All you frequent movers probably understand what I'm going through right now. I've been googling Del Rio over and over to see what we can expect. We did this with Kansas (my main concern was getting out of Michigan at that time!). Mississippi (what? no Starbucks, Target or Bed Bath and Beyond, whew!) and we did it with Abilene. As a matter of fact, I found my post for the things we were looking forward to in Abilene, see here, and I thought I'd do it again for Del Rio. Might I add that most of the stuff we were looking forward to in Abilene are not in Del Rio, so we will just get that out of the way!
Closest Starbucks - Their website says none within 50 miles so the closest one is basically San Antonio (2.5 hours away).
Closest Target - Their site says "no locations within 100 miles"
Closest Micheal's or Hobby Lobby - San Antonio
And pretty much everything else we were looking forward to in Abilene will now be 2.5 hours away. Except DQ! Thank God we don't have to do triple digit heat without this one.
Other good news, rumors had said that Del Rio closed their Taco Bell and Papa John's locations. Both of these rumors are sadly true, however, Taco Bell HAS made a come back to Del Rio earlier this year. Josh is thrilled. However, Papa Johns is still a no go (so sad!).
Other things Del Rio has:
As far as restaurants - we are looking forward to the mom and pop shops again. Hands down, Mississippi had some of the BEST cooking in some of the sleeziest looking places. We will have to go back to that mindset - don't judge a restaurant by how it looks on the outside. They also have a Fudruckers, Chili's and Applebee's. I think we are finally over our Applebee's overload from Mississippi, we haven't ate there in over 3 years!
Lake Amistad - One of America's top bass fishing lake, no joke! It is also famous for clear water, scuba diving, pretty cliffs, and oh yea, being attached to Mexico. I am SUPER excited to have a large body of water near by that won't dry up in the summer. It is also super cheap to rent boats from the Air Force Marina. Needless to say, we will both be getting our boating license rather soon. If it were up to me, I'd say screw debt, we are buying a boat.
Val Verde Winery - I still have yet to tour a winery, maybe, just maybe, we can do that here.
The world's largest replica of the Alamo - called John Wayne's Alamo because his movie was shot here, you can also tour the movie set.
We will also have a tiny mall with highlights such as: Marshall's, Kirkland's (both new to the area), Bath and Body Works, Bealls, Penny's, Payless, Ross, and a Movies 8. We won't even have an Old Navy. Oy.
According to city-data, we are definitely going to be the minority. A whopping 82% of the population is Hispanic, and only 15% is white (I'm guessing that 15% is mostly military!). I'm looking forward to another culture shock (MS was mildly shocking) and hopefully learning some Spanish.
Praise the Lord we have already experienced Columbus AFB so we have a good idea of what we are getting into. In all honesty, you make some fantastic friends in the smallest bases, because seriously, what else are you going to do? I am thrilled to be moving next weekend and excited to get settled in.
We've heard great things about Laughlin AFB, with the consensus being "it is what you make of it." When we tell people we are going to Del Rio, they say, learn Spanish and buy a gun. They also give us their best "the AF screwed you over" pity face. Then we tell them we CHOSE this base, and the sad face turns to a crazy face. Our options were either Wichita Falls, TX or Del Rio. For a variety of reasons, we picked Del Rio. God always puts us where he wants us so we are excited to see what he has in store with Del Rio.
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