Week 1 and Beyond

Alrighty. I've been meaning to post for about a week now, to avoid the giant mega-post that seems to take all day to write, but here I am now: 2 weeks gone from Tucson and still no update. I will strive to be light on words and heavy on pictures. Really.

Thank you again to James for throwing me the most kick-ass going-away party I could have hoped for. Eegees and rum is a taste explosion I will very much miss. And thanks to everyone who made it out to give me a big send-off. I'm blessed to have such friends and I miss you all.

So, on Sunday the 24th we had the awsome help of Dom, Gallant and Aziza while we loaded up the truck from both our apartments. There's not much else to say about that other than it was hot and miserable and we surely couldn't have done it alone. We stayed the night at my sister's in Phoenix and headed out bright and early the next morning, making it to Modesto CA by sundown. On Tuesday morning we left Modesto and, despite some minor setbacks (traffic, blowing a tire on the truck) made it to Portland that night. Wow. What can I say? I wish we'd had more time to spend in Portland because it looked like an urban heaven. I'm sure we'll be making a few trips down there in the coming months. On Wednesday morning we allowed ourselves a bit of a lay-in (we didn't get up until 8!) and had a real breakfast before hitting the road one final time.

We made it to Aberdeen just after noon and, long story short, began moving into our new place that afternoon. So, our place: 2 bedroom, 1 bath nichigh ceilings, e bath, coin-op shared laundry, mostly carpet, new kitchen appliances, gas fireplace, huge windows, big walk-in closet, 1700 square feet (give or take) and "up the hill," which is apparently a plus when you live in a Tsunami hazard zone. I kid you not. Oh, the apartment is part of a large house which was originally built in 1900 and then added on to over the years. It's now been split up into 4 apartments, only ours being currently occupied. And it's 4 blocks from the library, so I walk to work and come home at lunch. Ideal, right?

Here is a picture of our creepy-looking old house:



And here are some pictures of our lush-looking yard areas:









And that's not all, check this shit out:



Uh-huh, that's moss. It just grows out here... on the ground, on the sidwalks, on the trees, sometimes even on people's roofs.

And take a look at this ferny goodness...



It's like a jungle, no? In fact, we are just a couple of hours south of the rainforests. We plan to go up there are some point, hopefully spot ourselves some banana slugs. Yup. I wanna see a banana slug. Oh! and here, look at this:



A soft, downy fiddlehead fern thingy. Cool! It's a little like being in Jurassic Park.

So, about our town... Ah, Aberdeen. Not much to do in Aberdeen. People are nice, though we haven't seen many our age. Small town, you know? We figure that most of the folks our age either settled down here and had babies, or they left. So.

But work at the library is nice. I think I'll like it there. It's nice to be doing something that I went to school for, and it's nice to be able to leave my work at work.

So far we've made three trips into Olympia (small but nice and urban. I wouldn't mind living there), seen the big 4th of July deal that they have down at the river, and drove out to the coast. The coast was only about 30 minutes away, and they let people drive their cars right out onto the beach. The sand there is packed hard enough. And we also got to see and tour two replica tall ships, the Lady Washington (which calls Aberdeen her home and appeared prominently in the first two Pirates movies) and the Hawaiian Chieftain. So, here are some pictures of the 4th of July thing, the ships and the beach. Enjoy: