Roughly 30,000 people live in Twentynine Palms (a.k.a. 29 Stumps). A vast majority out of the 30,000 are military. Don't be fooled by the town massive land, because only 10% is actual town and when I say town I really do mean town. The highlight of this town surrounds the main street (Highway 62) which is filled with barber shops (which are evidently focused on the Marines), tattoo parlors (again focusing on Marines as their number 1 customer), nail salons and a few big commercialized name stores (ie: McDonald's, AT&T, etc.) and that's it. Unlike many US towns there is at least a Walmart or something of the likes...nah-uh, not here. Ok, I know that may have sounded like "oh no, this girl seems to need stores in order to survive" kind-of-way, but unfortunately that is not the case. As my husband explained it to me, "29 Palms is so small that they don't even have a Walmart" meaning that if there isn't a big chain such as Walmart that means that there is very limiting things to do and see. It might sound stupid, but when you have "bigger" name stores it means that there are going to be me more jobs and therefore more things to do...at least that's what I think. The plus side of being a Marine wife is that there is the base and we have the MCX, commissary and etc., so basically all I need to survive :) But please don't think that this is bad and horrible place, on the contrary...its actually beautiful (minus some broken-down houses). The sunsets are amazing against the mountains and desert sand, its really breathtaking but there is really nothing to do here. I just recently got my master's and I'm the midst of finding out if I can work in the US right away or if I have to wait, so this results in me being extremely bored. I wake up and its only take me 30mins to clean my entire house, we are currently living in temporary housing in a nice, small little apartment...I actually love this place! Jobs are limited and scarce. Jobs on base are scarce and usually one is well overqualified and jobs in town are the same way. If you have the money and an extra car, imagining your wife or husband has to drive to work, then you have the option of going "down the hill" (ie: Palm Springs, Palm Desert, etc.) but that's an hour away, hence as to why I made the reference to car and money, you need a car to get around and money to pay for the gas. The limitation of living in temporary housing is that you also don't live on base, meaning its way harder to make friends (ines = no friends...boo!). I feel bad cause when DH comes home and sees me in my "blah" stage I can tell he feels guilty, he does things to get me out of the house and what not (mostly during the weekend) but I wish I wasn't in that stage.
Now the good thing about here, yes, there are some good things, its that its away from everything but in the middle of everything. You have LA 2 hours away, Las Vegas 3-4 hours away, Palm Springs an hours away, Yucca Valley 20mins away, so its not so bad if you think about it. Yes you are limited in things but at least you in the middle of it all. Because of this distance DH and I try to get out of the house on the weekend and go to Palm Desert or maybe do a spur of the moment and head to Las Vegas, which we did. That compensates for the both of us, yes, even though he does have work and does get out of the house getting away from it all helps him too. It allows for the both of us to see some kind of life and craziness. I miss the city life I'm not going to lie. I miss being able to jump on the bus or on the metro and go where I need and can go. I miss being able to go grocery shopping or just regular shopping without having to plan it with DH so that he can take me (I don't have my license yet...long story, nothing bad).
