Chapter 4 Begins
One thing I discovered on our cross country journey is that a lot of places still do not have Internet access. So what I had intended to write about on our journey never happened. Now I will get you caught up.
After seeing Mt Rushmore and Wall SD, we headed on to Wyoming & Montana. Two incredibly beautiful states, that if you have never seen I highly recommend visiting at least once in your lifetime. We scheduled in to our travel a day off to explore Yellowstone and I’m so glad we did. Not only did it give us a much needed break from the long days of driving, but it was also a chance to see a part of our country (and earth) that is so vastly different from anything else I’ve ever seen before. We have pictures (still in the camera) that I will post later. I hope they capture the beauty of what we saw. It was also a learning experience for Amy – which made it that much more fun for us to see it through her eyes too.
Once our day off was done we had two more days of driving and then we finally arrived in the greater Seattle area Sunday afternoon. After finding the hotel and dropping off the animals, we headed out to start our search for somewhere to live. We managed to see four places Sunday afternoon. There were a couple that were contenders, but we wanted to take at least one more day to look around. So after a night of rest we began the search again Monday morning. Thankfully it only took us about half the day to see the rest of the places on our list and we were able to settle on a place Monday afternoon. Lease papers were signed Tuesday and the fun of moving began all over again.
This time was a little easier since we didn’t have as many stairs to deal with and we were only unloading a 10 foot U haul that contained our clothes and other belongings that we had at my parents/or that didn’t fit into the PODS when we loaded them back in May. The first of the two PODS with our remaining stuff wouldn’t be delivered until Friday so the fun of eating out & eating off of paper plates (and sleeping on the floor) continued.
Not to bore you with all the details I’ll skip ahead now.
Dean started work on Monday and has had a good week so far. He is enjoying his new job, learning a lot, and eventually will become a permanent employee/team lead for the company where he is currently a contractor. Amy started school on Wednesday and has already made two new friends and has a bus buddy she rides with as well. In some regards school is different here than it was back east. One of the big changes is when the school year starts and ends as well as the time of day school starts. Both are later than what we were used to, so that has been an adjustment for all of us. There is a lot more diversity as well – which is a good thing too.
Being that we are in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, we are a lot closer to all the amenities than we were in Rome. For me that has been the biggest adjustment. It takes me less than 10 minutes (with traffic) to be at any one of the shopping places (Whole Foods, Fred Meyer, Safeway, Macy’s, etc…) the post office, or anywhere else that I might need to go. If there is something that I can’t find here, Seattle is less than a half hour away – much closer than Atlanta was too. One thing I will have to get used to is not buying so much. When we lived in Rome and would have to drive to Atlanta for things I would have a tendency to stock up on multiples of items. Now that we are in an apartment, I don’t have the same room as we had in the house. But I can also buy in smaller quantities too. So it will be an adjustment for a little while.
So here we are. We have one more PODS to empty – that will be next weekends project. Some stuff will go into local storage, other stuff will get put away in the apartment, and other stuff will be donated. Maybe once things have calmed down I’ll take a friends advice and sit down and write out our journey in more detail for anyone else who decides to embark on an adventure like this.
And now we return to your regular “Brain Drops” whatever that may be 
From the road
So I had intended to write more while we’ve been on our road trip across the country, but Internet service has either been spotty or in some cases totally non-existent. I think most of South Dakota is without at least cell service. The town of Wall (our Tuesday night stop) had no cell & no interwebs, so we’ve been out of touch for almost two days. Thankfully we picked up walkie talkies on the way, so while Dean is in the u-haul & I’m in the car we can communicate.
So now to catch you all up -
We left Alabama Sunday morning and made it to just outside of St Louis MO that evening. Relatively uneventful drive, once the drugs kicked in for the cat.
Monday morning started with rush hour and a less than stellar breakfast. Add to that a stressed cat, a stressed child, and then a stressed me and it wasn’t one of our best days. But we made it to Omaha Nebraska, where we spent an over priced night. Woke up to rain, but no rush hour (thankfully). Cat & child did much better and we ended the day in Wall South Dakota. The scenery once we got out of Missouri improved immensely. South Dakota and today Wyoming have been incredibly beautiful.
So after spending the night in Wall, we headed on to Mt Rushmore for a quick visit. It is definitely on our list of places to go back and see again. Along with some of the other sites that we’ve passed along the way.
After traveling some back roads, we wound up back on I 90, which has brought us to Buffalo Wyoming. Here we have settled in for the evening, doing laundry, a quick swim, and dinner. Tomorrow we continue on. We’ll head towards Yellowstone, stopping off in a town just before to board the animals for two nights. We are planning on spending a day (Friday) at Yellowstone, before heading on to Idaho on Saturday. If all goes well we should pull in to Redmond some time on Sunday and hopefully find a place to live Monday.
I’ll post pictures once I can get back on my computer. In the meantime, follow along here or Facebook for updates.
Going off line
Chapter 3 begins Sunday
So if you’ve been following The Great Adventure, you know that chapter 1 was the sale of the house and the beginning of the search for where we were going to next. Chapter 2 kicked off with a false start, a job in Columbus Ohio that turned out to be all wrong. Fortunately we realized the mistake before moving there. So the search resumed, we continued to live with most of our belongings in storage, and much to the graciousness of my parents, had a roof over our heads and good food to eat. Now two and half months in we come to the end of chapter 2 and begin chapter 3 Sunday morning as we set out for a cross country drive from Centre Alabama to Seattle Washington.
It will be a six day drive, provided all goes according to plan. We will be making a couple of tourist stops along the way (Mt Rushmore, Devils Tower) and hope to also stop and see family one night too. As much as I would like to make it into a longer journey to see more people along the way, it’s just not feasible.
Dean will begin working for a company located in Redmond Washington on August 30 and school starts September 1 so we do have a deadline to meet.
Below is a map of our “planned” stops. Any suggestions for places to see, eat or stay (pet friendly please) are greatly appreciated. I will try to update our progress in the evenings. But you can always follow along on twitter too. http://www.twitter.com/me_b for updates. Let me know if we’ll be in your area – we’ll try to meet up.
Weekly Wrap Up #2
This has been a busy week – for Dean at least.
He flew out to Reno NV on Monday. 3 flights later, he finally arrived in Truckee California late Monday night/early Tuesday morning. Tuesday was the marathon interview (9 hours). It’s a great company, nice people, beautiful area. Lots of snow in the wintertime (which should make Amy happy) and close to Reno for all the big city offerings that we’ve missed living in small town south for so many years. Wednesday he spent exploring the area and enjoying the cooler weather, while the rest of us melted here in the 100+ temperatures.
Thursday the travel started all over again. Early morning flight to Salt Lake City, then on to Seattle for a 2 day interview with a company that is interested in him. Part one went well, part two is taking place as I write this. Again he is enjoying the cooler temperatures, the beautiful scenery, and an added bonus, he gets to have dinner with my aunt Maritza and uncle Chuck. After which he flies home on a red-eye tonight, getting in some time tomorrow morning.
So for those keeping track, there are now three companies that he has interviewed with extensively, and we are waiting to hear back if offers will be extended. In no particular order they are located in Redmond Washington, Alpharetta Georgia and Truckee California. Hopefully we should know something early next week. Keep watching here for more updates when we know something more.
