Mississippi going West

{a short journal of our move + drive across the country}

FRIDAY 8/20
Friday was the day we needed to move everything out of our house and into the storage unit. Much easier said than done. Being that it was 110 degrees (nasty southern heat and humidity) Jake felt bad asking any of our friends to help us load the moving truck... this turned out to be a huge mistake. It ended up taking Jake and I (by ourselves) from 8am until 6:30pm to move out all the furniture and boxes from our 2-story, 2000 sq-foot home in the horrible miserable heat. It was awful! By noon I was so tired that I wanted to just quit and sleep in the air conditioned house for the rest of the day (wishful thinking haha) but being that we only had the moving truck for that one day I held in my complaints and just powered through. Can you believe I helped Jake move all our heavy furniture? Oh yeah I may look scrawny but I can be totally scrappy and determined :) Needless to say, I could barely move when I woke up the next morning.

Anyways, the worst part of it all was that once we finally got the huge 24-inch truck completely loaded, we still had to go unload everything into our storage unit in town. Jake and I were drained and hungry and about to break, so we finally decided to call for some back up. And it was awesome - 3 of our friends met us out at the storage unit and we were done unloading in just an hour! Oh how nice it would have been to have had them at the house with us earlier that day. I think we definitely underestimated how much stuff we had. But when it was all done it sure felt amazing to go sit down at our favorite Mexican restaurant one last time and stuff ourselves with yummy food.

SATURDAY 8/21

You would think that moving on Friday and not leaving until Sunday would have left our Saturday completely open to relax, say goodbye to friends, and prepare ourselves for a long drive. HA! Saturday turned out to be just as long and busy as Friday was. We cleaned our house inside and out to get ready for our house inspection, took trips to the dump and goodwill, cleaned out the fridge and gave away a ton of leftover food, found new homes for my beautiful potted plants (sad...), made a few last minute trips to the storage unit, ran errands in town, said goodbye to friends, packed up our new car (which will be staying with our friends in Columbus for Jake to drive to his next training in October), and then VERY strategically packed our old car for the road trip out west. The car had to hold all of my clothes for 6 months (including summer, fall and winter clothing... yikes!), all of Jake's stuff for Survival Training in Washington, Jake's clothes for our two weeks of leave in Oregon, both of the dogs' large crates (plus food, toys, etc), and then, oh yeah, enough room for Jake, myself, and both dogs. I said a prayer before we started packing the car and I think God may have actually expanded the trunk for us because there is no way all of that should have fit :) And when the car was packed and the house was completely empty, I had a little moment of sadness about leaving... But that moment quickly passed when I walked back outside into the bug-filled sauna that is Mississippi and realized how ready I was to get back to the west coast. Mississippi you've been good and everything but get me back home!!

SUNDAY 8/22

5 am came quick. We stuffed ourselves into the packed car and left Columbus, with our first stop being 12 long hours away in Witchita. Mississippi looked really beautiful as we left it.

The hours went by pretty fast and it was actually a really pretty drive. Who knew Arkansas would be so beautiful?!

That night in Witchita, Kansas we stayed with my good friend Angela whose husband is stationed there at McConnell AFB. I met her when I first got to Columbus but she left just a few months after. It was nice to get all of her insights about life in the "real Air Force" versus life in pilot training. It was a wonderful place to stop after a long day of driving. Thanks so much Angela!!

MONDAY 8/23

Monday's drive felt like nothing compared to the day before. It took us less than 8 hours to get from Wichita to Denver but, man oh man, it was a boring drive. There's really not much to see in Kansas or Eastern Colorado. Very flat, lots of corn...

I was extra excited about our stop in Denver because my best friend Tori lives there! I hadn't seen her since March so we had a lot of fun catching up. That was also our first time staying with 2 dogs in a hotel and to our happy surprise they did amazing! After sleeping in the car for 2 days I thought they would be crazy at the hotel but they just kept on sleeping! So that night we finally got the full 8+ hour night of sleep that we had been craving all week.

TUESDAY 8/24

Next we headed from Denver to Salt Lake City, Utah which wasn't a bad drive at all. In fact the whole day the speed limit was set at 75 so we were cruisin! I had never driven through Wyoming or Utah before and thought it was so pretty! And just like the day before, the dogs did really great in the car and at the hotel too. Spoiled little Bailey managed to get herself up to the front seat where she sat on Jake's lap pretty much the entire drive...

The look on her face is hilarious. It's like she's saying "No pictures, please". Badger loved that she sat up front; he stretched out and laid down piggy-style across the back seat. Aww I love my babies :) Not really much else to say about this day of driving. Honestly as the days went on, I became less and less enthused about the drive and really just wanted to be there already!

WEDNESDAY 8/25

Wednesday we were up at the crack of dawn and got back on the road for our last day of driving. And it was a really long 12 hours before we finally made it to Hood River. The hours just seemed to pass sooo slow. We made great time though, stopping only twice, and arrived at Jake's parents' house at just 4:30 in the afternoon! I was so ridiculously happy when we pulled into their driveway and the 40 hours of driving were over. Hall-leh-loo-yah!

SINCE THEN... We've been enjoying our downtime with family and friends; and I've also had a chance to get caught up again on work and school which feels really good. On Friday night, Jake and I had a date downtown and had the most amazing time! I think it was the first time in more than a year where we could both relax and enjoy eachother, stress-free. We were happy and giddy and it was just perfect. Oh-my-goodness, how can I possibly be without him for the next 6 months? I'm just not going to think about that yet... for now, we are just soaking up every second of our vacation and time together.

Oh, yes. Life is Good :)