Our first home was the Wigwam Motel in Albuquerque. It had a small kitchen, so we managed very well, even though I managed to drop a platter of fried chicken off the wobbly oven door the evening we had our first dinner guests. The guests were most gracious, though, and helped me dust off the chicken, which we proceeded to eat. We really celebrated the day that Walter arrived home from the airfield, with his billfold bulging with six month's back pay, as our cash on hand was getting pretty thin. We'd been married just one month when Walter received orders to report to Dalhart, Texas for his advanced training, and the men were told there was no housing for wives there. So, we packed up the small appliances, dishes, blackets, my clothes, etc., and I was to start driving back to California early next morning to await word that Walter had located something for us to live in in Dalhart. As it turned out, we were just about the only ones who followed the orders to send the wives home, for most of them made a mad dash for Dalhart and managed to rent rooms or apartments of some kind during the next few days. I started home at 7 a.m. in the morning, armed with a map which had x marks where I was supposed to stop for meals, and motels. There was a strict wartime speed limit of 45 miles per hour, and sice Alburquerque was exactly 810 miles from Pomona, Walter had it figured out that it would take me approximately three days to make the trip. That first day I kept reaching x's on the map, but just kept on driving, because I wasn't hungry, or tired. Finally, I neared the California border about 8 p.m., and I thought I'd be stuck there for a couple of hours, waiting for the border police to go though all the things in the trunk and stuff we'd piled in the back seat almost to the roof. I decided to stop overnight in the next town, soon as i'd cleared customs. When I pulled into the long line at the border and saw dozens of people spreading the contents of luggage, boxes, etc. out on tables I really groaned, thinking about my loaded car and the taks ahead of me. One of the border officers walked up to the car, spied Walter's airforce cap sitting on top of all the blankets in the back seat, asked me if I was a soldier's wife, I said "yes", and he told me I could go. I could hardly believe my fantastic luck, and neither could all the people standing around the tables, for they stopped what they were doing to point at me as I passed exclaiming, "She just got here!" I knew I'd never go to sleep that early if I stopped in the next town, as I'd planned, so decided to proceed further. There were a lot of soldiers hitchhiking along the highway, and I picked up a couple of them, so I'd have someone to talk to for awhile. They told me they were headed to Los Angeles to spend the weekend, but first had to stop at their base, on the desert, to pick up some clothes. I told them I'd wait for them if the guards at the gate would let me drive on the base, as I couldn't spend the time, while they walked the distance to their barracks and back again. Somehow they pursuaded the guards to let me on base, and it took them just a few minutes to pick up their things, and we were off again. We reached Pomona at 2 a.m. and I dropped them off at the intersection of Holt and Garey, then drove home. Lalie was the only one home as the folks were on a trip somewhere. After arriving home, hime dragged while I waited word from Walter that he'd located a place for us to live in Dalhart, and finally at the end of six weeks a letter came saying he'd found a room in a private home.