I went to prison yesterday!!

Since this was a three day weekend and Ashton had been bugging me to go see his dad, we packed up at 4:00 am on Saturday morning and drove 4 hours and 12 minutes to Los Lunas, NM. Not much traffic so that was good and I only went the wrong way once...going there that is.

We stopped in a doctor's office parking lot to semi clean up the car, last time in Grants--they searched my car and it was a mess-- as I was walking towards the trash dumpster..a rock moved....I looked down and.......(please see below)














yes, baby frogs or maybe toads, I am not really sure. I didn't know that they would hatch or transform in or near a puddle in a parking lot, maybe there was a ditch near by. Of course, this amazing discovery lead to the following picture:

Yes, we had about a 45 minute delay to our destination due to jumping creatures in the parking lot. It was fun and a good photo opportunity.

Anyway, I followed the signs to the correctional facility (that sounds nicer than prison). Little did I know that there were 3 different sections. The first one I went to was called the farm, it was really cool and very laid back but not the right one. The guard there told me where to go. Got to the right one and they didn't even search my car, I was amazed. Drove in and parked and we had to walk about a block to the visitation desk. I presented all my neat and tidy paperwork and the lady just looked at me.

"What's this?" she asked

" All of my paperwork required for my sons to see their dad, I am his ex-wife" I said

"Are you on his list of visitors?"

"He told me we were"

"Okay, I will call him down go have a seat in there" She pointed to a room with a lot of people visiting inmates. It was very clean, I will say that. There were not any chairs available so I found the nearest wall and stood all of us up against it. About 10 minutes later, Ashton saw his dad, and his little eyes lit up like he was looking at a new bike or something. He started jumping up and down and I told him to go see him. He ran over to him and jumped in his arms and wouldn't let go. Alec didn't understand the whole scene and he stayed with me. I am glad cause I was crying and I could hide my face behind him. His boys love him so much, I don't see how he would ever do anything to cause him to be so far away from them.

Anyway, we went outside and they played for about 2 hours. Then we went in for a little bit to get some water. I didn't know they had vending machines so I didn't bring any money. But as we sat at a table I read some of the rules. Prisoners are stripped searched before and after visitation. I asked Michael what exactly was a strip search. He said that you have to get completely naked in front of a guard and lean over and put your hands on a table and , with gloves on, the guard feels between your legs and your bung hole in case you tried to stash anything up there or anywhere else. He said that the strip searches happen a lot, at least once a day. Not always in the bung hole, but they do press around it. That would certainly impress me to be have and follow all the rules.

The visit went well and when we left Alec started crying. He didn't want to leave daddy there he wanted to bring daddy with us. That was hard, but I bribed them with Toys-r-us and we got to the car without too much drama.

Made it to Rio Rancho okay and found the TRU very easily, then we had to get something to eat. So I found the Coors By-Pass and turned and we drove for a while and we found a McDonalds. They had so much fun there. As I sat there watching them play, I realized we were back in Albuquerque, I had went the wrong way on the by-pass. So when we got ready to leave, I fixed my driving error and we were home by 7:30 pm.

A very long day, but very satisfying. My boys were overjoyed to see their father and I found out that prisoners didn't have it as good as I thought they did.

Please pass a fork while I eat my humble pie.

I went to prison yesterday!!

http://peebugg.blogspot.com/2005/09/i-went-to-prison-yesterday.html