Hagerstown.

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When a person goes off for Foreign Service training, their belongings (courtesy of the USG) are packed up and shipped off- their final destination a storage facility located in a place called 'Hagerstown'. During the packing/moving phase they also highly that you have the movers write the exact contents of the box ON THE BOX. Which our movers did. Kind of. I also took a picture of each box, just to be safe, but to be honest it was a horrible pack-out and move since I actually had movers walk out on me during day two (I should probably just make a separate post about those two days). Anyways, once you give the go ahead for the U.S. government to come on in and pack/ship your stuff, you are given a book that tells you everything you need to know about moving AND some very important information about accessing/ reviewing your stuff once it has been hauled off.

1. You only get one free admission to the Hagerstown storage facility. Any visit beyond the first is on your dime.

2. You can't show up until noon.

3. They are not open on the weekends.

4. You can't open any of your boxes.

5. You can't open a box, take out an item, then close up the box.

6. Once you visit, and confirm the boxes that are going to post, there is no going back. It's being prepped to go the minute you leave.

7. They don't take firearms. At least, they don't now.

So, armed with this knowledge (and very very aware that OMG WE ARE THIS >< CLOSE TO LEAVING!) Mike and I set out for 'Hagerstown' to decide exactly how much crap, er how many boxes of our stuff would also make the trip to Turkmenistan. We left early on a Friday, and made our way using 'reliable 50% of the time so long as you don't recalculate' Google maps and the terrible printed directions provided to us. There were many winding roads, and people breaking for no reason. But we did finally reach 'Hagerstown', even if we turned off onto the wrong exit.













The place is a series of very, very large warehouses. When we finally got inside (after waiting in the small office antechamber attached to the building), we were ushered into the main area, where our crates had been set aside for review.







(Somewhere in this USG facility lurks the Ark of the Covenant!)


So, we had about eight large wooden crates full of stuff to consider taking to post or leaving in storage. It took about 2 hours to go through everything, and even now I know we missed things, but the important stuff should get to us eventually.






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