Seeing Houston for the First Time

It was, and still is, hard for me to grasp the fact that we were moving to America's 4th largest city. So when we got onto I-10/Katy Freeway I was overwhelmed by the multitudes of lanes! If you count the marginals there are 10 lanes on either side! That's 20 lanes of sun bleached concrete!!! And the freeway is the only thing in Houston that is in anyway 'hill' like. Houston is FLAT!

After traveling another 8 hours in the car the kids had about had it. I had about had it and my stress levels were rising. We got onto Barker-Cypress Rd. and I from that point on hated Google maps. It looked a lot different than what I thought I saw on that street view. In less than a minute we found the apartment I had picked over the internet... OMG! When I saw the suped up cars with these nasty looking spinners that looked as if they came out of the movie Death Race 2000 my stress levels went through the roof. Mark dropped me off at the 'club house' I realized that the photographer who took the pictures for the internet must have found some extreme angles to make this look big. I wasn't impressed and my feeling of dread was getting worse. After much waiting I finally find someone to take us to the apartment. We go up rickety stairs with a rusted out railing and enter the smallest living room ever of this so called 'updated' dump. What did I do??? Then we saw the bedrooms. All of them had doors to the balcony. We declined right there on the spot. I was crushed, tired, the kids were going nuts, and the rest of our stuff was coming the next day. I tried really really hard not to break out in tears. Houston was not looking so good and my visions of what it was like went up in smoke.

We ended up driving further up the street to the other apartment complex we had seen on the internet and ended signing a lease there instead. The kids were well past it and so was I. If I can give anyone advice when relocating with no help.... DON'T get an apartment over the internet! And if your coming from a house, just lease a house. The apartment thing is not what you would dream it to be. And if you happen to be moving to Katy, Texas, pick a place south of I-10.

So how did things end up? Well, we have till August in the apartment. We can't wait to get out of it. The apartment itself isn't bad but the complex has a lot to be desired. We are going to lease a house south of I-10 even though they are pricy. I have found that I love Houston for all it's quirks, it's a remarkable city.

Now that you know the back story. Let's now talk about Houston, a place that didn't show much in the travel books up in Ohio but has more than I ever imagined... if you keep an open mind!

From NE Ohio to Houston Texas

Now there is some back story I feel the need to lay out here. I have been trying to escape the confines of Ohio since I was 16. I'm 34. It took me a while. Don't ask. If your really interested let me know and I will bore you to tears with back story. Anyway, my husband went job shopping for anything outside of the toilet bowls' epicenter and after a summer of searching he landed a job in Houston TX! I've never seen Houston, EVER. But did I care? NO! So primed with Google Maps, Rent.com, Craigslist, etc. I went about finding an apartment big enough for us and our two kids Alex (4) and Zoe (2). The search was on!

Now let's get real. Renting an apartment site unseen over the Internet, though exciting for me at the time, was not a great idea. But I was too excited and knee deep in my Disneyfied visualizations to care at the time. So by the time Thanksgiving came around our house was rented out, most of the stuff we owned was halfway to Houston in our overly packed Dodge Grand Caravan, in the Pontiac Vibe we were all going to go in (not much room there), or bunking at our parents houses indefinitely. Let it be known that I was aware of how close IKEA was to our new place and I could care less about most of my old furniture. Mark and I hit our 10 year anniversary that month, and as a note to all couples, getting all new everything after ten years is WONDERFUL!!! Plus with kids, slipcovers are the bomb! Yes, I said it, I call my brother Dude too.

The day after Thanksgiving we were on the ultimate road trip to Houston with Ohio in the rear view mirror. The kids were snugly packed in with their blankies and DVDs. I had my coffee, Mark had the rest. We did one last check of the roof pack and headed out.

About 30 minutes into driving we realized that those roof rack packs were soooo not worth it when it came to gas mileage and loudness. The trip down went better than we expected. The kids were relatively good, the car held up, and we only lost the bed rail because it ripped the carrier.

Note to self: Always pack duct tape!

Now I've only been to Austin, Texas once in my life and fell in love with it. I unwittingly thought all of Texas would look like that. Let's just say that Houston was a surprise. If you asked any NE Ohioan what they thought Texas would be like most of the answers would be: flat, dusty, barren, cows, horses, gallon hats, southern accents, guns, lots of land etc. When I went to Austin I about fell over, it was hilly, green, amazingly pretty. But when we drove into Houston, I was in for a surprise...

My first impressions of Houston - coming soon!