Our visit to Midland

*It's a long one and excuse any typos... I'm sure there will be many!

We left BG on Friday morning at 2:45 am. Apparently I was too excited or anxious to sleep that night... so with only two hours of sleep... I woke up at 1:15 am in preparation of our departure. We drove. And drove. And drove. And we drove. We finally made it past Lansing, MI and were ready to make our turn off the interstate. The route given to us by Google Maps definitely indicated that it was not a highway, but it looked good to us. We drove through the tiny town of St. Louis, MI and ended up on a two lane road. We passed farm after farm. We started to question the route. So we decided we'd stop and ask for directions as soon as we came upon some type of store. Then the pavement ran out. The two lane road turned into a one lane gravel road. We finally came to a T in the road and found we were supposed to go right. So we were still in line with the directions. We drove and drove. Eventually that gravel road turned into a dirt cow path. That's when the pit in my stomach first hit. You can imagine all the questions that ran through our minds... mainly, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" A couple more times we either had to right or left... but the directions failed us. We guessed. We passed several trailers that looked straight out of a scary movie. We were waiting for our tires to pop at any moment and for some drunk to come storming out with his vicious dog and a shot gun. We finally made it back to a gravel road, then a paved road, and then finally into Midland County. Phew! You can imagine how glad we were to make it back to civilization.

Our first impression of Midland was... "it's different." They have a decent little main street area and a pretty cool looking courthouse. It definitely didn't have the southern charm we've come to love in a town, but it had some kind of character. There was a nice big park and dog park. Midland is known for their Tridge which is a three legged bridge. So we got to see the Tridge and where the Farmer's Market is held. So far the town seemed livable. We immediately jumped into the house hunting. We had four leads. As soon as we got into town we found that three of those leads had already been rented. We had one. The home we were going to look at sounded pretty good. Three-Four bedrooms, 1 bath, basement, fenced in yard, attached garage. We did see a picture of the outside and wondered about the lavender front door and shutters, but we still thought it was worth checking out. We can deal with a cosmetically weak house, but let me first tell you her choice of paint colors. Gray master room, maroon bedroom, sickening yellow room (the ceiling fan was also painted yellow), a lavender living room, pink cabinets and counters, and linoleum that was straight out from Barbie's 1990 dream-house (pink and purple.) Now don't get me wrong I love pink and purple... my bedroom at home is extreme pink... so know that it WAS that bad. Then the basement which had a foul smell and a "bar" complete with wood thatching. There were other issues as well like the fact that the owner was moving in with her boyfriend. That's fine... BUT what happens if they break up? She's going to want her house back. She might not kick us out, but she may not renew our lease causing us to have to move again. So this place definitely didn't sit well.

After that dose of gross... we hit the streets. I won't bore you with the details of driving around and around and around and seeing nothing, but that's what happened. We didn't even feel like we could stop for lunch because we were so afraid to sacrifice daylight. Evening rolled around and we found nothing. Midland had lots of nice little houses for sale, and I mean a lot... but nothing to rent. It was definitely slim pickens! We'd find a place but it was usually nasty or way out of budget or not available for a few more months. Things were looking down. We were so frustrated and discouraged. We took a break and had dinner with Taylor, the intern from WKU that's there for the summer. We went back out until dark. At that point... functioning on little sleep... we decided we'd just have to call it a day. The rest of the evening was spent going, "What are we going to do?" And honestly... I was just upset with God. I felt like He's brought us here and been so faithful... and He leaves us without a home? I lay down to go to bed and I can't sleep. Then I start to get nauseous. I even had Nathan bring me the trash can. I was kind of freaking out.

I finally fell asleep and woke up the next morning feeling a little better. It was back on the streets. We finally decided... well maybe we should go back towards the first house we looked at and maybe will there will be more rentals. And THERE IT WAS! A simple but neat tan house with a FOR RENT sign in the yard. We stopped and immediately called the number. The couple living there now was kind enough to give us a tour. It was perfect. The kitchen isn't great cosmetically but we can certainly deal with it. AND it was in our price range. The current tenant had only good things to say about the property and the landlord. They had a house fire in their home and had to start over from the ground up, so they were moving back in to their home. We sat back in the car and didn't have to say anything except... That's it.

So here's a little about the house. It has three bedrooms. None are large, but they will be comfortable. One bath with plenty of storage and counter space and a small window. Of course a living room and kitchen. The entire house has refinished hardwood floors and white paint. It's simple, but perfect. Windows in every room. The kitchen is nicely sized and includes all appliances including a dishwasher. YAY!!! And off of the kitchen is a large mud room where the washer dryer hookup is located. There is plenty of storage space. The driveway has a small storage building and a two car, carport. There's also a beautiful backyard. Our landlord lives beside the house and takes care of the lawn and snow removal. He originally said no pets, but was happy to allow Cimiez. There's also a little covered front porch (enough for our outdoor rocker) and a screen door. The only negative thing the current tenants said about the house was that there was some road noise since it's right off of a main road. But we are happy to deal with that. In Memphis we lived one block from Beale St.

After we found a home we were able to relax and enjoy the town a little. Nathan and I have always said we can be happy almost anywhere as long as we have each other and a refuge to come home to. We now feel like we have that. Midland will NEVER come close to the love we have for Bowling Green. But we feel like we'll be okay.

We didn't leave Midland until mid-late afternoon on Saturday so we stopped at a hotel in Indiana and drove the rest of the way this morning. I'm not looking forward to our move to Midland, but I'm going to try to cherish our remaining time in Bowling Green with all of our friends that we will so dearly miss.