life: an update

Well, it's been a while since my last “real” post (around August 19 or so, neglecting a happy b-day to Diann and a random quote by Trey). And people keep telling me to update this thing… Well, I say people, but I really mean Jeff, who just soloed (yay congrats!)!

At any rate, a lot has happened that most of you out there on that-there Internet know about, but some of you don't. So this long-ish post is my attempt at filling people in.

Well, let's see — to recap — I finished school up this past June. Finally. Graduation (holy crap, where are my pictures of my graduation?! [ note to self: must find them at some point and post them ]) happened in mid-August and all was well.

Well, indeed. Before that, just after school finished up, Diann & I up and moved. We had decided several months before that we were tired of being in College Station, and with us both graduating school and not being firmly attached to the area, we figured we would only have one really good opportunity in life to move. We're young, we're stupid (some people tell us), so the decision was made.

With the both of us having shiny, new college degrees (well, mine wouldn't come until August, but you-know-what-I-mean), we figured it would be difficult for both of us to do ye olde job search across the entire US and hopefully end up with opportunities in the same spot. So we decided to pick a spot that we were both interested in and focus our efforts there. We picked Seattle.

The decision made, we started sending out r{e'}sum{e'}s to tons of places throughout Seattle. We planned on moving, job or no job, and hired movers and put the house on the market in February, hoping for a late summer closing date. Luckily, the house sold in a few weeks and the people who bought it were willing to let us rent it back from them until July, which worked out exceedingly well for us.

So March through May came and went, with school and work keeping us both busy. June blew by, and I took my last three classes during summer school: Tech Writing, Speech, and my last kinesiology — Billiards! Around the end of June, the old “it's not what you know, it's who you know” line came through for me in the form of a job prospect in Seattle by way of an old friend. I did a pair of phone interviews, they flew me up to Seattle on June 30th, and I had the unofficial phone job offer the next day!

With the movers scheduled, July 13th would be the day we drove off of Trace Meadows one last time. With the dog in the car and the car loaded down, we headed northwest.

Our first day's travel took us NNW to Childress, TX, which according to Mapquest is just shy of 400 miles. I think we drove a bit over 6 hours the first day.

Next day's itinerary took us west into New Mexico where we made a brief pit stop at Capulin National Monument (NPS Website, Pictures). We continued north through Colorado and on into Wyoming. We overnighted in Cheyenne, WY, which according to Mapquest is another 651 miles. I think on Day 2 we racked up approximately 11 hours behind the wheel.

Day three took us across the southern part of Wyoming and then north up western Wyoming, and on into Grand Teton National Park (NPS Website, Pictures). We went this route at the urging of Forrest who said that standing at the bottom of Grand Teton was an amazing experience. He definitely did not lie. We stopped for some pictures along the drive through Grand Teton and on up through Yellowstone National Park into West Yellowstone, MT. Another 500 miles down (according to Mapquest, but we went the long route, so it should actually be longer than that. Another 10 hours down the pipe.

No, we didn't drive on. We stopped in Yellowstone National Park (NPS Website, Pictures) for two days. Yellowstone NP is an absolutely amazing place that I can't even begin to put into words. If you've not yet hit Yellowstone, you absolutely must go sometime before you die. I can't explain it more clearly than that.

Enough has been written on the web about Yellowstone, so I'll forego that for the moment. The next day we drove out of Montana and onward, through Idaho and into Washington. We stopped for the night in Cle Elum, WA, another 675 miles behind us.

The last day brought us to Seattle, only a brief 83 mile drive away. We pulled in the morning of July 19th, and began the long process of getting situated in our new apartment. Total amount traveled: 2309 miles according to Mapquest, but in reality it was probably about 2500 miles courtesy of taking the long way in Wyoming. We completed the trek in just over 40 hours of driving time, which gives us an average speed of about 63 MPH.

Maybe I'll follow up to this blog entry later this week with what's happened since we actually got here, but now everyone knows. The cat's out of the bag, so to speak. Off to bed now!


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