Wheels

We've been without wheels for over two weeks now. It's not so bad, as we have no where to go. We can walk everywhere in town. It is only cumbersome when I need to grocery shop. We have gone into Al Hasa once (45 minutes away).  Otherwise we just use the company commissary here in camp. It tries to carry a lot of American products for us but you pay through the nose for them.

Right now we are deciding if we should ship our new minivan here or continue to try and sell it and just purchase something locally. We aren't sure if our Honda Odyssey has enough metal to protect us from these crazy drivers. Also, we must first prove we aren't importing it to transport people to Mecca. (Go figure!)

Also- seat belts, who needs 'em? Car seats... haven't seen many except on the back of golf carts. I have seen a sedan packed with 10 children (no exaggeration) in traffic swaying back and forth. The last 5 years of family car seat rules have totally been thrown out the window. Here on camp the max speed limit is 25 mph...if you like your job you will not speed or run a stop sign. It takes longer to put your kids in car seats than it does to get where you're going, so they are hardly used. For us, any time we get a ride we are packing our family into someone else's car, so again there is more lap sitting.

We missed our bus on Friday night and had to take a 2 hour taxi ride home (again with lap sitting) except for Graham who was snug in his seat. Plus our driver had to pull over for coffee and kept rolling down the window to stay awake. Some serious prayers on Chris' and my behalf were answered that we all arrived home safely. It was not as bad as one friend's experience. He said once on the way to the airport his driver kept slapping himself in the face to keep awake.

We can use the company buses which are really nice and clean and run frequently. I just don't desire to take 3 little boys anywhere by myself. So until we have wheels of our own we won't have too many postings about the culture we have seen.

Even though women can only drive on camp most families have a second vehicle. So these are our options...

We could put some life back into this old timer. Oh wait, no room for car seats.

We could just get your standard ho hum golf cart....

Or we could get this! Is the flag too much? What do you think, after we finish up on the golf course we could go cruise the dunes.

Our golf course here is oil and sand. We have yet to golf but have enjoyed two great social events. We even had Cheesecake Factory cheese cake for dessert! We are finding they have more chain restaurants here (2 hrs. away) than back home in Anchorage.