Nate has been offered a job in Ridgecrest CA so this weekend we took a quick trip out there for him to show me the place and see if its somewhere I could live. He flew out in December for the interview, but I'd never been. Here's a little taste...
If you think it looks like you're driving into the end of the earth, you pretty much are. Ridgecrest is a small valley of 25,000 people next to Death Valley in the Mojave Desert. You can drive an hour in any direction and not hit anything. It is completely isolated. So why would anyone ever want to go there, you wonder? Well, it's pretty much Nate's dream job, that's why. There is a large military base in Ridgecrest (the whole purpose of the town, basically). Nate's job would be in weapons prototyping. So he would be blowing stuff up and figuring out how to make it blow up better. Pretty cool, I know. But it is still in the middle of the desert. 
In the VERY short period of time we were there, we did manage to pretty much see every inch of the city. We found the Mormons
and caught the end of a lovely desert sunset
There are palm trees everywhere, and Nate says he would be so excited to plant a plam tree in our front yard.
When we arrived friday afternoon it was 99 degrees, and when we left saturday around 1pm it was already 102. And it's only the middle of may!!! This is definitely one of the major drawbacks for the both of us, but right now, this is the only job that has been offered to us, so we'll see what happens. Nate is finishing his research now and plans to defend his thesis at the end of the summer. From there, we'll go wherever the jobs take us! We've had a lot of other random activities we've participated in over the last couple of months, but I just haven't had time to post about them. All those that knew we went to Cali for the weekend, wanted to see pics so hopefully I'll get those other random activities late this week. Hooray for summertime!
8 comments:
I vote no. Stay here and be our friends. It feels like the Hartwells will be here forever, and you're invited to join us!
Congrats on your new calling. You will be incredible! :-)
Congrats on the job. At least it will be warm in the winter. When are you guys moving out there?
That sounds like every guys dream job! LOL. And hey, you will get used to the heat. I know I did when I lived in St. George. And hey, who wouldn't want to live where the palm trees grow?! Good luck with it all. I hope evrything works out.
I'm sad to think that you will probably be leaving, but now I'll have a good excuse to go on a vacation. :) It doesn't look so bad once you get into the city with the trees and such.
Hi Sara and Nate,
Melissa here, Uncle Neil's daughter. I have a few things to say about this Cali opportunity. Nate, remember I lived in the central valley for 6 years. Beasty hot and not the prettiest! But, looking back it was a great experience for us newlyweds. Good luck with that decision! It will give everyone in the world a chance to know where Ridgecrest, Ca is! Right??
sounds a lot like phoenix! i think it's supposed to get up to 107 in the next couple of days here in the valley of the sun. it's a trade off you see... summer is 6 months out of the year here, and winter is 6 months out of the year in utah. keep us posted on the job!
Wow. That sounds too hot. I don't know if I could handle it. But it does sound like a really cool job and I bet it will be a lot of fun moving off to somewhere new.
Once again, the GF law in action: Nate hates HOT: Nate lives in desert, Chris hates COLD: Chris lives in Boston. You can't fight LAW, my friends. However, I'm sure there are plenty of weapons for Nate to develop in the North-East...
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