburn, WA, coming back in time for graduation ceremonies at PVC. Later, Irene and I both drove to Hobbs, NM where we were both offered jobs! In trying to make the decision, we ended up driving over 7,000 miles in one two week period.
We drove up to Modesto, back to Blythe, over to Hobbs, back to Blythe, up to Auburn, back to Blythe, over to Hobbs again, and finally back to Blythe to collapse. Still no decision! Auburn, WA is a suburb of Seattle and the population density caused Irene to go into shock. Modesto was not much better; possibly even worse since the college was even bigger. Hobbs, NM was the closest thing to Blythe that we saw. It did have more services, a very beautiful college, apparently better schools, very affordable and good quality housing, and it had good medical facilities. On the down side, there is not even a small hill in sight, the air has occasional petroleum smell (an oil town) and the pay scale is very low (yes, lower than Blythe).
Modesto was the first to be eliminated because it was very similar to Auburn, but Auburn had a smaller college, cleaner air and I would be the only official CIS instructor instead of being one of 8 at Modesto. The decision was not that easy since the people at Modesto College had been very, very friendly and supportive. I felt very bad turning them down.
The decision between Auburn and Hobbs was even harder. Note that none of the offers came from our IDEAL town. We were evaluating them on the basis of whether they were better than Blythe or not. We still aren't sure about that one! In the end, I considered where I would get the best retirement benefits. Auburn stood out clearly as the better choice on that point. The interesting twist is that Hobbs would have a position for me next year if things in Auburn did not work out for some reason. So, I reluctantly called the very, very friendly people at Hobbs and told them of my choice.
Now comes the packing, loading, arranging for housing and all those other things that come with a move. Since Irene went into shock when we visited Auburn, we did not complete our housing search while we were up there. However, we did see four houses for sale, and one of them seemed suitable. They have terrible housing in the Seattle area. Most of the houses are made of wood and are two story. Stucco is almost non-existent and very few newer one story (except for very small houses). We settled on a tri-level which is the closest they have to a single story. The house is on a cul-de-sac and has some stucco facing. It is only 3/4 of a mile from the college. We will see if that is good or bad in a few weeks. We bought the house by telephone and the deal was done. Mistake to buy a house right away? Perhaps it was - at the time it seemed to be a good move.
Thank you Joe Parker! Without this good student and wonderful person we would have had a very difficult time. We rented two 26 foot U-Haul trucks with a car transport behind each one. Renting them was an adventure in itself. Renting a truck from California to Washington was quoted at $4,000 per truck! Something is wrong here. So I checked further. Seems that there are no trucks in California any more since everyone is moving out. Idea! I called again and asked for the rate to move from Quartzsite, AZ to Auburn, WA. This time the quote was only $651 per truck. How about that as an advantage for being close to Arizona.
July 28, 1992 - the move begins. Joe and I go to Quartzsite in the late afternoon to pick up the two trucks. Loading will begin in the morning. Fortunately, Dennis Shelly, husband of Irene's friend Shirley, volunteered to help us load. At first the two trucks looked so large that we wonder if we could have done with some smaller ones. By the end of the first day of loading, we knew that two large trucks were barely enough! Even the cars on each trailer were loaded with things. We could not load the Mazda van completely since we needed to leave room for our three dogs!
We finished loading by 1 p.m. on the 30th and decided to get started rather than waiting another day. Here we go, I10 west, then north on I5 through central California. We discovered how large a 26 foot truck with an auto trailer is when we stopped for lunch in Yucaipa. The McDonalds parking lot seemed ok till I tried to make a turn. Suddenly there was not enough room to clear the curb and a tree. Back and forth I jockeyed the truck till it seemed that each move only made things tighter and tighter. After 10 minutes which seemed like an hour, I finally managed to barely squeak past that darned curb. Joe was very careful not repeat my mistake and on our way we went.
The trip through the LA area went very well. No traffic was encountered and we were very thankful for that. We did not want to stop anyplace near LA so we went on through the early night darkness till we reached Gorman. The air conditioning at the only motel there was broken, but after living in Blythe, we figured that we would not be bothered. In any case, we did not want to go on that night.
Morning came and up, up through the San Juaquin Valley we drove. Then it turned into the Sacramento Valley and the dusk of evening set in. Things started getting greener with rolling hills. We communicated between trucks with CBs that I borrowed from my brother-in-law. Joe was doing a great job of driving, but he was not used to driving so long at such high speeds. We managed to get up to Project City just outside of Redding and just before Shasta Lake. The motel there was situated very privately and had room for our two trucks. We still had just enough daylight and energy left to take a walk to Circle K market. The walk was about a mile each way and Joe, Irene, Alexis and I were ready to scarf up our cottage cheese, milk, sandwich and other goodies we bought and then call it a night.
Saturday morning we got going early heading up the mountain towards Weed and the Oregon border. Breakfast was eaten at the McDonalds in Weed. Joe was remembering the days when he lived at Mt. Shasta years ago. Nothing too eventful but we were now driving along tree lined highways with trees as far as you could see. I had some concern about the descent into Ashland, OR because it is a fairly steep grade and last time I drove there it rained. We were fortunate, the sun shone on us all the way to Auburn so there was no worry.
We passed by beautiful Oregon cities, Ashland, Medford, Grants Pass, and Roseburg, which has a college but no job for me! We drove past Eugene and waved in case Ken Schultz (a former student) was watching. By now the scenery had changed to resemble a green version of the California central valley. It was warm, scenic and flat driving. The trees were still there, but the mountains had turned into small hills to the east of us. Looking west is was quite flat. Just short of Portland, we needed to get some fuel for the trucks and for ourselves. I saw a stop which seemed good and we pulled off. Bad choice. The gas station I had targeted had such a narrow driveway that not only did I not get to fill up, I felt lucky just to get out of there. Fortunately, the CBs allowed us to warn Joe so that he did not have to get stuck also. We gave up on the gas and instead went to a market which was part of a shopping mall and had a large parking lot. We bought some food, fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese and that was lunch.
A little further down the highway was a truck stop and we easily filled up on diesel, and at a very good price to boot. Arriving in Portland was not an exciting experience. A big city with lots of traffic. We were glad to get onto the bridge spanning the Columbia River and getting the welcome to Washington sign. We made it most of the way now. Evening was coming and we needed to find a place to stay for the night. We looked at the map and tried to decide where we would want to stop. This turned into a slightly different quest as we discovered one motel after another with a no vacancy sign lit. Seems that there were several large conventions going on in Portland and the motels were all full.
We kept heading north; what choice did we have? By this time Joe was getting concerned about seeing trees in the middle of the road even if they were not there. A stop in Castle Rock proved fruitful as we rented the last two rooms in a "less than best" motel. The motel did not have telephones, but it was next to a good eating place. We had dinner, and in the morning ate a good breakfast there. The only problem we had was with one of our dogs. The three pooches were pretty good considering they were cooped up in a car for three days. The toy Manchester Terrier was only 7 months old and decided that nighttime is the time to howl. We had a knock at the door during the night. "Is that your dog howling in the car?" the manager asked. So I went out and brought him into the room to keep him quiet. I forgot to tell you, he did the same thing in Project City, only we knew about it earlier in the evening there.
Sunday morning came and we were only a couple of hours away from Auburn. As we headed further north the terrain was semi-flat but with lots of trees. Having gone through the green trees of Oregon, this scenery did not seem so different by now. A bit of concern went through Irene and me as we passed a sign pointing out that we were now north of the 45th parallel. We were the ones to be staying; Joe would head back south.
Chehalis and Centralia looked very nice as we passed them. Then we approached Olympia and the traffic started to get heavier. Actually, the traffic was not light any more once we had gotten north of Salem, Oregon. This was starting to remind us of our drive through Los Angeles. After Olympia came the outskirts of Tacoma and we turned east along highway 512 to bypass the central city. We drove past Puyallup (pronounced Pew-al-up), Sumner and then we were driving north on highway 167. There were fewer houses to be seen and it looked almost like farming country. We were later to learn that the trees were hiding all of the houses. Auburn came up rather quickly and we went a short distance on highway 18, getting off at Auburn Avenue.
The first stop was at the U-Haul center to drop off the auto transports. We did not want to get down our cul-de-sac with trailers attached. I could just see myself stuck there for several days trying to turn around. Up the hills we went into the woods heading for the new house. The first problem at the house was evident upon arrival. The sellers had not moved out yet. Escrow had closed on Friday, but here it was Sunday and they were still loading their truck! This set us back several hours and we were not happy, but what was to be done?
Joe was wiped out, we were all tired, but we needed to unload at least some of the furniture so that we could sleep in the house that night. We returned one truck on Sunday, finished unloading the second one on Monday and then we collapsed. Tuesday morning we drove Joe to the airport for his trip home. Irene offered for Joe to stay with us, but he felt a draw back to Blythe. With Joe's departure, our final link with Blythe seemed to be broken - Irene got very depressed at the thought.
It is September 25th as I write this. The seven weeks that we have been here have had their ups and downs. The downs were very extreme. The ups have seemed rather shallow. The house is being advertised for sale and we have put up a "For Sale by Owner" sign today. To understand this all, continue to read as I explain what happened.
It is pretty here, the weather seems fine, and 2.5 million other people want to be here also! That last part causes traffic, crowds and aggressive people (by Blythe standards at least). We started to miss Blythe! The problems we have had are almost entirely related to the number of people here and the crime and congestion it causes. Despite any rumors to the contrary, this is NOT a crime free place. It isn't a Los Angeles, but neither does it come even close to being as friendly as Blythe. During the first two weeks in Auburn, Irene went through a few episodes of depression in facing the density, no assurance of work and the realization that to take a class at the college would cost $133/unit! Even the resident student fees here are about $33/unit. Especially high since these are quarter units. This translates into something like $50/semester unit. Not exactly the California rate. Lots of airplanes flying overhead here. Also, there is the Seattle Speedway just a few miles from here and we can hear all of the drag races in the evening. All we had to deal with in Blythe were the "dive bombers" spraying the fields with pesticide. However, at least here we are not getting poisoned!
Among the things that cast a shadow on our new location was the house. To start with, it was a wooden tri-level instead of a single story stucco which we would have preferred. Other things, however, did not have to do with the design. There was the broken window pane in one of the bedrooms, the bent and cut mini blind in the living room, very dirty mini blinds in the dining area, splattered paint on the windows and frames, chipped porcelain on the bathroom sink, a hole in the downstairs door and a kitchen faucet that did not work properly and the dinette area floor was warped. We also discovered that the downstairs room gets very cold - 5 to 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. Many window screens needed to be replace. The outside of the house was no better than the inside. Weeds were all over the place. Evidence of a total lack of care for a number of years while the house was rented.
Next came the surprise of the local elementary school schedule. The school did not start till September 8th which was so late that Alexis was getting quite out of control with so much of a break. Due to a bussing schedule, classes do not start till 9 a.m. and get out at 3:30. This is in stark contrast to the program in Blythe where Alexis started at 7:15 and was out at 2:45. We also learned that there is no advanced teaching program such as the "GATE" program in Blythe. Seems that Blythe may not have good students to work with, but the schools are trying very hard there. We knew that, but did not expect the Auburn schools to lack so much. The level of teaching here is not bad however.
After going for some walks in the neighborhood, we discovered what we call the PUD (Planned Unit Development). The locals refer to it as "slime ridge." This is an area of low cost housing which was built a number of years ago and has deteriorated quite a bit in several spots. Many tenant occupied houses there. On one such walk we observed one boy socking another in the nose. A mother came running out yelling at the boy who did the socking. She told him to go away - that they did not need to have the likes of him and his mother around there. What a show!
We needed to open a local bank account. Since SeaFirst Bank is part of the Bank of America, we went there since we still had to keep our B of A accounts in California. What a difference in sophistication of service we discovered. The first problem became apparent when the teller machine withdrew money from the wrong savings account. In California, we can link as many accounts as we want to our teller card. Unfortunately, SeaFirst has not mastered this simple method of doing things. They issue a separate card for each and every account that you have! Their machine could not differentiate among the California accounts we had linked, and grabbed the wrong account to do business on. It took us a while to get around that one. The bank here also does not print your account number on the deposit receipt that you get from the teller. They claim that it is "for security reasons" but that excuse went out years ago in California.
Getting a library card became a major operation. It was enough of an inconvenience that there was only one branch of the Auburn library, and it was a ways from our house. We also discovered that since we live just outside of the city limits, we would need to get a Kings County library card first. Then we could get an Auburn library card based on an exchange agreement. Problem was that the nearest Kings County library was a ways out. Some not so interesting driving later, we had some cards to bring back to the closer Auburn library. What an adventure. It seems very strange that for the number of people living here, the level of services seems quite low. We don't even have a K-Mart store in Auburn. Of course, that is not necessarily a big minus. But only one branch of a library?
The tone of my writing often will reflect Irene's moods. She likes to have set routines which she is used to. This major relocation has upset her "apple cart" and it is a bumpy road to adjusting. The locals do have a rather strange way about them. While they are quite sophisticated, many times they beat around the bush instead of getting to the point. For example, the very neat brochure that the trash company sent us did not include the cost of each service which it described!
Getting our driver's licenses was a small adventure. Irene's license was about to expire so she had no choice. I went ahead and got mine anyway while we were there. We had to wait quite some time there. So may people; this is a large town! Irene go so nervous that she missed too many questions on the test and did not pass. They do allow a re-exam if you fail so we came back the next day. Boy, did she feel bad. On the retake she got them all, however. A bonus on the driver's license trip was that we discovered an Oroweat second day bakery outlet next door to the license bureau. We now go there regularly to buy our bread and sweet goodies. The prices are less than half and the products are still fresh!
A big disappointment was the lack of a job for Irene at Green River College. The college is so big that there are several layers of bureaucratic tape to go through to get anywhere. In addition to that, the classes that Irene would be interested and qualified to teach are already covered quite well. We even found out that there are some part time instructors who have been trying to get in full time for over 15 years! Guess I am very lucky to have beat out 58 other applicants - some of them local. This place is the very desired college for all of the greater Seattle area. It has high pay, relatively low working load and a beautiful, tree studded campus.
Choosing a newspaper became an adventure. There are four papers serving the general area and none of them have all of the columns and formats which Irene had grown used to expect. The two Seattle papers totally lacked a health column which Irene liked and their business news layout was very poor. There was no Auburn specific paper and the "local" paper caries news which was of little interest to Irene. She finally selected the Tacoma paper as the most acceptable of the lot. The delivery of the paper has been excellent, but knowing the local crime news has not been very inspiring.
We were out of town from Wednesday August 26th till Sunday the 30th. It was a trip to Paso Robles to take care of some business as well as rest and recuperation. The trip down was done in one straight shot - 17 hours of driving! It was relaxing to be "home" on the central coast for a while. With the pressures of the big city off of us, we were able to feel comfortable. On the way back, we stopped for the night in Project City, CA. This was the same motel we were at when we moved up. It was a very lucky stroke for us as it turned out that we got the last room in the whole area. Local forest fires had brought firefighters from everywhere and the motels in all the nearby towns were full. The drive through Oregon is particularly enjoyable. The only problem we encountered on the whole trip was when we got back to Auburn. We drove in on highway 18 which has a reputation of being a "death alley." It was ironic that for the whole trip of over 1,000 miles each way, the only bad traffic we hit was on highway 18 less than a mile from our house in Auburn! What a way to return.
I have been treated well at Green River and even somewhat revered - I am the only CIS instructor in the business division. My schedule is great with no evening classes required. The pay scale is also good with even part timers making $32/hr. On the down side, the union is strong and the college is big with many rules that have precluded Irene from getting a teaching position. The computer lab technician had offered Irene a lab assistant job, but Irene did not feel competent in that area. Irene did start attending my introduction to computers class on an informal audit basis. The dean and division chair had told me that it was ok to do this so as to avoid the high out of state fees. They do not have a reduced fee program for family of the college staff.
We have been in Auburn, WA since August 2nd and have not grown webbed feet yet. Actually, the weather here has been very excellent. We have a hard time remembering the heat! Only a few periods of rain, and even then it cleared up fairly quickly. There is a fairly large number of overcast days and some people may not like that. It is noticeable, however, that the local people seem to have a much healthier looking complexion than what we saw in the desert area.
We finally discovered ENUMCLAW. This is a VERY nice town of only 9,000 people (similar to Blythe size) located about 15 miles SE of Auburn. It is on a plateau, with Mt Rainier and all the other mountains as a backdrop. Trees surround it, but the town is NOT in a forest with a person living behind every tree. It has the best schools in the state of Washington, based on statewide test scores. Very attractive. Very pricey too! A new house there is about $170,000 and up. There are a few (very few) older houses that are advertised for around $125,000. The problem with Enumclaw would be the 17 mile commute to the college. Also, we have to sell our house here first. However, as nice as Enumclaw is, it is still only a way to hide from the extreme density nearby. We are still seriously considering Hobbs, NM as an option.
While we were visiting Enumclaw, we got a copy of their local paper. Irene found a job announcement there for a school Health Worker. It was a fairly low paying job ($8.75/hr) but it would allow her to work as a school nurse at an elementary school in Enumclaw. She has been volunteering at the school Alexis is attending. Anyway, Irene applied, was invited to the interview, but she was not selected. She had felt certain that she would be chosen, but she was not. It was devastating to her. This place seemed as hard to get into a good job as it had been on the central coast of California. Only the central coast has less density and even better weather. To add further injury, an unpleasant event followed. Irene went for a walk to drop off some newspapers at the local recycling bin about a half mile away. We had just gotten word that an elderly family friend had died and Irene was reminiscing about it. As she was walking down the road, a couple of guys in a pickup truck drove up from behind real close and the passenger yelled something very loudly in her ear. This not only startled her, but was so loud that her ear hurt. Not a nice small town.
On Septembr 8th, I left to attend four days of seminars in Ellensburg. This is a nice, small college town about 100 miles east of Seattle. The college provided a van and there were eight of us (new instructors) who went together. The terrain there is very reminiscent of the central valley of California. Mountains in the distance and golden hills on either side. Some farming and ranching in the area. Weather was very pleasant, although it did get quite cool at night. There were over a hundred attendees. The training was for all newly hired Washington state community and technical college faculty. About half of them were from out of state, a quarter were brand new out of school, and I met a good number from California! One of the new people at Green River is from Ventura, CA. He was a 24+ year full time English instructor there and decided he needed to move north. He is also an accomplished equestrian and, ironically, was invited this year to participate in the 1993 Rose Parade. Green River is planning to give him some time off to participate in that event. There may be a GRCC logo on the horse though.
Fall is approaching and leaves are starting to come down. Our house here is on over 9,000 square feet of lot and backs up to an acre and a half of tree land. It is all very pretty, but the trees are NOT evergreen. Unfortunately, the wind normally blows so that the leaves fall right into our back yard. What a job to clean up. The neighbor tells us to expect the leaves to be coming down for several months. Since she does most of the yard work, Irene gets depressed thinking about the small, easy maintenance yard she wanted.
Last week, one of the college faculty contacted me to tell me about a school nurse job in Buckley. This is a small town (4,000 population) a couple of miles past Enumclaw. Irene had contacted them earlier and was told that recruitment had been closed. As it turned out, the person they selected could not accept the job and it was reopened. To make a short story of it, Irene has been tentatively offered the job, pending processing of a temporary school nurse license. The Buckley school district had to process a large amount of paperwork to allow Irene to be hired. We were surprised that they were willing to do it.
Now Irene says that maybe we will stay in Washington! The house is still up for sale. We have three choices.
At this point we still don't know which it will be. By December we hope to know our decision.
So there you have the story. Stay tuned for changes and updates. Credits need to go to our friends Roy and Debby Moffett who wrote a long letter describing their trip to their Auburn (Alabama). That letter inspired me to get our story told as well. Hope you enjoyed it.