Epic Road Trip 2013 – Let the Good Times Roll!

Whew. It’s been an exhausting, exhilarating weekend folks. Thursday, two moving pods were delivered to our apartment complex, and Terry and I looked at each other and said, hmmm, these are both pretty small. Seriously, we were pretty worried about fitting all our stuff in them. Terry even said that if we could actually fit all of our possesions in these two little boxes, he’d be proud of the un-materialistic life we’re leading. But, miracle of miracles, it all fit. Barely. Like, really barely.

Terry, with everything we own.

We left Florida on Saturday (only 3 hours later than planned, so not too bad) and drove straight to New Orleans. We didn’t get in till pretty late so we just went out for dinner and dessert, but let me tell you, even that was enough to make me a fan of New Orleans. One word people. Gumbo. So so delicious. And then, of course, some beignets from Cafe du Monde:

Mmmm, powdered sugar. I hate to think how much oil this place goes through to fry up the millions of beignets they must require everyday.

We drove another good chunk yesterday. Terry’s excited about this trip across the country, because unlike the time we drove out to Florida in a giant 16 foot moving truck whilst towing a car, I will actually consent to drive. He handed over the wheel in the middle of the day and snuggled into the pillow for a nap. I was all proud of myself for being so nice and letting him sleep for so long – I practically drove for like the whole time. Only, when I finally woke him up I asked him what time I’d started driving and it turns out I’d only been driving for like two hours. Some stamina I have.

We’re in Dallas now, visiting Terry’s brother and his wife. We’ll be here all day and then have the longest leg of our journey tomorrow. Wish us luck!

 

Please Enjoy the Music While Your Party Is Reached

T minus 3 days here, people. Forgive this short post whilst I finish boxing up all my stuff. And in case you were wondering, you don’t have any need to worry anymore – we tested it out and we actually can fit all six guitars and the telescope in the trunk of our car for safe transporting:

Back to the packing!

 

East to West

You know what I find funny? Every time I tell someone we’re moving across the country, their first reaction tends to be negative. “California?! Way too liberal.” “Oh man, the price of living there is killer.” “Oh geez, have you ever been to California? Awful place.” It doesn’t even matter if I know the person or not, they have something negative to say about our impending move.

Same thing happened when we came here. “Oh you’re moving to Florida? The humidity’s going to be terrible.” “What about the bugs?!” “You know they have hurricanes there.” And it happened every time we moved when I was growing up. When we moved to Utah, people said living in Mormon country would make us crazy, when we moved to Paris, they said the French would be rude and that the government would be too oppressive. Blah, blah, blah.

Alaska! I didn’t think I would really like it there, but I absolutely LOVED it.

But, as someone who’s moved 13 times in her life, I’ve learned a secret. I’ll even share it with you. You ready for it? There are good and bad things about everywhere you live. It’s true. I have loved and hated every single place I’ve lived. The trick is focusing on the parts you love.

I came across this link the other day of maps that show how people on different parts of the country speak differently from each other. I had so much fun looking at them because it seems I have my own dialect that’s a mix of East and West. In fact, I regularly get asked where my accent is from, which baffles me to no end. I don’t think I have an accent. At all. But I’ve been asked enough times that I’ve started to wonder.

The point is, there’s a lot to love about any place you live. What do you love about where you live?

The Reality of the Written Word

Last week, Terry and I FINALLY made it to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. A real-life rendition of JK Rowling’s imagination. Seriously, I just walked through there thinking about how this whole thing came from one person’s imagination. And after years of work and a crazy journey from her head to our hearts, it actually exists in a world we can touch and see and taste (mmm, butterbeer and Cornish pasties). It doesn’t get more real than that. (Although I tried awfully hard to conjure up real magic while I was there. Sadly, I think I must be a Squib. The shame . . . )

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts!”

My Book Boxes

I decided this time to pack my books in lots of little boxes, as opposed to putting bundles of them in giant boxes – that makes for heavy lifting, and we had a whole bunch of small boxes that we didn’t think would fit much else. Check it out:

Books. All books.

I love boxes. Any boxes. Who knows what you’re gonna find when you open it up, right? It could be buried treasure, or long-lost maps, or keys to faraway worlds!

Or, if it’s a box of books, it could be all of those.

 

Building Houses, Building Dreams, One Nail At A Time

We built a house with Habitat for Humanity this weekend. Not the whole house or anything. That would take longer than a weekend, I think.

Look at that stud.

We mostly just hammered nails into walls. For like a million hours. But you know what? One nail at a time is how a house is built. And one step at a time is how dreams are made.

So excuse me while I continue packing, making calls about our suddenly-not-working radiator, running errands (or trying to, sans working car), taking last-time trips to places we’ve loved, having dinner with friends we’ve made, plotting a cross-country road trip, scheduling vacations and picking destinations, coordinating meet-ups with old friends, making doctor’s appointments, helping hire and train my replacement,  discovering those last few places we’ve always meant to go to, and squeezing in a few last good bike rides.

I’m building my dream, one step at a time.

Up-All-Night Hobbies

Terry has gotten pretty into music recording the last few years. He started off with some cheap-ish recording software and in the early days of our marriage I would fall asleep on the couch next to him as he played with his music. Around 4am he would wake me up and be like “Caitlin, listen to this,” and play me what he’d been creating while I was sleeping (We should probably make a sequel to the movie While You Were Sleeping, all about the music that gets created while I’m out).

This tapered off a bit when he started his graduate program and was instead up till 4 in the morning doing homework all the time.

Luckily, he’s DONE WITH SCHOOL FOREVER, so we can start back up with late-night music recording sessions. Even more luckily, his parents got him some awesome presents for graduating and now he’s totally hooked up with all the coolest recording stuff.

And so, last night at 3 in the morning when Terry finally came to bed, I had to smile sleepily. We’re back, folks. We’re back to the recording.

(Special thanks to Chris, who has been there every step of the way to figure out what the heck is going wrong with the computer and program and stuff and has somehow magically fixed it all.)

Do you have any hobbies that keep you up all night? Mine would have to be reading, for sure. When I’m super super into a book, I don’t even need to eat. Which, if you know me at all, should be a good sign of how much I love to read.