The 36 hours to the big D

“Richmond can’t get you in by Wednesday,” he said and I felt a little deflated.

First thing that came to mind when my Chaplain recruiter told us my medical exam in Richmond was a no go was “Where’s the next best place I can get it done?” The second thought was, “I hope its not in Santa Fe—although Santa Fe would be a cool place to visit.”

“So, Chaplain Berghaus,” I asked, “What’s next?”

‘Next’ was the options. We discussed sending me to Santa Fe, El Paso and [drum roll] the big ‘D’ and I do mean Dallas.

Kim and I talked off line and calling back, I said yes to Dallas. It was on our way and that made it the best thing since sliced bread.

The only problem: ~36 hours to show up at MEPS. That’s right, not 36 hours to arrive in Dallas, have a coffee and get some sleep. 36 hours to stand in line outside the MEPS.

Dun-dun-dun!


The long drive:

We started Tuesday waving goodbye to friends and our old neighborhood. We said goodbye to our house and left town.

Leaving was hard and we didn’t get out of town until after around 4PM. Still, we knew our task and after some debate decided to see how far we could get. Driving all night for Hunter's sake sounded like a good idea at 5PM, but could we do it?

He fell asleep around 8pm and after doing a sanity check we decided: drive till dawn was on.

We went until Kim was slapping herself around 530am and found a motel, hitting the sack around 6am in Alabama. Hunter was still asleep.

Four hours later we were on the road again.

We got to Dallas around 8pm Wednesday night.

We were tired, we were ready to sleep and we were really thankful to arrive. Additionally, God put nice people in our way at each juncture, from the guy with MEPS who was understanding and treated my family and I like adults, the fellow at the front desk who offered to help Kim load the car in the morning when I wasn’t around and the night manager who let us park our car in the company parking.

It was a long drive, but we did it in 28 hours. With an infant.

Go team Hammans.