Home From Oregon

We just rolled in a few hours ago, changed clothes, unloaded the car and went out for dinner.

As much as we enjoy to travel, we love coming home. Home to family, to friends. Home to the bed we carefully selected and purchased together, the Cal King with plenty of room for us to both sleep comfortably (unlike the lumpy motel Queen that meant we slept terribly every night we were up there). Home to our animals, one of which has been kenneled at the vet all week. Home to regular Internet access. Home to our house and our town and all the familiar sights and sounds and comforting details that mean we’ve finally settled in from a week on the road.

Three days of work and Chris is moved into his new Eugene, Oregon apartment. He seems happy with his new digs. There was a bit of drama involving his car (when would it arrive from Orlando – or would it ever?) and his moving pods (“You could have vacuumed some of the cat hair from the futon BEFORE you moved..”) but by Wednesday afternoon it was all moved in and generally sorted out. A few final trips to the grocery and Target to make sure he was stocked on all the basics, and then by very early Thursday morning – 40 degrees and wet, BRRRR – we had the car loaded up and were back on I-5 headed south again towards the California state line.

We hope everything works out for Chris in his newly adopted home. It’s not easy uprooting everything you know, burning the ships to go live thousands of miles away from everything familiar to you. One thing that was immediately apparent to us as soon as we arrived was that Eugene was NOT Orlando; not even close. But we’re sure that he will adapt and make new friends and sort out everything he needs. We wish him luck.

It’s a ten hour drive up, and another ten back. I didn’t take as many photos as I had planned, and a number of the ones I did take came out pretty blurry. I seem to be pretty bad at that lately, we’re not sure why. But if you’d like to see some of the Oregon photos that managed to come out nice, they’re after the jump.

Chris signed his apartment sight unseen from over 3000 miles away. He lucked out with a nice place. His front door is at the ground floor right; the guy standing there is one of his coworker friends, Colin, who kindly agreed to come out and help us unload the pods.

These are the infamous Pods. By this point Chris’ car had finally arrived the night before, several days late. But the pods arrived right on schedule and we cracked them open on Tuesday morning. Had them unloaded in the apartment two hours later.

My brother and his cat, Mystic. Skittish thing, when she wasn’t locked in the bathroom she was carefully hiding herself in a kitchen cabinet. She poked her head out to check on things every so often.

Last night in Eugene. The three of us got together for dinner on Wednesday night at a nice downtown Eugene place called the Steelhead Brewery. We talked long, enjoyed good food and said our goodbyes. Kristi took this picture of my brother and I on the sidewalk outside Steelhead. (Every picture I took of Kristi on this trip came out badly blurred. She asked that I not post them. :))

Bright and early this morning, on I-5 headed south back towards California. We’d been driving since six, on very little sleep and an opening hour run by the corner Starbucks for coffee and sugar. One thing I will say about Oregon, it has some stunning scenery. It’s also freakin’ cold on a wet October morning – when we left the motel, the car dash thermostat said 42 degrees. With the wet, it felt much colder.

Back in California. This is Mount Shasta, the fifth highest peak in California (about 14000 feet). As we neared, I took a number of shots – some better, some worse – trying to get a nice, clear photo of Shasta. This was my favorite of the bunch.

We’re happy to be home. And looking VERY forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight.