In the spring of 2007, my last semester at Toledo, I was faced with the reality that I would be graduating college soon and would have to get a job and enter into the real world. I know that I did, but I don't remember it, but I looked for work in Ohio and didn't really find anything. Lindsey and I had talked a few times about wanting to live down south, in the Carolina's or Georgia so I started looking down there. I found a company in North Carolina and emailed them my resume and while searching their website, I found out they had a sister company in Florida, so I applied there as well. I got a call back from both companies and had phone interviews within a week of each other. About a week after that I got a call back from Florida and they wanted me to talk over the reality of moving to half way around the country at such a young age with my family, and wanted to schedule a time to fly me down for an interview. Florida was definitely not on the top of our list of places to live for a few reasons. Lindsey didn't like the idea that we would be living in a state that was frequented by hurricanes. Neither of us were looking forward to the extreme heat, and I don't think either of us could have ever predicted how hot it would actually be. And finally, the fact that we would be living in a totally new place all by ourselves, 1,500 miles from either of our parents, friends and family.
Well, after talking it over with everyone and realizing that this could be the opportunity of a lifetime to work with such a reputable construction company we decided if the interview went well, and the offer was right, we would be heading south. But first I had to survive my first big-time real world interview.
They set me up with a very early flight from Toledo to Cleveland, then Cleveland to Orlando. Going into it, I was more nervous about the flight down than the actual interview itself. I had only ever flown once, to Orlando, with the family when I was 12, and I figured if they wanted to spend that much money on me, I must have a pretty good shot at it. So I sucked it up and got on the plane(s) and arrived in warm, kind of sunny Orlando, Florida. I went through the whole interview process, meeting with HR people, Division Mangers and other young engineers, and the day was winding down for me to catch a cab back to the airport for my 6 o'clock flight. Well, I didn't know this at the time, but the HR representative was quite talkative and we sat there talking and talking until 3 p.m. when she finally called for my cab. Now in Orlando if there was no traffic, it would only take about 30 minutes to get from the office to the airport, but that's in a perfect situation. By the time my cab arrived it was almost 4 p.m. and it took well over an hour to get to the airport. My cab driver was taking every short cut he could to get me there so I wouldn't miss my flight. Luckily I didn't have anything but a briefcase with me so I ran to security, and ran to the gate. I was the last one on the plane, 5 more minutes and I would have been stuck in Florida. Well I made it home, not even caring about the flights back because it had been such a long day.
About a week later I got an email with an offer letter, and all the other information about becoming a new Construction Engineer at Hubbard Construction Company. After many talks with Lindsey, my parents, her mom, and everyone else, we decided that after graduation we would be heading south to the Sunshine State.
Graduation came and went, I will go into that school year a little more in another entry. Hubbard had given me a moving allowance, so Lindsey and I bought some plane tickets and rented a car to go down and try and look for an apartment and relax 2 days after graduation. We found a few places online and set up appointments to view them, nothing was really catching our eye, but everything that we were looking at was kind of old and not in the best of areas. We found this one apartment complex just driving around and really liked it, and in a move of stupidity we signed up to move in without even doing any research on the place. Once we got back to Ohio, I was checking it out online and began reading horrible things from previous tenants. Luckily we were able to cancel the check we wrote them, and get out of the lease. We ended up going with a nice quite 2 bedroom apartment in Maitland, Florida, just north of Orlando.
Leaving was kind of a bittersweet moment for me. It was hard because all my life I was no more than an hour's drive from my parents and family. Now we would be a 3 hour flight, 18 hour drive, and knowing that we would only be seeing each other a few times a year. But it was also very exciting because it was a new adventure that Lindsey and I were taking on together. Lindsey's mom had been living in Dallas, Texas for about a year or so so there wasn't much of a physical good-bye there, but I know it was rough on my parents and the rest of our families when we left.
Well the day had finally come, the truck was loaded to the brim, and we set off from good ole' Amherst around 11 a.m. We needed help moving down and ended up having our friends David and Emily drive down with us and spend a few days before flying them back to Ohio. Our plan was to drive into North Carolina and stop for the night, then finish up the drive the next day. That didn't happen. Because our truck was loaded, and we were towing Lindsey's car behind it so we were limited to about 60 miles per hour. On top of that, it started raining in Charleston, West Virginia and it was starting to get dark, in the mountains, in the rain. I had driven most of the day because, I am kind of a control freak when it comes to driving. I can't relax when someone else is driving, especially when we were hauling everything we owned. We finally stopped that night, just across the Virginia state line, around midnight. My nerves were completely shot and I was exhausted. Luckily the next day was a beautiful day for driving and the roads got flatter and straighter so I felt a little better about David driving the truck.
This is me nervously driving the truck through the mountains into North Carolina.
After an extremely long day driving, we finally made it into Florida, only 3 hours left until we made it to Orlando. One thing I really hated about Florida was how long it took to get anywhere. We were on the home stretch, however one last problem stood in front of us. Neither of us wrote down the directions to the apartment. We only had directions to Maitland, not the apartment. Fortunately for us, I was able to find it from memory. Unfortunately for Lindsey and Emily, they had driven ahead of us and got of the the highway to try and get to the apartment and get ready for us, but Lindsey got off at the wrong exit and ended up arriving at the apartment about 40 minutes after we did. David and I already had half of the truck unloaded by the time the girls got there.
David, Me, Lindsey & Emily outside our apartment.
After we got somewhat settled in the new place over the next day, we decided to head out to Daytona Beach to hang out for the day before David and Emily went back to Ohio. We got some sun, played some Frisbee for David, and enjoyed the little bit of time we had left with the only friends we had near us. We got up the next morning, took David and Emily to the airport, Lindsey and I went and returned the moving truck and came back to our apartment. I remember that morning being a little sad, depressed even, because it was then that it finally hit me that we were on our own now and it was up to us to go out and meet some new people and places. All my life before that I had my parents or Lindsey or other friends to be my guide, now it was up to me.
Emily, David, Lindsey & Me at the Daytona Beach Pier.
