Chapter 05

In the USA

When they arrive in Dallas, Texas, the Owen trio leaves the plane to quickly pass through Customs by showing their US Passports and having their baggage examined. Once they pass through the Customs area the Owen family take a taxi over to the office of the Fixed Base Operator to arrange a charter flight to the airport at Window Rock, Arizona.

The twin engine aircraft Llewellyn charters gets them to Window Rock, Arizona, in the early evening, so they all stay the night at a hotel.

In the morning the plane crew checks the aircraft while Llewellyn and the girls visit the Navajo Office of Vital Records. It takes quite a few phone calls, visits to other important offices, and most of the morning for Llewellyn to get what he wants done. The easiest part is proving who he is and getting a new Tribal Identity Card with a photograph in his tribal name of Mountain Mist. The hard part is getting them to issue Tribal Identity Cards for the girls as adopted members of his family without any Navajo blood, but it gets done with Gwen listed as Morning Mist and Alice as River Mist. This gives them legal identities that are different to their main identities.

After lunch they go back to the airport where they meet with the plane crew and they fly to Yuma, Arizona. After they get off the plane one of the pilots refuels the aircraft while the other calculates the bill for their services, and he borrows a courtesy car from the airport to take the Owen family to the bank the Washington lawyer who’s the US Trust Manager told them to use.

Once at the bank Llewellyn and the girls provide proof of their identity before they can sign for the account and credit cards arranged for them by the lawyer. Llewellyn has the bank transfer a payment into the charter company’s account and the bill is signed off as paid by the pilot before he leaves with the two fifty dollar tips Llewellyn hands him from the extra money he got from the bank account.

When the pilot leaves to return to the airport and fly home Llewellyn and the girls walk down the street to a hotel to book in for a few days as a place to stay while looking for longer term accommodation.

Notes: While in the USA Llewellyn and the girls use the US trust monies to save moving money between the countries. He also arranges for all of the trust monies from John Eagle to be transferred to the bank account of the Washington trust account for them to use, thus he reduces the number of money managers he has to deal with.

Over the duration of their stay in the USA the Owen family uses the various opportunities they have during school holidays and weekends to see many parts of the country. They also spend a lot of time learning more about Llewellyn’s Navajo ancestors and they learn the various skills passed down through the Navajo elders. They enjoy their life in the USA and most of the people they interact with there.

During this time Llewellyn and the girls also spend a lot of their non-school time learning various self-defence skills and how to use many weapons. This is after Llewellyn hires local experts to teach them.

Eighteen months after they arrive in the USA they apply for legal passports in their Navajo names by using their Navajo Nation IDs. For the passport photographs they all do their hair very differently to their current passport photographs so they don’t look exactly the same, but still look like themselves. They encounter no problems with having them issued. Llewellyn likes the security of having legal passports in another name.

Housing

The main reason for their move to the USA is for them to make it as hard as possible for the NSW Family Services people to track them or to find them later, until they want to return to Australia from the USA.

When Gwen, Alice, and Llewellyn are looking at where to go to school in the USA the main factors in their choices are to be south of the heavy winter snow line, to be outside of Tornado Alley, far enough inland to avoid the hurricanes, and have schools for the girls close to a US college or university for Llewellyn with housing close to the schools. Despite large parts of the USA being ruled out by the limitations it still leaves a lot of places they could go to school. Many of the locations are ruled out due to the locations being in cities they don’t want to live in.

Eventually their primary choice is Yuma, Arizona, so they email the Arizona Western College (AWC) and the Castle Dome Middle School about attending the schools when the new school year starts in August. They receive confirmation about being able to attend the schools if they get to the area and register at the schools at least sixty days before the start of the new school year.

The girls can attend Castle Dome Middle School for years seven and eight then go to Gila Ridge High School after graduating from the middle school. Llewellyn can select whatever courses he wants to take at the Arizona Western College. This is good as all of the schools are close to each other on East 24th Street, Tamarack, which is an outer suburb of Yuma. On the other side of the street is the residential area of Tamarack where there are several houses for sale and many others for rent.

The trio live in a Yuma hotel for a few days while a real estate agent is showing them the various properties in Tamarack. Llewellyn is shocked by the rents people want for the houses because he calculates five year’s of rents are equal to what people are selling the houses for. In the end he buys a house that’s in need of a lot of work because of the damage done by the people who used to rent it from the owner. Due to the extensive work needed the house price is well below the market price for the area.

The suburb of Tamarack, Yuma, Arizona, was clearly built as a major development suburb with all of the houses built from a small number of plans while using the same basic materials. However, the house they look at buying has been renovated by a previous owner. The house started its existence as a four bedroom house with two bathrooms, three car garage, kitchen, lounge, and dinning room. There’s a small swimming pool in the backyard that looks like it was added after the house was built, and it takes up about half of the backyard. The garage was built as a single car unit with a workshop behind it on the end of the building and a two car unit with the kitchen behind the two car garage. The single car garage and workshop had been changed into a flat with a bedroom, bathroom, and small lounge room plus a side outside door and a door into a hall in the garage to the kitchen. Thus the house has a bathroom and bedroom extra to the original design. It now has two bedrooms with bathrooms, what the advertising calls master baths, and a general bathroom.

Llewellyn buys the house with some of the money from the US trust set up by the Washington lawyer. As he’s paying cash the paperwork is being processed very quickly and they can move in right away. However, they stay in the hotel for several more days while the real estate agent has some repairs made, it’s painted throughout, new carpet tiles are laid, her cleaning contractors clean the house, and all of the locks are changed. Llewellyn is very surprised at how quickly it’s all done.

While they wait for the house to be repaired and cleaned there are a lot of things Llewellyn and the girls do. The first is to apply for a social security number each because they need them for many things, and they buy three cell phones with unlimited data programs. However, they buy phones off a short list they get from a security company as the phones they buy are ones where they can not be turned on remotely and the user can turn off the GPS function built into so many phones. They also buy a lot of clothes more suited to the local environment than the few they brought with them from Australia. On their shopping trips they buy what they’ll need to properly furnish the house and outfit the kitchen as the real estate agent is taking care of the curtains as well as the fixtures and fittings that need to be replaced. The furniture, linen, and bedding is all paid for and set to be delivered on the day after they were given as the date for the house being ready for them to move in and live there.

Once they have their new residential address and their new phone numbers they all have business cards printed up with their name and the contact details on the front of the card while the back of their cards have all of the websites where their CDs can be bought. Their email addresses are the same as before. Llewellyn, Alice, and Gwen each have their own cards, which makes the girls very happy to have their own personal business cards. Once the cards are ready they all use them when they have to provide anyone with their contact information.

They purchase new top of the line desktop computers and laptops they can connect to their phones to have Internet access for them.

After they move in and get settled Llewellyn checks with the county authorities about building a greenhouse over the pool so they don’t have so much of the water evaporate on them. It takes a few weeks to get the county approval after the builder lodges the plans. The construction by a local builder takes even less time since it’s a simple steel frame often used for stand alone garages and instead of usual steel panels they use green tinted Lexan panels that distort the view through them on the outside and the inside of the walls and the roof. The structure is seven and a half feet high at the walls and nine feet high in the centre with a door opposite the back door of the house and a covered walkway of the same materials between the two doors. This way they can reduce the water loss as they ensure the pool area stays at a constant temperature while they also have privacy and security when at the pool. A security firm is hired to install cameras and motion detectors. They also replace the windows with bullet resistant double glazed windows with a thermal film fitted along with security and insect screens built into the frames.

Housekeeper

A few days after buying the house the Owen family are still living in the hotel while the house is repaired and made ready for them to live in it. During this time they talk about many things related to living in the their house, and two important issues are the need for transport plus the need for a housekeeper to help look after the place. They talk about both issues a lot, and the housekeeper is the hardest one to deal with.

One day while still at the hotel the Owens are out shopping and they stop to have lunch in a mall food court. They’re talking about the Inland Valley Motorsports Training (IVMT) weekend course Llewellyn has just signed up for to learn how to ride a motorcycle. He already knows how, but his reason for this course is to learn the US motor traffic laws. He’s sure learning the different laws will be easier for him on a motorcycle than in a car, because the vehicle operation is the same. He’s also signed up for the advanced rider courses with IVMT to improve his riding skills.

At one point their conversation has a break at the same time as there’s a general lull in the other conversations in the food court they’re eating in. During this break they hear a woman at the next table complaining about how her three brothers-in-law want to put her still healthy mother into a home for old people just because they want the money from the sale of the family house now her father is dead.

Llewellyn turns in his seat, looks at the woman a few feet away, and says, “Excuse, me, I just overheard what you said about your mother. Would you mind joining us and telling us a bit more about her, please?” The woman frowns, so he adds, “We’ve just bought a house in Tamarack and are looking for a live-in housekeeper and cook. So I wonder if your mother is up to the job and if she may be interested in it.”

The woman joins them and tells them how her father’s will left his estate to his four daughters to be divided equally between them. He had originally left it all to his wife, but they both recently changed their wills to leave everything to their children on the assumption their children will leave a surviving parent in the house until they die as well. This was done to reduce the payment of taxes on the estates. The problem is the husbands of her three sisters are greedy and her sisters aren’t prepared to tell the husbands no. However, her family lives in a small house and they don’t have the room to take her mother in. Thus the current situation with her mother’s living arrangements.

After a lot of discussion the woman agrees to talk to her mother then phone them with her answer about the work. That evening Llewellyn is called and arrangements are made to meet at the house the next day so the woman’s mother can look at the work involved.

When they get to the house the people are still working on parts of it, but they do walk through the house with the woman and her mother. As they look over the house Llewellyn talks about what they want her to do. He also says, “While you have the apartment as your living quarters you can also use the rest of the house’s entertainment and relaxation areas if you want to.” He then hands her a piece of paper with what he’s been told is the current rate of pay for such a job while he asks, “I hope this is a good enough salary for you! If not, we can discuss it. This is what the real estate people tell me is the current rate for the job.”

Until now the woman’s mother, Mrs Jacobs, hasn’t said a word as her daughter and Llewellyn have done all of the talking. Mrs Jacobs looks at the sheet of paper, smiles, nods her head, and says, “Ja, ist gut.”

Gwen grins and starts talking in German. The next half an hour is lost while they gossip in German. It would’ve kept going longer, except the workmen ask them to move so they can lay the new carpet in that room. The arrangements for Mrs Jacobs to work for them are very quickly settled once they return to her daughter’s car. She even gives the Owen family a lift back to the hotel while the girls chat with Mrs Jacob as if she’s their grandmother, something everyone likes to have happening.

Transport

A couple of days later Mrs Jacobs joins the Owen family on a trip to buy a car. They figure Mrs Jacobs will be doing a lot of the driving at first and her own small two door car won’t handle the four of them, so a larger car is needed. A long time is spent at the car lots while they all talk about what they like and what they don’t like of each car model. After visits to a few car lots they agree on buying a reduced priced base model 4WD GMC Yukon in white with tan interior trim and assist steps to help people get into the car. Llewellyn also orders an electric motorcycle from a local bike shop that’s an agent for the company that makes the electric bikes. In the following weeks Llewellyn’s basic course at IVMT goes well and he’s soon licensed to ride in the state of Arizona, then he applies for a local car driver’s license and he gets that too.

Schooling

The Girls’ Schooling

They’re settled into their new residence by late February, so they set about organising their schooling. The first task is to visit the Castle Dome Middle School to find out what subjects the girls have to be tutored on to be up to the standard for the school. There the girls sit some tests, and the material they need to study is soon identified from the tests. The school staff also helps them with contacting suitable tutors for the subjects.

While some of the subjects, like English and Mathematics, are the same the areas of study for some other subjects are slightly different, so the girls have to get up to speed with them and the few subjects the Arizona school system has they didn’t have in Australia. However, they do have a few months of home school tutoring to get caught up, so arrangements are made around the availability of the tutors they hire. Thus the girls are soon very busy with the required studies.

Note: The girls are well prepared for starting 7th Grade when it’s time for them to start the new Arizona school year in August.

School Registration

The girls and Llewellyn have to register with their schools about two months before the start of the semester. With the situation for Llewellyn’s studies he registers with the college once they agree on his four years of studies. Due to him paying out-of-state student fees for the first year the date of registration makes no difference to his registration. For the second year he’ll qualify as an in-state student due to living in a residence in the state for over a year by then. The girls have to live in the state for two months before they can register at their school so their official registration is delayed until late April to make sure they meet the full residential requirements. This also allows the time for their Social Security Cards to be provided to them so they can give the numbers to the school, and Llewellyn tells the college his SSN when it arrives.