Settling in

Thanks to the help of Ryder’s labmates, our new apartment quickly went from this:

IMG_2678 IMG_2684 IMG_2686

to this:

IMG_2691 IMG_2695
Yes, a queen mattress fits in our bathroom. It’s the most generously proportioned room in the house.
IMG_2696

Our new apartment is slightly smaller than our old apartment, and differently proportioned, so we’ve been playing tetris to get our furniture, clothes, and craft supplies (okay, so those are mostly mine) to fit nicely in our new place. We’re making good progress – we were able to sleep on our bed last night, we have a table to eat at, and (best yet) our internet is working!

Posted in Life | 1 Comment

We made it!

Hi, friends! Just stopping in to let you all know we made it to our new apartment, met our very kind landlady, and unloaded the truck!  5 of Ryder’s new labmates came over to help unload, so we had the truck empty and lunch eaten in well under two hours.

Now our apartment is full of boxes and a jumble of furniture! We’ve taken a break from unpacking to have some dinner (and conveniently found wi-fi here) and pick up some groceries for tomorrow. More soon, when we have internet at home!

Posted in Road Trip | 1 Comment

The Wincky-Niners gold rush: Day 5

map-day5

This morning was a stark contrast to yesterday. It was a balmy 40 degrees and sunny when we woke up in California today. We said goodbye to Blythe, and gaped at the gas prices that were 70 cents a gallon more than they were across the border in Arizona. Yikes.

we-are-having-fun-promise
We are having fun, I promise.

Our morning drive was more “nothing”, punctuated by beautiful mountains.

mountains2 mountains1 ca-windmills

Two hours later, we were in the outskirts of Los Angeles and I got to put my years of experience driving on Atlanta’s highways to good use. I must say, the roads are better in Atlanta…

out-of-la

We climbed 4,144 feet into the mountains north of LA, then plunged back down to a surprisingly flat, smoggy valley. We admired miles and miles of citrus groves, vineyards, and other unidentified crops. We also saw a few flocks of sheep grazing in the fields by the interstate. I wanted to get a lamb as a souvenir but Ryder wouldn’t let me.

smoggy-valley

I made a tiny bit of progress on Project 1, which Vickie correctly identified as a hat, but it was hard to get excited about crocheting a hat when it is 60 degrees and sunny… I did crochet some more pieces for Project 2. Any guesses on what this will be? (none of the guesses thus far are correct… the color may also be a bit misleading)

project2-day5

We decided that we didn’t want to sleep on the floor in an empty apartment tonight, so we’re staying a bit south of Palo Alto and will drive in tomorrow morning, then start unloading with the help of some of Ryder’s new labmates.

In license plate news, we’ve pretty much given up hope on finding North & South Dakota:

license-map-day5

Day 5 Stats:
Miles driven: 541
States visited: 1. California is also big.
Sight of the day: our hotel room! We are getting tired.
Snack of the day: sweet Clementines, carefully transported all the way from Atlanta, in an attempt to counteract the ick from eating fast food for four days straight.

Posted in Road Trip | 2 Comments

The Wincky-Niners gold rush: Day 4

map-day4

We woke up this morning to a lovely sight — our truck and car covered in a solid inch of snow. Ryder was thrilled — he loves snow (not). According to Francisco, the hotel concierge, El Paso only gets snow a couple of times a year and this was heavy one. Fortunately, I still had my snow brush in the trunk of my car from when I lived in Michigan 5 years ago.

truck

Driving through El Paso in the snow was a heart-stopping experience. While driving under an interchange, we thought there were accidents on a couple of the ramps. Then we realized that the cars were merely stopped because the ramps were too icy (the ramps were about five stories above us) (we didn’t have to drive on any of these ramps). Shortly after the interchange, a pickup two lanes over started fishtailing into the lane next to us and promptly spun into the wall. Thankfully, after a tense hour or so more, we were out of the snow.

snowy-road

snow1

New Mexico turned out to be a lot like Texas sans windmills and oil rigs, but with the addition of dust storm warning signs (“Dust Storms May Exists”), safety corridors, and pecan orchards.

new-mexico

pecans

scenery'

During our travels, we’ve discovered a bizarre plant-like specimen, which Ryder has named Seuss-bushes. Ten points to anyone who can tell us what they really are. Latin name preferred.

seuss-bush

To entertain myself while Ryder drives, I’ve been working on some crochet projects. Five points to the first person who can correctly identify what I’m making.

Project 1:

project1

Project 2 (yarn hand-spun and hand-dyed by my awesome crafty friend Abie):

project2

Arizona will always hold a special place in our hearts because we got awesome gas mileage. Turns out, we were mostly going downhill. We also saw a lot of cacti.

During the last five miles of the day we made it into California and are staying in the budding metropolis of Blythe. I can almost smell Palo Alto from here!

Our license plate map – big news of the day was seeing not one, but two vehicles with Alaska plates!

license-map-day4

Day 3 Stats:
Miles driven: 591
States visited: 4
Sight of the day: approximately 52 RV parks by the side of the interstate, all heavily populated
Snack of the day: leftover pizza, kept perfectly chilled in the backseat of our car

Posted in Road Trip | 5 Comments

The Wincky-Niners gold rush: Day 3

map-day3

Surprisingly, Ryder passed on the waffle this morning. I made up for it, though, and treated myself to a Texas-shaped waffle. The waffle shape was appropriate, since all we did today was drive through Texas. I’ve determined that Texas consists primarily of a few sections. First, the ranches:

tx-ranches

Then, the wind farms (bonus points if you can spot the choo-choo train):

windfarms

Next, the oil rigs:

day3-oilrig

And finally, nothing but land and scrub until we found the mountains in the far western corner of Texas:

[no picture, you know what nothing looks like]

Besides the enthralling scenery, another highlight of the day was seeing Midland, TX. As a child, I was shocked when I discovered there was another city with the same name as the one I lived in.

midland-tx

In other exciting news, although we are still in Texas, we did finally leave the Central Time Zone! And, we almost made it to Mexico – but at the last minute, the highway turned. We’re now settled into our hotel room in El Paso, waiting for the pizza to arrive, and contemplating a trip to the outdoor hot tub despite the 37° temperature.

In case you were curious, here’s an update on our license-plate-finding challenge (the Northeastern states aren’t looking too promising):

license-map-day3

Day 3 Stats:
Miles driven: 587
States visited: 1. Texas is big.
Sight of the day: thousands and thousands of windmills
Snack of the day: Chocolate peanut butter truffle bar. Mmmm.

Posted in Road Trip | 1 Comment