I managed to do the unthinkable, and all by accident. I got Zach to come down to California for the holidays.
And, a week and a half went by really quickly, and we drove back yesterday. Which is what this blog is about.
First of all, I have to say: California SUCKS! Not that I'm anti-California (although I am), but if you have ever driven along I-5 from Los Angeles to Sacramento, you will know what I am talking about...and I thought Kansas was bad.
Naturally I started out driving in the morning, since Zach refused to drive in LA traffic, although it wasn't all that bad yesterday when we left. We did get to drive by Magic Mountain which brings back fond memories of the good old days. But then it just turned bad. There was no scenery for about 300 miles. It was just flat. Some fields. Unfortunately a lot of cow feed lots (smells yummy!). On top of all that it was very windy. There was lots of tumbleweed. In fact, there was one tumbleweed that ran us off the road. No kidding. Granted, it was the size of my Xterra, and no matter which lane I went in, it followed me, so I just went off the shoulder and into the median instead. We avoided the tumbleweed. Naturally we were hunting out the smaller tumbleweed we were driving by, trying to crush them. Maybe the big one was revenge? Tumbleweed karma?
After driving through miles and miles of nothingness, we entered Stockton. In itself it was pretty uneventful except that it was the first signs of civilization we came across. Then we entered upon Sacramento (state capital #1 of the day). I'm sure it's a nice place and all, but from what I could see from the freeway it looked rather similar to the suburban sprawling hell that the suburbs of Denver have become. All the cookie cutter houses in their cookie cutter developments. No thanks, not for me.
Somewhere in Northern California (note: Northern California = north of Sacramento) we switched over on driving duties. Naturally, this was when the scenery started getting really pretty. And really dark. Once we got to around the Mt. Shasta area, darkness fell on us. Once we hit Yreka, it started snowing. And it didn't stop until we got to Medford, Oregon. Now in nice weather I'm sure this is a fine drive, but in a near blizzard on an unknown road at night, it was a little unnerving. I wish I had been behind the wheel of my car, but I trust Zach and I know he's a good driver. I just don't trust California drivers, because (strong generalization here) they don't know how to drive in snow. Or in general:
When you're on a two-lane highway, you stay in the right lane. You use the left lane for
passing purposes.
I was getting so unbelievably frustrated at all these drivers I was passing on the right, or stuck behind because they simply refused to pass trucks. If people knew how to drive properly, we literally would have cut two hours off our total trip time.
Shortly after the blizzard, I fell asleep, and for most of Oregon. I woke up in time to watch us drive through Salem (state capital #2 of the day) and remained awake through Portland. I have to say, Portland is an absolutely gorgeous city. At least at night, I've never seen it during the day. We were both in awe as we drove through. Maybe it's not even that cool, but they just hired someone to light up the city in an amazing way. Regardless, we're looking forward to a weekend off to go back down there.
Then I slept again and when I woke up, we were in Olympia (state capital #3 of the day)! Amazing how that happens. As much as I hate my house, I was glad to be back last night, especially since the house was still in one piece and it hadn't flooded. Home, sweet home.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Life In Washington, four days in
Wednesday was the last page of one chapter of my life and Thursday was the first page of a new chapter. The driving distance between Boulder and Olympia was for the most part uneventful. We got a much later start than we had anticipated. We wanted to be on the road by noon. The morning was spent at Zach's mom's house where I was taking various pictures of her, him, and the dogs (Atka and her dog). After a teary goodbye, we split ways so Zach could finish his packing and I could finish cleaning my apartment. It was more or less decided that we were just going to give up on the carpet, there was no point in cleaning it as a chance against replacing it since Skylar chewed it up pretty well as a baby puppy. Once I arrived at Zach's house around noon, we discovered that the Penske trailer was not made for oversized tires, like the ones on Zach's Jeep. It took him, his buddy Josh and his brother Greg about three hours to figure it out, which included deflating and inflating tires. Around 4:00 it was steady enough to take off, and such we did, about 4 hours behind our estimated departure time. By the time we got into Wyoming, dusk had already fallen.
The drive was made a little more frustrating due to the Penske truck. It had to be filled up about every 200 miles, while my car didn't have to fill up until every 400 miles. When we made our first stop in Laramie, Wyoming, we decided as a souveneir of our move to buy shot glasses from every state we passed through. And we did, except for Utah, which we didn't drive through long enough to actually stop.
The drive took about 25 hours, which included about 2 1/2 hours of stops for sleeping, plus about another 2 1/2 hours for gas breaks, so we were driving for 20 hours. A piece. Zach driving the Penske, with Atka by his side, and the Jeep trailing behind, and I following (making sure the Jeep didn't fall off) with Skylar in my shotgun seat. I am so proud of my little puppy, she did an awesome job during the drive. She pretty much slept in the passenger seat or in my lap the entire ride.
We arrived in Olympia around 3:00 on Thursday. We were exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep. Of course the landlady was running late and we had to wait for her. Then we get there, and she shows us our "house". It is absolutely horrible. It is a basement, with two "rooms" built in on either side of the basement, and two hallway type rooms, one with a kitchenette. The lady should never try to pass this off as a two bedroom apartment. Fortunately since there are just two of us, we have kind of figured out a situation: our bedroom in one of the rooms, the tv and sofa in the other (since there are no other tv hookups), the kitchen where the kitchenette is and a study/dog area in the other hallway space. I think part of it was me being cranky, but I hated it from the beginning and threatened to move somewhere else. After a couple good nights of sleep, I started to accept it a little more, except that there is no room whatsoever in the kitchen for anything. I lost it a little bit, broke a plastic tong-type utensil while I was unpacking. There is only one outlet in the kitchen, which is right about the sink, and doesn't reach our appliances. Plus I'm a little worried about it being above the sink, even though they claim it's safe. Earlier today the toaster oven cord got wet and I started freaking out.
Slowly but surely it's starting to come together as home. We've gotten the bedroom pretty much finished and am still working on the kitchen. The rest is probably a long way away. The two positive points about this place is the massive amounts of storage and the large fenced in yard. The dogs have been really enjoying the yard and since we're only in the place for six months, a lot of the stuff isn't even going to be unpacked but rather put into storage.
I'm trying to make the best of the situation and I'm sure it will get better once I have a job or two to keep me occupied. Zach started orientation for his flight school today and is also in the process of trying to find a job. I think once everything comes together it will be just fine.
The weather isn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. Today was actually mostly sunny throughout the day. We had another sunny day a couple of days ago. And it's really only rained a couple of days, it's just been cloudy the rest. As odd as it may seem, the weather reminds me a lot of Berlin. I know that's kind of odd, but I actually think they're at a similar position on the map. The town of Olympia is seeming better the more we're getting out. At first it was just kind of a weird suburban vibe, without all the strip malls. I think of suburbs, I think of Westminster, with chain restaurants and stores around every corner. The suburb here, Lacey, isn't quite like that. Although we did venture into West Olympia today and it is a little more like that, with an Outback Steakhouse and Olive Garden. But I think downtown is really cool, it's like a cute little independent downtown. We're pretty close to the water, the very southern tip of the Sound.
So tomorrow I will begin my job search. I will stop by a temp agency, and try some restaurants. And once everything gets settled in, I think I could like this place.
One side note: Olympia is even more hippie than Boulder. Go figure.
The drive was made a little more frustrating due to the Penske truck. It had to be filled up about every 200 miles, while my car didn't have to fill up until every 400 miles. When we made our first stop in Laramie, Wyoming, we decided as a souveneir of our move to buy shot glasses from every state we passed through. And we did, except for Utah, which we didn't drive through long enough to actually stop.
The drive took about 25 hours, which included about 2 1/2 hours of stops for sleeping, plus about another 2 1/2 hours for gas breaks, so we were driving for 20 hours. A piece. Zach driving the Penske, with Atka by his side, and the Jeep trailing behind, and I following (making sure the Jeep didn't fall off) with Skylar in my shotgun seat. I am so proud of my little puppy, she did an awesome job during the drive. She pretty much slept in the passenger seat or in my lap the entire ride.
We arrived in Olympia around 3:00 on Thursday. We were exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep. Of course the landlady was running late and we had to wait for her. Then we get there, and she shows us our "house". It is absolutely horrible. It is a basement, with two "rooms" built in on either side of the basement, and two hallway type rooms, one with a kitchenette. The lady should never try to pass this off as a two bedroom apartment. Fortunately since there are just two of us, we have kind of figured out a situation: our bedroom in one of the rooms, the tv and sofa in the other (since there are no other tv hookups), the kitchen where the kitchenette is and a study/dog area in the other hallway space. I think part of it was me being cranky, but I hated it from the beginning and threatened to move somewhere else. After a couple good nights of sleep, I started to accept it a little more, except that there is no room whatsoever in the kitchen for anything. I lost it a little bit, broke a plastic tong-type utensil while I was unpacking. There is only one outlet in the kitchen, which is right about the sink, and doesn't reach our appliances. Plus I'm a little worried about it being above the sink, even though they claim it's safe. Earlier today the toaster oven cord got wet and I started freaking out.
Slowly but surely it's starting to come together as home. We've gotten the bedroom pretty much finished and am still working on the kitchen. The rest is probably a long way away. The two positive points about this place is the massive amounts of storage and the large fenced in yard. The dogs have been really enjoying the yard and since we're only in the place for six months, a lot of the stuff isn't even going to be unpacked but rather put into storage.
I'm trying to make the best of the situation and I'm sure it will get better once I have a job or two to keep me occupied. Zach started orientation for his flight school today and is also in the process of trying to find a job. I think once everything comes together it will be just fine.
The weather isn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. Today was actually mostly sunny throughout the day. We had another sunny day a couple of days ago. And it's really only rained a couple of days, it's just been cloudy the rest. As odd as it may seem, the weather reminds me a lot of Berlin. I know that's kind of odd, but I actually think they're at a similar position on the map. The town of Olympia is seeming better the more we're getting out. At first it was just kind of a weird suburban vibe, without all the strip malls. I think of suburbs, I think of Westminster, with chain restaurants and stores around every corner. The suburb here, Lacey, isn't quite like that. Although we did venture into West Olympia today and it is a little more like that, with an Outback Steakhouse and Olive Garden. But I think downtown is really cool, it's like a cute little independent downtown. We're pretty close to the water, the very southern tip of the Sound.
So tomorrow I will begin my job search. I will stop by a temp agency, and try some restaurants. And once everything gets settled in, I think I could like this place.
One side note: Olympia is even more hippie than Boulder. Go figure.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Five days to go
I am leaving my life in Colorado, and I honestly don't think it could come at a better time. I have officially been out here for more than seven years now, and I've found what's important to me out here, so it's time to find some place else and find myself there. And no, I'm not trying to be all hippie and "find myself" but I do need to find my place in life.
Colorado has been wonderful to me. I love this place, and I feel like I've grown up here because I moved here when I was 18 and am leaving now at 25. Those seven years I've become truly independent, even (gasp) an adult. I've dealt with the worst life can throw at me and the best, and everything in between, and I've grown as a person during the time.
Most of my friends have also moved on and left Colorado, which is unfortunate, but I know if they are true friends we will cross paths in life again. That's also the problem of living in Colorado for the purpose of school and then spending two years at a ski resort. None of those are very permanent, especially the ski resort, where I probably crossed paths with countless people who I will never see again, and yet, oddly, still have their phone numbers.
Nor do I intend for my departure from Colorado to be a departure from my friends and my memories of this place. Nor is it permanent. There's a very good chance that I will find myself back in Colorado some day. If that happens however, I have no idea of when.
Moving out to Washington has been a bit of an ordeal, since neither Zach nor I have ever been there before. It all started when he decide to go to his helicopter flight school out there, just about a month ago. He was still waiting to hear from the army, but would have only accepted a couple of positions, and had just turned down his potential jobs at Copper. So when he decided to go to school out there, he asked me to come with him. I figured it was about time to move on, and if he left me in Colorado I wouldn't have much left, or so it would feel like. So we're in the process of packing up and moving to Olympia, Washington, where, I am convinced, everyone has an aunt and uncle that live there. Almost everyone I've told about the move has told me such, unless everyone I know is somehow related. We have a little house we're renting, a two bedroom, part of a duplex, which has a large fenced-in yard. By the way, did I mention we're bringing the puppies? So it will be the four of us, me, Zach, Skylar and Atka living there. Our little dysfunctional family.
So I'm sitting here in a sea of boxes, and actually, for the first time since I started working at Nine75, dreading going in to work later on. Not just because I have a lot of packing to do (which is true), but last night made me very glad that I was leaving because the people didn't actually care about me as much as they would like me to think. I had a huge day yesterday: Atka was sick during the night, I took Skylar in to the vet to get spayed, I took my car in to get a quick check up before we leave and to make sure all of the new bugs were out, I started putting together boxes, which led me to actually start packing, I picked Skylar up from the vet and had to do such a quick turn around and rush out the door for work, leaving my poor little puppy in her crate with her lampshade collar on after having just gotten out of surgery. I was already in the mindset that I didn't want to close, and the manager said she'd try to figure something out. So this leads into an incredibly horrible night at work, where I was splitting a large party and a section of tables with one other person, and she wouldn't let me do anything. She said there was no reason for both of us to do this, so I was essentially a busser and a cocktailer for her, while I had one table of my own the rest of the night. No one ever communicated anything with me for the rest of the evening. On top of everything else, my dad called to tell me that my mom was in the hospital. So I asked everyone if they wanted to help me out, and not a single person volunteered to help me out. Like I said, it made me glad that I'm leaving, which made me even more frustrated with the situation, having only two days left.
Skylar's surgery went fine, although they discovered that one of her ovaries was underdeveloped, which really shouldn't mean anything, especially since she will never be reproducing, but it still scares me after everything I went through with Raleigh. The vets wondered if it was somehow related in any way to her not really seeming to grow, although I just see her as being happy but petite. She's only 5 1/2 months old, and she doesn't need to be that big, especially since I never expected her to be more than 35 or 40 pounds anyway, so the fact that she's only 21 pounds doesn't bother me too much. I'm just trying to keep a positive outlook.
My mom went into the hospital last night with stomach pains. They aren't sure exactly what is wrong with her, just some kind of blockage in the digestive system, which is worse for her than most people after her colon cancer. Best case scenario is that it's a gall stone which will get rid of itself. And that's where I'm staying. With everything else going on in my life, I'm trying to stay away from worst case scenarios. This is a big step for me, because that's usually exactly where I fall. But with Skylar and my mom, I know everything's going to be okay. Skylar's a rambunctious, active little puppy, and my mom is strong and has been through the worst that a person can go through, so this is (hopefully) nothing in comparison.
So I'm just going to get through the next few days and by Thursday I'll be in Washington, and more or less starting a new life all over again.
Can you tell I'm trying to put off packing? :)
Colorado has been wonderful to me. I love this place, and I feel like I've grown up here because I moved here when I was 18 and am leaving now at 25. Those seven years I've become truly independent, even (gasp) an adult. I've dealt with the worst life can throw at me and the best, and everything in between, and I've grown as a person during the time.
Most of my friends have also moved on and left Colorado, which is unfortunate, but I know if they are true friends we will cross paths in life again. That's also the problem of living in Colorado for the purpose of school and then spending two years at a ski resort. None of those are very permanent, especially the ski resort, where I probably crossed paths with countless people who I will never see again, and yet, oddly, still have their phone numbers.
Nor do I intend for my departure from Colorado to be a departure from my friends and my memories of this place. Nor is it permanent. There's a very good chance that I will find myself back in Colorado some day. If that happens however, I have no idea of when.
Moving out to Washington has been a bit of an ordeal, since neither Zach nor I have ever been there before. It all started when he decide to go to his helicopter flight school out there, just about a month ago. He was still waiting to hear from the army, but would have only accepted a couple of positions, and had just turned down his potential jobs at Copper. So when he decided to go to school out there, he asked me to come with him. I figured it was about time to move on, and if he left me in Colorado I wouldn't have much left, or so it would feel like. So we're in the process of packing up and moving to Olympia, Washington, where, I am convinced, everyone has an aunt and uncle that live there. Almost everyone I've told about the move has told me such, unless everyone I know is somehow related. We have a little house we're renting, a two bedroom, part of a duplex, which has a large fenced-in yard. By the way, did I mention we're bringing the puppies? So it will be the four of us, me, Zach, Skylar and Atka living there. Our little dysfunctional family.
So I'm sitting here in a sea of boxes, and actually, for the first time since I started working at Nine75, dreading going in to work later on. Not just because I have a lot of packing to do (which is true), but last night made me very glad that I was leaving because the people didn't actually care about me as much as they would like me to think. I had a huge day yesterday: Atka was sick during the night, I took Skylar in to the vet to get spayed, I took my car in to get a quick check up before we leave and to make sure all of the new bugs were out, I started putting together boxes, which led me to actually start packing, I picked Skylar up from the vet and had to do such a quick turn around and rush out the door for work, leaving my poor little puppy in her crate with her lampshade collar on after having just gotten out of surgery. I was already in the mindset that I didn't want to close, and the manager said she'd try to figure something out. So this leads into an incredibly horrible night at work, where I was splitting a large party and a section of tables with one other person, and she wouldn't let me do anything. She said there was no reason for both of us to do this, so I was essentially a busser and a cocktailer for her, while I had one table of my own the rest of the night. No one ever communicated anything with me for the rest of the evening. On top of everything else, my dad called to tell me that my mom was in the hospital. So I asked everyone if they wanted to help me out, and not a single person volunteered to help me out. Like I said, it made me glad that I'm leaving, which made me even more frustrated with the situation, having only two days left.
Skylar's surgery went fine, although they discovered that one of her ovaries was underdeveloped, which really shouldn't mean anything, especially since she will never be reproducing, but it still scares me after everything I went through with Raleigh. The vets wondered if it was somehow related in any way to her not really seeming to grow, although I just see her as being happy but petite. She's only 5 1/2 months old, and she doesn't need to be that big, especially since I never expected her to be more than 35 or 40 pounds anyway, so the fact that she's only 21 pounds doesn't bother me too much. I'm just trying to keep a positive outlook.
My mom went into the hospital last night with stomach pains. They aren't sure exactly what is wrong with her, just some kind of blockage in the digestive system, which is worse for her than most people after her colon cancer. Best case scenario is that it's a gall stone which will get rid of itself. And that's where I'm staying. With everything else going on in my life, I'm trying to stay away from worst case scenarios. This is a big step for me, because that's usually exactly where I fall. But with Skylar and my mom, I know everything's going to be okay. Skylar's a rambunctious, active little puppy, and my mom is strong and has been through the worst that a person can go through, so this is (hopefully) nothing in comparison.
So I'm just going to get through the next few days and by Thursday I'll be in Washington, and more or less starting a new life all over again.
Can you tell I'm trying to put off packing? :)
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