Well, it's in the process of being put in our apartment. The movers still have to bring in the bed and set up the furniture. We have all our boxes accounted for though and so far we haven't seen any broken dishes. It will be an incredibly big chore to put all this stuff away in the little space we have. It should all fit though. I'm looking forward to being able to cook stuff again.

The movers got here around like 12:30. They showed up without warning, but thankfully we were able to hurry down and greet them and get the garage door open and an elevator reserved. The apartments wanted to know ahead of time when the movers would be here, but the movers never gave me a time estimate other than sometime today. It all worked out though.

We've had great weather ever since we got here. The highs have been in the 50s and it's been sunny and clear like every day. It's been cloudy a few mornings, but it burns off before 11AM. I think it rained for a few hours Wednesday morning, but otherwise, the weather has been awesome. We've gone for a walk three times already. It's actually been a little warm in our apartment, so we've had to open the window every day. We may have to get a fan for the summer since our apartment doesn't have ceiling fans. I'm looking forward to not dealing with 100 degree weather anytime soon.

Since we're living in the city now, I expected it wouldn't be as quiet as it was at our old place. So far, it hasn't been too loud. We've had our windows open in the apartment quite a bit during the day and there's been the occasional ambulance, but nothing too repetitive to annoy us and nothing too loud to wake us up at night. Apparently there's some kind of live music venue nearby, though, and the band keeps playing the same song over and over. It's been going on for almost an hour and they keep playing the same song. We just shut the window and are about to go to bed, so we probably won't hear it much anymore, but it seems a little strange. I guess we'll probably hear more strange things while we live here.

I finally uploaded the rest of the pictures from the trip. I broke them into 6 sections:


Old Apartment


Road Trip Pictures from TX to AZ


Road Trip Pictures from NV to WA


Albuquerque


Grand Canyon


Hoover Dam & Las Vegas

Again, the layout of the photo album will be much better once we can re-do it with the desktop computer files.

Our bank account was created in Texas, because that's where we lived when we got married and created a joint account. Yesterday we stopped by a local branch to deposit a check and it came up that we had just moved here from Texas. The teller suggested that we might want to speak with the manager about some possible reasons why we may need to change our bank account locations to be based in Washington rather than Texas. So, we figured we'd talk to the manager just to see if there was any good reason to. The manager explained that accounts in some states may get certain fees that Washington would not apply (which doesn't matter because we don't pay any fees) and that in cases of fraud it may be easier to deal with if our account is based in Washington. Anyway, he took like 5 minutes to explain this and basically all it told me was that we didn't need to change our account, especially since we'd have to get a new account number. Anyway, it's good to know that it doesn't matter if our account is still out of state. I don't want to get new checks either because we never write checks and getting new ones sounds annoying.

We're finally posting some pictures. Unfortunately, the style sheet for Troy's photo site is located on our desktop, which won't be here for a few more days, so the photo gallery we've posted looks pretty basic. Hopefully, we'll make it look better when we get the desktop. Anyway, here are pictures of our apartment (click on the first picture) and pictures of our view (click on the second picture).

In Texas, I had to pay like $40 a year to get my car inspected. Here in Washington, they only make you get your car tested for emissions every two years and it only costs $15. They don't require a full inspection like Texas did. That will be nice not having to pay for the inspection anymore. The registration sticker will be about the same, about $60 a year. I'm excited about putting my new plates on my car. I'll probably keep my old ones for a while.

Our view is great, but the whole wall is missing something, and I think that thing is curtains. Now, I won't pretend to know anything about curtains, but I think they could add some color to the room and could be used to help obscure the room when it gets really bright in the afternoon. The problem is that neither one of us really knows much about curtains, so we're not really sure where to start. The window is pretty wide (over 9 feet), so I'm assuming we'd want a kind of curtain that we could drag across to cover or uncover the entire window, kind of like what they have in hotels. But, I don't know what our options are and don't know where to start looking. Do you get something like this at a department store or at a home improvement store or at some kind of specialty store? And then what are our options? Do we just pick a color or are there a lot of different types? Times like this are when I'd wish someone would do everything for me.

There's a lot we need to do soon. I hope that tonight or tomorrow we can get all of our pictures ready from the trip, plus additional pictures from before the trip and of our new apartment. Also, I really want to share some of the video we took on the trip, and since there's like 2 hours of it, I want to edit it first to get it at a length where people might want to watch it. Plus, we need to get ready for all our stuff to arrive on Friday and figure out where everything is supposed to go. With me working all day and wanting to go out at night, it's hard to find time to do all this stuff, especially with these caramel vanilla Drumsticks from the store being so tasty.

I rolled out of bed today and fell on the floor. Good thing the bed is also the floor. I had to get up early today for my first full day back at work. Working remotely is even better than going to college, where I could get out of bed, put on some clothes, and get to class in like 15 minutes. Now I don't even have to get out of bed, I don't have to get dressed, and I don't have to go anywhere. But, I was still half asleep when I had a 7:00 meeting. Still, it wasn't too difficult to catch up on email and take care of the things I needed to and I feel like I got a lot done, possibly even more than I would have if I were physically at work. I don't know how I was able to sit in a camping chair with the laptop on my knees all day, awed by the view out of our window with the Space Needle and distant mountains, but once I get a desk, my productivity should triple. Or maybe not, but it will be nice to have a desk.

The nice thing about starting work by 7:00 local time (which is 9:00 back at the office) means that I get off before it gets dark here. Since Lesley really wanted Dr Pepper and there wasn't any at Whole Foods, we decided to walk to Safeway, since I'm trying to avoid driving as much as possible. After walking more than a mile up very steep hills and finding the Dr Pepper, we realized that there were other things we wanted to buy and didn't want to carry it all back with us. So, we walked back and stopped for some Asian food along the way - thank goodness they have Pei Wei here (just kidding, we went to some local Japanese place, which was pretty good). When we got back, we drove back to Safeway (though we forgot our reusable grocery bags), and bought Dr Pepper along with other groceries that we can use once we get our pots and pans back. I'm not sure what we'll do the rest of the night, but there's a lot of things we need to do.

One of the big reasons we chose the apartment we did is because of the great view. I'm sitting in the living room now and I can see the Space Needle, Queen Anne Hill to the right, and snow-capped mountains in the distance. We're too low to see the water, but it's still an awesome view. We have an open kitchen too with a bar area and you can see out the window while cooking. This is so cool!

Today was our first day in our new place. To celebrate the end of the road trip, we slept in a little bit, but it was hard to sleep in very long on the hard floor (the bed is coming with everyting else on Friday). We had a mess of a place to clean up, since I'd just brought everything in last night and put it wherever. We cleaned up a little bit and then found a nearby place to eat, World Wrapps, which we had a little trouble finding because it was inside of REI (a nearby sports and outdoor equipment store). I caught up on work email a little bit and then we wanted to get our car licensed in Washington. It took us a few minutes of reading online to figure out what we needed to do, but then we set out to get our car's emissions tested. I kind of forgot that it was almost rush hour, so traffic was a little annoying, but it didn't take too long to get to where we needed to go, and once there it was pretty easy. After that, we headed downtown to the administration building to get our license plates. Despite having to wait in line at a government building, the whole process wasn't too difficult and we got our new license plates. After that, we walked to the grocery store to buy a few things for dinner and the next few days. It was a pretty nice first day.

Here are some pictures we took from the apartment:

I'm already liking being able to walk places. First, we walked to lunch today, which was inside of REI (which is like 2 blocks away). The weather's been nice all day - sunny, no rain, very comfortable temperatures - and we needed groceries, so we walked a few blocks to Whole Foods and bought our dinner and food for a few more days. Anyway, I think it's pretty great that I can walk places again without much trouble. I'd like to go for a walk tonight, but we'll see.

The seemingly-interminable road trip finally came to an end at 3:15 when we parked outside of our new apartments. We went through our lease and a bunch of paperwork with the leasing agent and he showed us the parking garage and our room. We finished all of that around 4:30 and then we started bringing stuff into the room. It would take quite a few trips to bring everything in, but we couldn't do it all at once because Lesley wanted to watch the Academy Awards at 5:00. So, since we don't have our TV yet, we watched it in the lounge area on their 50" HDTV. Since there was so much stuff to bring in (and because the awards are boring), I periodically brought stuff into the apartment from the car and had everything in by the end of the show. Afterward, we were too tired to do anything so we just went to bed.

I think today was the first time in my life when I woke up at a hotel before the free breakfast was served, normally I barely want to get up before they stop serving it. Anyway, we headed out at dawn and immediately faced serveral miles of mountains with hills and sharp curves. The roads were a little wet, but fortunately it was not cold enough for freezing conditions because it looked like it would be really dangerous if the roads were icy. There were a lot of fog that we would sometimes drive above, through, or below and this was probably the prettiest part of our entire trip, but all of the curves, hills, and light rain did get tedious. About halfway through Oregon, the land got flatter and there were fewer trees but it was still scenic. We stopped near Portland to buy a shower curtain liner and a couple other things that we would need soon because Oregon doesn't have a sales tax. We had some pizza for lunch and then got back on the road, driving through the beautiful city of Portland. Around 12:30 we crossed the Columbia river to be in Washington. Washington was flatter and less green than Oregon, there was more traffic, and there apparently isn't a local translation for "Slower Traffic Keep Right." Traffic wasn't too slow, though, and we made it to our apartment in Seattle at around 3:15 local time.

I'm so happy we decided to move to Seattle. I can't believe it's actually happening. It seemed like such an unattainable dream 2 years ago when we first thought about moving away. I'm really glad things worked out so well with our jobs, our apartments, and everything else. We planned our trip in January for interviews fairly well and I had 8 chances to get a job. Troy gets to keep his old job for a little while and in the mean time he can look for a more permanent job in Seattle. Our apartment lease just happened to end close enough to where we didn't have to break the lease or pay for several months when we wouldn't be there. Our new apartment in Seattle seems really nice, with a great view of the Space Needle. It's 10 blocks from my job, so I can walk to and from work and not have to bother with a car or parking. I just think everything worked out well.

It's just so cool that we're getting to do this. I couldn't have imagined living in D/FW Texas all my life, that would seem like such a waste of my life, to never experience another part of the country for an extended period of time. Yeah vacationing for a week is nice, but nothing at all like living somewhere the whole year round. Our dream finally came true, and I can't wait to experience the next phase of our life in Seattle.

• I wish every hotel had free internet. We payed like $45/night for our first hotel and it had free inernet, but our last two hotels haven't had it. Of course, there are plenty of other things to do at the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas other than using the internet, but it would've been nice to check our email and post on our blog when we wrote the posts.


• We've been eating nothing but fast food for the past few days. Of course we've wanted to eat quickly for lunch when we've been driving, but even last night in Vegas we couldn't find anywhere to eat for a reasonble price so we gave up and ate fast food. Plus, we've been eating our snacks in the car, which haven't been all bad, we've had some bananas and granola bars and stuff, but it will be nice to have a good meal.


• Vegas is a crazy place. I'm glad I got to see it, it was pretty neat, everything's just so big and flashy. I probably won't want to go back for a while, but it was a neat place to stop.


• The car is so full, I really wish we didn't have all of these coats and dirty laundry and stuff, it's just a mess, and all of our bags keep falling over and our food keeps faling out of the bags and it's just such a mess. I'll be glad to clean the car out.


• Being from Texas, I'm not very used to experiencing elevation changes, but we've experienced a lot on this trip. As I'm typing this, we're on a downhill slope of freeway that lasts for 17 miles. When we open any bottles we've brought, the air inside is at a higher pressure than the ambient air, so the pressure has to equalize. And, driving at these high elevations really makes the car sluggish because of the lower amount of oxygen, it makes a bigger difference than I thought it would.


• It'd be nice to have a different car for this road trip. Our Protege is fine, but if we still had my old Lumina, it would have a lot more room, it would ride better and quieter, it wouldn't get pushed around by the wind as much, and we'd get better gas mileage.


• We stopped to get gas in Oregon, which was an interesting experience because Oregon is one of two states (the other being New Jersey) where people are forbidden from pumping their own gas. Some guy had to walk over to the car, swipe my credit card for me, select the gas, fill it up for me, and hand me my receipt. I guess if I'd stayed in the car, it might have been nice to have the convenience, but not being able to pump my own gas is as weird as it would be to have to let someone start my car for me. I'm kind of glad we're moving to Washington and not Oregon for that reason alone, like why should I have to pay for someone to gas my car, why can't I do it?


• It's kind of weird that we don't really have a home now. Both of us have Texas driver's licenses, but we don't live there anymore, and we don't really live in Seattle yet, so we're basically homeless - just for one more day, though.

Shortly after arriving, we went to a neat local restaurant called Greenleaf where I had chicken marsala and Lesley had salmon, both were pretty good, though not as filling as the big meals in Texas that we're used to. Apparently this town is a popular tourist destination and there are a lot of neat shops and restaurants in its downtown area. Anyway, it's pretty in Ashland, but it's also cold, so we're going to bed early so that we can make it to Seattle and move into our apartment tomorrow.

It was a chilly morning in Visalia when we left to go north on California highway 99. We drove through a lot of farms and towns. You'd think that the drive would be scenic, but I thought it was boring, and the heavy traffic and annoying drivers made the drive frustrating. We made our way over to I-5 at Stockton and stopped for lunch and gas in Sacramento. Sacramento had a lot of trees, but nowhere else along the way had that many trees. Past Sacramento there was a lot of rain, though, almost continuous until we checked in to our hotel. Closer to northern California, the scenery changed from relatively flat farm land to mountainous with a lot of trees and we ascended to 4000 feet and even had some snow falling (though the roads stayed clear). We got to Ashland around 4:30 local time.

Since we skipped Death Valley, we wanted to drive to Sequoia National Park once we stopped in Visalia. The park was almost an hour away from town and we had about two hours of daylight left, but we decided to drive to the park anyway. On our way to the park, we went through a lot of green hills, over a mountain stream, and through a few tiny towns. It was a very pretty drive. The trip to the park was worth the drive by itself, so we weren't too disappointed when we got to the park and found that snow chains were required to see any Sequoia trees. We could've gotten into the park, which I'm sure was pretty as well, but it was getting dark, so we decided to head back. I'm sure we'll go to the park some other time. That night, we found a local Chinese place where we ate orange chicken and shrimp and broccoli for dinner, and ordered way too much food, but it was pretty good. After dinner, we made use of the free internet in our neat old-but-well-maintained motel off of the highway. It was kind of noisy in our room because of some loud people outside, but it quieted down after a while.