Almost Settled In.

So, this weekend it got hot. I went to turn up the AC, and I found it was not working. We thought for SURE that this house had AC, since the thermostat had a switch for it. Well, before I made my angry "the AC is broken and my house is 85" call to the property managers, I went downstairs. Where I found that the copper tubing that should go to an AC unit instead ends welded shut about 3 inches down.
So it was 90 outside all weekend and we have a house with no AC. We went to Wal-Mart to grab some fans, and we find everybody else in town is doing the same thing. Apparently air conditioning is not a real common feature in housing here, so we didn't get totally duped by an owner, we just should have known that most houses don't have it. So I'm assuming that it doesn't get this hot very often.
I got another flickr account, so to keep up with photos I'm taking you can use this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28121631@N02/
Catchy URL, I know.
We got a ton more stuff out of boxes this weekend, namely the LP collection, but it's hard to want to do anything in weather like this. The basement is really nice, so we moved a lot of stuff out of the sweltering and now unusable upstairs and down there. My new job is a blast, and I look forward to it most days.

It's So Beautiful Here

Took a walk today at Scenic Beach Park in Seabeck. We were amazed at the drive there and back- the clouds cleared up at we came over a big hill and we realized that mountains had been there all the time. It was about 65 at 4:00. No rain today, either!
Every last little space is full off moss. According to a sign by the beach, this park is home to octopi, oysters, a lot of unique crabs, and whales. I didn't see any of them though. The woods are new-growth green, and full of tropical looking purple, fuscia, and orange flowers. I ate a couple salmon berries that were growing near the path- the bushes don't even have thorns! A lot of the trees go hundreds of feet high, and are coated with mosses all the way up. These woods are going to be SO full of fungi in the fall. All the fallen trees, silt, loam, and moisture will be the perfect environment.
It's so strange being in a forest where I can't identify even a single plant. I'm not just in a new ecosystem- I'm in a new biome.
I can't wait to see what I can grow in my yard, and I look forward to being able to afford some plants to play with. The new house won't have a lot of yard, but it'll have enough space to play with a little.

Day 2: Western Nebraska through Wyoming and Utah to Idaho.

Yesterday was amazing. Nebraska was so very boring, but it was like the instant we crossed into Wyoming things got really interesting. Snow capped mountains and enormous wind turbines. Saw a TON of Antelope, birds of prey, and prairie dogs. We didn't realize how cold it was until we hopped out at a rest stop wearing sandals and t shirts. Wyoming is the neo-nazi capital of America, too. Every single bathroom had nazi graffiti, I saw nazi tattoos, nazi bumper stickers, even a nazi biker gang.
Then we got into Utah, and it was the most beautiful place we'd ever seen. All in all it was an amazing day until the very end. We got tired at about 8- the usual time, and we decided to find a hotel. We drove almost 200 miles until we found one. So right now we're in Heyburn Idaho, and I anticipate us getting to our destination by tonight! Can't believe there's only 12 more hours left!
Can't believe I'd ever be excited that my car trip only had 12 hours MORE to go.
Took a lot of pictures today, I'll upload some tonight or tomorrow.

Smells Like Steak

Right now it's early morning at the Ogallala Nebraska hotel I'm staying at. I could smell steak the whole time I was here, because the hotel is between two steakhouses and a truckstop steak place. We got a steak at some kind of cheesy tourist restaurant- The Golden Spur. The food was really pretty good, but the service was awful. We sat next to three Parisians who were making fun of how fat all the waitresses were. They were also explaining, in great detail, what the cuts of meat on the menu meant. They seemed to think it was really cool to throw peanut shells on the floor.
Nebraska was a boring, boring drive. Nothing but flooded fields as far as we could see until just the last little shred of our trip.
St. Louis was terrifying to drive through- in the middle of the white knuckle death ride we were taking through town(St. Louis has exits and merging on BOTH sides of the road) they have a full motion billboard showing...a girl eating a sandwich. 50 feet of enjoying a sandwich.
I'm looking forward to some of today's drive, because Google Earth shows us going into some more interesting geography. Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska were so boring.
I can't wait to upload the picture I got of yesterday's hotel. Their were a couple of cars on bricks outside of it that looked like they had been their since the 60s.

Tomorrow is the big day!

I just finished a paper plate dinner on my front porch. I can mooch wifi from a neighbor, but only from the front porch of my house. This time of year the weather is so miserable here that you can only be even reasonably comfortable at night- I'm still a sweaty mess from the humidity-it's 85 at night!
We are pretty sure we have crossed every t and dotted every lower case j on our current place- and I've requested a pickup of the two storage containers that have dominated the view from my front window for a day and a half now. I cannot believe how much junk we have- if I ever make a move like this again, I will sell every last thing I own.
I landed a job- tolerable pay and it actually sounds like fun. It involves working with technology creatively with kids, a perfect match for me. I'm surprised anybody hires on a phone interview, but then years of telephone diplomacy for UPS have honed my phone skills.
We're consistently surprised with how casual and relaxed everyone is that we talk to on the phone. I really feel comfortable being myself around people from outside the south and I forget that sometimes. Victoria has two interviews scheduled already- I think she's a shoe-in for either job.
I just heard what sounded like a horrible motor cycle crash in the far distance on the highway.

So tomorrow morning I will drag my tightly wound apartment manager through the place and give her the keys. We'll hit the road with some cash and with any luck we'll be in town by the 9th or 10th of June.
Can't wait to see what happens! Now I have to get back to scraping up the last remaining tasks on this apartment. I was not entirely honest when I said we had dotted the lower case j's.