Safe and Sound

We're finally, finally here in beautiful Oregon. I don't know what everyone was talking about when they said we would experience a dreary, grey existence here in the Pacific Northwest - we have seen nothing but sunshine since we've arrived.

We absolutely love our apartment and our complex. Everything is nicer than I even expected - and I came in with high expectations. Our neighbors are wonderful, we have a beautiful view from our balcony and the property managers did all they said they would with the place (new carpet, appliances, etc.) We couldn't be more pleased with how things have turned out here.

Of course getting here came with its share of bumps and bruises. We blew a tire on the trailer in Wyoming. Interestingly we have had car problems both coming and going through this small town before. J commented that it's like our own little automotive Bermuda triangle. Anyway, that took four hours to straighten out. So J, me, the little dog and the fish spent one sixth of a day sitting in the cab of a Penske truck in the middle of Wyoming. I did get some of my summer assigned reading done, so at least there was a tiny bit of productivity happening during the ordeal.

This left us way behind schedule. We didn't even make it out of Utah before we had to stop and sleep a little bit. We ended up not in the nice reserved camping spot in Caldwell, Idaho but the party central location of Ogden, Utah: the park and ride off of I-84. Kids were coming and going, presumably with 40s, at all hours of the night. We stayed there from about 10pm to 3am and then pressed on.

Miraculously, and to the credit of J's seemingly superhuman moving abilities, we made it to our new town before the end of business day on Monday the first. We picked up our keys, stashed the truck and slept on the living room floor. We set the alarm for four, but that didn't happen. We were up by five, though, and again because of J's incredible moving stamina we had everything we own in the apartment by about 5pm and had the Penske truck out of our possession forever by 6:30.

And then we got lost for two hours trying to get back to our new house. Portland highways are very different than what we are used to. We found that it is very hard to just get off at an exit and get back on going the opposite direction. We did finally make it home that Tuesday evening and soon fell asleep crammed in between the moving boxes.

Ever since, we've been putting stuff away, putting stuff back together and getting used to the new town. I know I've already said it, but we absolutely love it here. It's so green, quiet, and just plain pleasant. This was the best decision we've ever made - other than getting married, of course!