Thanksgiving in Altus, Oklahoma

As most of you know, Jake is currently at Altus AFB doing specialized training on the C-17 for a few months and while he's there I'm spending some time with my family in California. When we first found out we were going to be apart for 6 long months, I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with it. Thankfully, it hasn't been as bad as I thought and we've been able to see each other every 3 or 4 weeks so far. And since Jake came out to visit in October and is coming back to the west coast for Christmas & New Years, we both decided I would come to visit him for the Thanksgiving holiday. I was very much looking forward to it and counting down the days - I was really excited to finally have a visual of the life Jake's been living for the past 3 months. It's so weird to be so physically disconnected from each others lives.

The flights over there went smoothly and the long 8 hours of traveling went surprisingly quick. I was pretty well-equipped with yummy snacks and juicy celebrity magazines :) When I landed at the Lawton airport it was interesting to see that the landscape in Oklahoma is totally different than that of Mississippi. Oklahoma is VERY flat, golden and you can see for miles and miles; Mississippi is very green with tons of trees and windy roads. While I was landing I was singing to myself "O.....klahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain". I know, I know... I'm a nerd. Oh and the other landscape thing that I was fascinated with was the miles and miles of cotton fields. I'd never seen cotton fields before! They surrounded the highway for as far as I could see. Very cool!

Jake took some time to show me around the base in Altus which is a pretty nice base. It was neat to see where he trains and spends his days. After that, I got a tour of the town which took a whole 5 minutes! Seriously though, Altus makes Columbus, Mississippi look HUGE! Next we headed to Jake's hotel so I could settle in and relax after a long day of traveling. And yes, Jake is living in a hotel, in a beautiful King suite room with free breakfast every morning, daily maid service, pool/spa and everything... FOR 17 WEEKS! He totally got the hook-up because the base dorms were full when he arrived to training. Staying in a hotel for my trip really made me feel like I was on a fabulous vacation :)

Although, for the entire week I was there we really didn't do much at all. I mean let's face it there really isn't not a whole lot to do in the area surrounding the base, and absolutely nothing was happening on base because it was a holiday week and almost everyone was gone. Luckily I did have a chance to see some of our good friends while I was there, as there are several people that we know from Columbus who are also doing specialized training at Altus right now. That was really nice!

But really not having much to do sounded just perfect to me. If there's one thing I am especially fantastic at, it's relaxing :) I put away all of my work for a whole week (gasp!), took advantage of being able to sleep in late and lounge around in my pjs everyday, enjoyed the hotel spa, and loved the fact that Jake didn't have a kitchen so that meant lots of eating out! However, our dining options were quite limited and most of the restaurants were either locally owned or small southern chains. We had fun eating at places called "Whataburger" and "Pick-up Taco". Seriously. Ah yes, going to the South when you are not from the South is a fun experience!

The only day that felt weird to be in a hotel was on Thanksgiving. It was strange and lonely not to be celebrating with a huge group of loved ones, stuffing our faces, laughing, playing games, taking an after-turkey nap by the fire, and scanning Black Friday ads together. I definitely missed that. But Jake and I did manage to have a decent little turkey dinner at Applebees... which happened to be almost connected to Jake's hotel so it was very convenient. Then for Black Friday, we decided to get out of Altus for the day and headed to Wichita Falls, Texas for some shopping. We didn't really buy much or score any amazing deals but it was fun to just spend time together, browsing the stores and people watching.

Well I think that's about all I have to tell you about my Thanksgiving in Altus, Oklahoma. Overall it was just really great to spend some quality time with my husband and relax a bit together. I'm so looking forward to seeing him again in just 3 weeks for the some fun holiday celebrations on the west coast!