Saying Goodbye

At the end of May, right after the boys left for Colorado, we moved houses. Everyone asked why we would leave Camp Pinchot if we were staying in town. There were a couple of reasons. Pinchot was managed by Eglin AFB and we are now at Hurlburt. On top of that, Camp Pinchot is being closed to families now. It's too expensive to maintain and new officer housing is now ready on Eglin. We were the last family to live in our house. Shortly before we left, Clay told me that our main house will forever be known as the "Hanson House" and Henry's will always be "The Hen House". Nothing could make me happier than that.

It was bittersweet to say good-bye.

If a house had a soul, Camp Pinchot's would run wide and deep. A one hundred and ten year old house...if walls could talk. When we first decided to take the house in 2019, Matt and I agreed that because it was so isolated we'd have to make an effort to keep the kids engaged with friends and have as many people over as would come. For the first six months, plenty came! And then the world shut down and it was just us and Camp Pinchot. Four of us at first...and then all five of us. Never did we think that all five of us would (or could!) be there for 6 months straight. But we were and we made it work. It wasn't always easy, but Camp Pinchot was our safe haven. She kept us safe from Covid, from the stressors of group command, from Hurricane Sally and from the world that seemed to be spinning out of control just outside the gate. She surrounded us with beauty and nature (bears and alligators included) and plenty of room outside when the walls of the house seemed to be closing in.

If walls could talk...what a story they would tell.