Playing in the rain

One thing about Florida is when it rains, it really rains.  This weekend has been particularly wet.  Today, I was sitting in my car for a minute after getting home when it started to rain.  It went from nothing to complete downpour in a matter of seconds.  Just going from my car to the building 20 feet away was enough to get me half-soaked.  Well, I figured I was already halfway there, why not make the best of it.

So I stepped out into the deluge.



It. was. amazing.


The rain was warm and strangely inviting.  I walked out into the parking lot and jumped around in this stream that had formed there.  I stood and put my face to the sky and let the rain wash away all the worry and regret and fear and anxiety of the last few months...if only for a minute.  I felt young again.  I can't remember the last time that I actually played in the rain, twirling and jumping and splashing, without regard to how wet I was getting or who was watching.  None of it mattered.

I'm sure there's a deeper lesson to be had in this one little moment in time, something transcendental.  But honestly, I don't want to think about that just yet.  I just want to enjoy it for what it was and when it was...A typical Florida rainstorm in June and a 29 year old man-child acting the fool for the world to see with the biggest smile he's had on his face in a long, long time.

Pictures of buildings and other happenings

Short post.  I went riding around on my bike yesterday.  I rode up to campus to see how long it would take.  Then I rode around campus just exploring.  Let me tell you something.  This. place. is. huge.  It is probably 3 times bigger than BYU's campus.  And all the buildings look so historic...like they've been there a hundred years.  It's like every college campus you've ever seen in any movie.

Anyway, I took a couple pictures with my phone.  This is the hospital.  The lecture halls and labs and classrooms are all on the backside of what you see here.

There is a whole wing just out of frame to the right that you can't see that is just as big, if not bigger, than what you see here.

Then, just across the street, there is the cancer center/level I trauma center.

This building is huge too.  I'm not sure how much I'll be able to work in this place, but it would be very cool if I did.  It's pretty new and gets all sorts of trauma patients from the entire region.

Then, last night, I ate dinner with a couple from church.  Crazy story.  I was sitting in Sunday School and there was this guy on the other side of the class that I swore I knew from somewhere.  But, I'm more than 2,000 miles away from anywhere I have ever lived, so how could I know somebody here?  But I'm really, really good with faces, so I knew that I had seen him before but couldn't quite figure out where.  Then his wife came in and I knew for sure that I knew them from somewhere.  I went up to them after class and said, "I know you."  He said I looked familiar too.  Found out they had gone to BYU but none of our classes overlapped.  Then he ran through all the wards they had been in.  Turns out they were in our same ward when Becky and I were newlyweds.  That, in fact, was their last ward in Provo before they moved here 5 years ago to pursue post-grad stuff.  How cool is that?  The world is so small, especially in the Church.  Well, they invited me over for dinner and fed me pizza.  They were able to give me the run-down on life in Gainesville and how to make the transition a little easier.  I feel like I've moved to an entirely different country, so it was nice to see a familiar face so far from home.

Minutia II

So, I have a long list of things to do before school starts.

• Register to vote
• Change driver's license
• Get car insurance changed to Florida
• Buy health insurance
• Get car registered
• Open bank account
• Get a library card
• Buy books
• Buy scrubs
• And, if money permits (which it probably won't)
• Change car oil
• Buy new rear tires
• Get my muffler fixed (kinda came off the exhaust pipe on my trip. Like, the exhaust pipe broke and the muffler is kinda just hanging there).

Here's the problem.  The only thing I can do on this list (besides all the car repairs) is register to vote since I don't have proof of address.  The guy I'm renting a place from doesn't require a lease, so I don't have that to show where I live.  It's OK though.  I talked to him today and he's going to draw me up a lease anyway so that I can get some of this stuff taken care of.  Hope he sends it soon.  I would like to have this all taken care of before school starts.

Road trip

I made it.  3 days and 2221 miles later, I'm in Gainesville.  I had planned on doing this in three parts, each night updating on how that day's voyage went.  This turned out to be a little over-ambitious.  Turns out I get really tired after 14-16 hrs of driving and am not really in a blogging mood.  So, you're getting a 1 post overview of the trip.

Day 1: Orem, UT - Lincoln, NE

 

Literally the only thing in Sinclair, WY

To save some money, I reserved camping sites in Lincoln and then Nashville.  I pulled into Lincoln at about midnight MDT.  The RV park was nice and it was good to get a warm shower.  Didn't take long before I passed right out.


Day 2: Lincoln, NE - Nashville, TN

Metropolis, MO...Population 6,000

Ohio River

I don't have any pictures of my entering Tennessee because it had gotten dark and I didn't want to try and take a picture from the side of the freeway with cars rushing by at 75 mph.

Now this is where the trip goes a little off-track.  As I said, I had reserved a campsite in Nashville.  It was next to J. Percy Priest Reservoir and I was excited to spend a night next to the water.  Well, when I got to the campground at 11 PM, guess what greeted me.  A locked gate across the entrance.  Yep, the campground had been locked down for the night.  Nobody in the guardhouse.  It wasn't like the campground was closed.  There were RVs there, but there was no way to get in.  There's no local phone number posted, just the one for the national reservation service.  So, I called it at 11:11 CDT, and the office had closed 11 mins prior.  Awesome.  So, here I am, 600 miles from my destination, tired, stinky, with nowhere to sleep.  I drove around the bay looking for another campsite but there was nothing.  So, I made an executive decision to go ahead and plow through the night and just get to Gainesville.

Day 3: Nashville, TN - Gainesville, FL

Sunrise outside Atlanta, GA

Atlanta

I made it!!

Barring a 2 hour nap somewhere in TN, I drove through the night and got into Gainesville at about noon on the 31st.  Sorry there weren't more pictures from this stretch, but there's not much to see in the dark.  1 of the disadvantages of driving through the night.

Thoughts on the trip

1. The United States is HUGE, amazingly varied, and beautiful...
2. Except Wyoming.  Sorry people from WY, but that was the ugliest state along the trip.  Bleak, brown, and barren.
3. Surprisingly enough, Nebraska was my favorite.  Maybe I just caught it at the right time of the year, but it was beautiful.  The corn and grain fields were the most gorgeous shades of green and they stretched on as far as the eye could see.  The towns were small and quaint.  Very Midwestern.  I wish I had taken more pictures.
4. When you're really tired, you are able to sleep in very uncomfortable positions in a cramped, fully packed car.
5. Human butts are not meant to sit for 40 hrs straight.  It's still a little numb.

So, anyways, that's my trip.  I'm here.  Safe.  Now the search is on for a place to live...