Fort Rucker, Al--Welcome to the South

I hate spiders. I hate everything that has to do with them. Actually let me be so much more specific. I am TERRIFIED of them. I wake up with nightmares just by having a conversation about them (I am now jinxing myself).

Fort Rucker is full of bugs. and spiders. and snakes. and alligators. and other things.

favorite quote from the FRG meeting last night "I was walking my dog and ran into a bore hog". I mean, that's fine. Why not?

These are some of the first things I heard when I found out we would be stationed here. Hubby is in flight school, so here we are. I cried our first day here.

because of a spider.

NOT FAIR! I wish I was one of those girls that could deal with anything. You know the ones who pick up snakes like it ain't no thang, my sister-in-law told me she used to have a housekeeper that HUNTED SNAKES!!! I told hubby I wanted that kind of housekeeper, he looked at me and said "we don't need a housekeeper". He missed the point. I'll clean the house, she can kill the spiders. and hunt the snakes

Day 2. Found a snake in our backyard. What the??? Welcome to the South. (enter snake hunting housekeeper please!!)

We have chosen to live on post and I am personally SUCH a fan of it so far. I love having everything so close. It really is like living in a gated community. It also reminds me of when I lived in New York and everything you could ever need/want in your life was in a 4 block radius.

I also love that I have friends (newly made friends) that live down the street or around the corner. (for killing spiders... lol).

But seriously here are some benefits that I found from living on post:

~The house was SPOTLESS. I mean not a spec of dirt anywhere. And they repaint the house for every new tenant.
~The water, power and all utilities were already turned on.
~When things break, they come fix them. Quickly. --Example: our air conditioner broke on the 1st of 2nd night we were here. They fixed it right away).
~They spray for bugs/spiders whatever, EVERY WEEK. Yup. I LOVE that.
~ They cut your grass and trim and prune.
Specific to Allen Heights (other places may have this too, but I don't know)
~They have two great storage units. One in the garage area and one out back. The one in the garage area is finished, with shelves. The one out back is unfinished (it scares me more).
~ They have room for two cars on the driveway.
~ The Club house is nice, the work out room is more than adequate and they have a play area for kids to be in with a big window while the parents work out. The pools is nice, with lap lanes, but it is not at roped off. If you want to swim laps, you might want to go when the pool isn't crowed. (Not sure when that is yet).

Here are some drawbacks to living on post.

~They take your entire housing allowance. Because Fort Rucker has so many Lts in school. It's a rumor that there are more of them than anything else. So we were told we are actually in enlisted housing. IF that's true, we are paying a lot for what we're getting.
~ You can save money by moving off post. We found places to rent between $400-$900. Well with-in our BAH.
~ While the houses are nice, they are very "cookie cutter".  However, they do allow you to paint, bang whatever hole you want in the walls and the like...as long as you patch up any hole you make.
~ All the rules that come with living on post. (And yes, there is a hand book)
~ Our house has someone RIGHT next to us. It's a duplex. However, noise is never an issue.

Well that's all for this post. Leave questions and I'll try to answer them--or at least find out the answer. I had so many when I moved here.

The front of our house

This is the garage storage unit

The backyard storage