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.