40 years ago...

No, I'm not turning 40. I may be old, but I'm not that old (not yet anyway). Forty years ago today my parents got married. They were married for 19 years when my father passed away, and I have no doubt that if he hadn't died, they'd still be married and celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this week. Their anniversary was a big deal in our family because, as some of you may know, we didn't celebrate Christmas growing up. (We also didn't celebrate Hanukkah, which is always the next question when you tell someone you don't celebrate Christmas.) Instead, my parents arranged what we called, in retrospect somewhat unimaginatively, "Present Day" which coincided with their anniversary. We took the Christ out of Christmas and moved it to early February. We also took out the lights, decorations, stockings and trees. In reality it was nothing like Christmas except that we exchanged presents. This tradition fell by the wayside as my sisters and I got older, and I honestly couldn't tell you when the last official "Present Day" was.

I mention my parent's anniversary today, not so much because of the memories of "Present Day", but because my dad has now been gone longer than my parents were married. I got to thinking about this recently because I have a strong tendency to dwell on the past, and while I never ever want to forgot the people from my past, sometimes the past has a way of covering over the present. Life moves forward, and it sounds like a cliche, but you can't live life looking backwards.

Take for example our around the world trip. Before we know it, we will have been back in the States longer than we were away. It's not that the memories of the trip are fading, but the relevancy is fading, or at least that's how it feels. It might seem obvious, but the trip we took will never change, which means we'll always be answering questions such as, "Did you go to Cambodia?" with "No." Or  "Did you go to South America?" and we'll have to say "No." We'll answer "What parts of Africa did you go to?" and it will always be "Just Egypt". And we'll always be explaining that we only visited southern India, and didn't see the Taj Mahal.

This isn't to say we won't travel again, and indeed I intend to continue traveling and visiting new places. I recently found myself on-line playing around with around-the-world tickets, which even though we didn't end up using one for our trip, I still find intriguing. Not to alarm anyone in our family lest they think we're planning another big trip, but I read a lot of travel blogs and I happened to click on an ad for a "South American around-the-world" ticket that stopped in Columbia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Costa Rica. All those stops (and there were multiple stops in some of the countries) cost less than $1,500 per person. That's an amazing deal, and part of me wants to head to Miami (where the ticket originated) and leave on that trip tomorrow. And not just because Boston has three feet of snow on the ground, although that certainly is big motivation.

Then again, as I've mentioned repeatedly, I am enjoying myself in Boston. Yesterday we had a lovely Superbowl party at Jaimee's dad's house and on Saturday, Jaimee and I had a long visit with my sister and nephew. I cherish those moments, and am truly happy that we are close to family. But, the travel bug is hard to kick and I sometimes wish we didn't fall into jobs and a routine in Boston so easily.

When we came back from our trip, I had a grand vision of finding some way to finance more travel, finding a way to break free from the "9 to 5", three weeks of vacation a year syndrome. Alas, Jaimee and I found jobs, good jobs that we both like, and an apartment that we love. So what's the problem? Nothing really, except that I still have unfulfilled dreams. I guess the take-away from this somewhat long rambling post is that I plan on spending more time in the present (and future), and less time reminiscing about the past. In reading other around-the-world bloggers, I noticed a similar struggle that sets in a few months after returning. Often it seems the blogs morph into something else. The most explicit example of this is AwayTogether, a blog about a family of four who traveled around the world, which turned into A Runner's Trip, a blog about long-distance running. Another example is our friends Jason and Gillian from Victoria who have continued their blog, but with a focus on motivation behind travel, living in the moment, and challenges to move out of your comfort zone. I know that Gillian sometimes reads this blog, so I don't mean to misrepresent her blog if my description isn't her intent, and I really encourage people to check it out for themselves, as it's quite motivating.

Maybe this blog will change into a place to motivate others to fulfill their dreams and live in the present. I suppose we can do that by setting an example ourselves. So, maybe you'll see more posts about dreams, goals and living a more fulfilling life.

Fifteen years ago...

November 7th, 1995 I visited Seattle for the first time. I arrived in a 1988 Subaru Justy with my good friend Brian from New Hampshire after a 10-day road trip across the country (we took the "Northern route" through New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, etc.). I didn't intend to move to Seattle, but stay I did, and the rest, as they say, "is history."

Now Seattle seems really far away as we're settling into a new routine in the Boston area (maybe we've already mentioned this?). Last weekend, we went to Vermont for a couple days and had a wonderful time doing "Vermonty" things, like a trip to the farmer's market, walks in the woods, and leisurely breakfasts. (Not to imply that Vermonters live the life of leisure; only visitors to Vermont live this leisurely life. Living in Vermont involves many chores, which luckily we were able to avoid this time.)

We stayed at a converted "Bed & Breakfast" that used to be a two-room school house. The owners rent it out per night and stock the refrigerator with breakfast foods that you cook up yourself. The adorable little house reminded us a bit of our apartment as it had lots of windows and skylights. Notice the tall windows that are original from the school house days; if you sit down inside you can't look out the windows, which I guess is the point if you're trying to keep the attention of school children:

We visited the Brattleboro Farmer's Market on the last Saturday of the year before it moves indoors for the winter. I was surprised  by the number of prepared food vendors at the farmer's market, including exotic food, like this Malian food vendor (there also were two Thai places and a Vietnamese vendor):

But mostly, as we keep mentioning, we're living a pretty relaxed life in Boston, enjoying semi-city-life in Roslindale. I say semi-city because although Roslindale is technically part of Boston, it feels more like its own small town than the city of Boston, actually a lot like our old Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. The Fall weather has been very nice, it's definitely getting colder, but it's been dry for the most part, which is a welcome difference from autumn in Seattle. The November I arrived in Seattle, it literally rained every single day for my first month; I suppose that indicates I was destined to stay there. If I could tolerate a solid month of rain, the weather wasn't really going to bother me that much. On the other hand, the following summer it was sunny for, again literally, every day in July, August and September (with no humidity!) which became the cycle of living in Seattle - recharge during the sunny summer for the gray, rainy winter. In any event, we've already had a bit of frost in Boston, which I noticed the other day on my bike commute to work (it might be faint, but it was definitely there):

Again, pretty cool that this is right in Boston (and that it's part of my daily commute). I feel lucky to live in such a nice place.

Lantern Festival

Now that Jaimee and I are both working full-time, it's amazing how quickly the week flies by. I suppose it's a good sign that the week goes by quickly - it must mean work isn't too terrible - but it does mean that we don't have a whole lot of time mid-week to do "fun" things. But, this weekend we took advantage of being in Boston and went to the Jamaica Pond Lantern Festival. Every year the weekend before Halloween, thousands gather around  the Pond right after sunset and walk the one-mile path with homemade lanterns. It was mostly full of families, but Jaimee donned her grand-mother's square-dancing cape and we enjoyed the full moon and relatively mild night:

Otherwise, not a whole lot else to report. Our apartment is taking shape and is really starting to feel like home. In fact, I will go so far as to say I really like it there! It's super bright, and we've adjusted to climbing three flights of stairs everyday. Although to remind us of Seattle, we framed a poster of a map of Seattle and put it next to the Boston version:

We're also planning a weekend trip to Vermont next weekend with my sister, her wife and my lovely little nephew. We'll be sure to bring our camera and get some pictures of our weekend away.

Our first guests, and a perfect Fall weekend

We'd been in our new apartment for less than a week before we entertained our first visitors. Our friends Kate and Kyle from Seattle came to visit us last weekend. They are the same Kate and Kyle whose wedding we went to over Labor Day in Seattle. It was great to see them, and the weather in Boston turned out to be just perfect, especially Saturday. It was one of those perfect Fall days; crisp and sunny, warm in the sun, yet cool in the shade. If only we had more days like that, Boston weather would be great. As it was, the previous week was rainy, muggy and steamy warm (temperatures reaching into the 80s) with Friday being a real "soaker" as they say around here.

However, Saturday was perfect. We visited the very cute Roslindale Farmer's Market (is anyone not on Facebook?) in the morning and then embarked on a major walking tour of Boston. We didn't calculate it, but we must have walked over 10 miles, covering just about all parts of the city. Boston is a very pretty city, with great architecture and between the Charles River and the Bay, you're never very far from the water or boats.

Sunday, the weather wasn't quite as nice, but we ventured out of town to go apple picking at Tougas Farm in Northboro, Mass. It was pretty much peak apple season, with over 20 varieties to choose from. We especially enjoyed the "under appreciated" Empire variety, a cross between McIntosh and Red Delicious. I don't usually like Red Delicious, but Empires were quite tasty. In addition to over 20 pounds of apples, we also got apple cider donuts, and together with the apple cider we'd picked up at the farmer's market at Saturday, we had our fill of apples!

As an aside, we paid $25 for 20 pounds of apples (1/2 a bushel), which seemed like a good deal until we stopped at the grocery store on the way back to get ingredients to make an apple crisp, and discovered that Empire apples were on sale for $0.99 a pound! So, in other words, we paid extra money for the privilege of picking our own apples. Although, the apples we got looked better and we got a bunch of different varieties. And we had fun, so there is that.

Our apartment, thanks to lots of diligent work by Jaimee in searching out cheap furniture, is coming together quite nicely. We've uploaded more pictures to Our Apartment album. Despite not being there for long, it's starting to feel like home. I'm also getting into a groove at work (starting week three!), although I can't say I've contributed too much to the team just yet. But, so far I like the work and my co-workers, and I've already been paid, which of course is the real reason I got the job in the first place.

Our New Home

We just spent most of the weekend moving into our new apartment! We mentioned in our last post that we'd rented a really cute attic apartment in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. Well, this weekend we moved in. The stuff we'd moved from Seattle we'd been storing at Jaimee's dad's house, so on Saturday we borrowed two pick-up trucks and we were able to transport it all from his garage into our little attic house in two trips. We also got some help from Jaimee's dad and step-mom. (Thanks!) Today we began the process of unpacking and organizing. It's a long and narrow space, with five skylights and lots of angled spaces. We'll post more pictures when it's all nice and organized, but here are a few shots of the inside:

We're super excited to have a place of our own again. I think we'll also enjoy getting to know Roslindale. It's a very quaint neighborhood with lots of large old homes, most of which are split into multi-family units like ours. And so far our neighbors are very friendly. While moving in a few of our neighbors walked by on their way to the farmer's market (another great plus!) and stopped to welcome us and say hello.

Also this week, I completed the first week at my new job. It went pretty well; we stayed at my sister's condo in Jamaica Plain while they were away on vacation and I was able to ride my bike to work three of the days and I loved the commute. From Roslindale, the bike ride will be a little longer but I think I will still be able to ride my bike often, at least while the weather holds out. I met some people at my office who bike commute all year around, so I'll probably be talking to them for pointers about cold-weather riding. As for the job itself, I think I'll like it. I'm part of a software team of about 10 other developers and in my first week I already got a few assignments so I'm helping out right away (or at least will be - I need to complete the tasks this week).

In addition to moving and starting a new job, we're still working on our wedding plans for next year. And for the purpose of scouting out a cake (or as I like to say, cakes, plural) we went to the New England Dessert Expo at Copley Place in downtown Boston. We bought our tickets through Groupon (an on-line deal-a-day website), and based on how many people were at the show, it appears that we weren't the only ones to take advantage of Groupon's half-price deal. The place was packed! In fact, way, way overpacked. (For a blog post that shows that writers can spin any experience into something positive, take a look at this post, but you'll notice from the comments that we weren't the only ones to complain about the crowds.) Here's a picture I took while trying to navigate through the exhibits.

Jaimee e-mailed Groupon complaining about our experience, and they quickly refunded our money AND gave us a $5 credit toward our next "deal of the day". And since we actually did get to see the exhibits and sample some yummy desserts (although I'm not sure if we found our cake baker yet) I'd say it worked out in the end.

Back to Seattle

We just got back from a wonderful, albeit short trip to Seattle. It completed a full circle for us, returning to where we left last August. We stayed with our friends Greg and Laura, the same people who we stayed with our final two weeks in Seattle. It was a whirlwind tour, similar to the type of visit we used to do when visiting the East Coast; we visited many, but not all, of our friends spending a few hours with each group. We also went to two weddings, one of which was south of Portland, Oregon (about a four hour drive each way). In between the weddings and visiting we found time to go to many of our favorite Seattle places, including several yummy meals.

The trip started out on a good note leaving Boston when, on account of hurricane Earl, flights were rearranged. We originally had a flight to Seattle connecting through Houston, but instead they "bumped" us to a direct flight! This got us into Seattle two hours earlier than planned. However, because we'd prepaid for our rental car we couldn't pick it up early unless we paid for an extra day (which, according the helpful rental agent would be three times our online daily rate, plus taxes of course). We decided to wait. Then they "upgraded" us from a compact car to a Ford Flex! It's a nice car, but it seats seven and doesn't get the greatest gas mileage. We complained and tried to get a compact car like we'd requested, but in the end were saddled with the Flex. (It was actually very comfortable but ended up getting 20 mpg; it cost over $50 to fill up the tank!)

Then more travel-related snafus occurred with the first wedding we went to. We had to drive to Hillsboro, Oregon for the wedding on Saturday, but when we showed up at the wedding location it was empty with no cars or anybody around. We didn't have the invitation with us, nor did we have Irene's phone number so we had no idea what was going on. Eventually as we were walking around someone came up to us and asked if we were there for Irene and Chandler's wedding. We said we were, and he said the wedding had moved to a new location about 45 minutes away! Apparently she'd e-mailed/messaged me somehow but I never got the message. Anyway, we found the new place, but missed the wedding. We did enjoy the reception (along with the open bar) and excellent cake.

From Back to Seattle

Then the next day it was back to Seattle to meet some friends for breakfast. This began the baby tour part of our visit, where we got to meet all the new babies from our many friends who had babies while we were gone on our trip. We met up with Lynn and her son Theo and Sadie and her son Angus (who was born February of 2009 so we'd met him before). Here's everyone in front of the big Lenin statue in Fremont:

From Back to Seattle

We then had a nice barbeque dinner at Greg and Laura's house where we met more babies: Jeff and Rae's daughter Addy and Brendan and Sara Ann's son Jasper (who we'd met before in Boston). On Monday we went to our second wedding down in Gig Harbor, followed by the reception in Tacoma. It was a beautiful morning ceremony and yummy brunch reception. Here are Kate and Kyle walking off into wedding bliss after brunch:

From Back to Seattle

The rest of our visit consisted of seeing more friends - Lane via a quick visit to his house, Chris and Cass and their daughter Caroline at lunch at a Thai restaurant, Greg and Erin and Betty at Elliot Bay Brewery in Burien, Corey at Bauhaus Coffee and Andy, Kendrah and their son Charlie along with Goldin and Kiyoshi at Agua Verde for dinner. But despite all this running around, in honor of our trip we found time to play a game of Scrabble over mochas as the glorious Caffe Fiore in Ballard, and in honor of many a past Seattle Sunday, we had Bloody Mary's at King's Hardware in Ballard.

From Back to Seattle

I'll close this post with a few thoughts about what it was like returning to Seattle. I thought returning might make me miss Seattle, but although I love Seattle and always will, I don't really miss living there. It's a wonderful place, but now a place I can enjoy as a tourist and visitor instead of a resident. I'm not quite to the point where Massachusetts is my "home" but it's getting closer. (Does this mean I'm "homeless"? Maybe...) As I've said before, I think moving to a new location after our big trip has helped psychologically in that many things in our life are new and different, which eases the inevitable letdown of returning from our trip. Jaimee and I are both starting new jobs (more on that to come), we'll be moving into a new apartment (at some point when we find a nice place) and meeting new friends. The Seattle phase of our lives is over, and we're on to new things. I'll always cherish my time there, and plan on visiting as often as I can. Our next visit will be November of 2011 when the North American Bridge Championships will be held in Seattle. I guess I better start practicing now so that I can put on a good showing with all my old bridge friends next year.

One final note on the pictures. This trip was an experiment to only use the camera on my new phone. I love the phone, but the camera takes some getting used to. It's not very good in low light and because you have to press so hard to the take the picture, too many photos are blurry. I think I'll continue to bring a point and shoot for our travels as it's easier to use and takes better pictures. In any event, you can look at all the pictures online.

A state highpoint, a walkabout and apartment hunting

Last Saturday we took a ride out to Rhode Island to hike the state highpoint. As readers of the blog know, hiking state highpoints is a hobby/goal of mine, and I'd been meaning to climb Jerimoth Hill ever since we got to New England. Of course, at 812 ft. I use the words hike and climb liberally. You park on the road, and walk about 1/4 mile to a small sign designating that you're at the peak. I don't think there's actually any elevation gain on the stroll. It's more strenuous than Ebright Azimuth (scroll down on the link), but it is one more highpoint off my list. (I'm up to 15 now.)

From August 2010

We did manage to find some legitimate hiking nearby though, on a group of trails built by visiting Australians in 1965. A group of Aussie navy seamen were stationed in Rhode Island waiting for delivery of a Destroyer so they "volunteered" to build a bunch of trails around some lakes. Called, appropriately, the Walkabout Trail, it was a very pleasant stroll through forest and lakes. Not sure if I'd make it a destination in and of itself, but if you're in the area where Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island meet you might check it out (how's that for a glowing review?).

From August 2010

We also checked out Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, MA, just outside the Boston city limits. It's a great park, that includes a ski area and over 125 miles of hiking and biking trails. We chose to hike it on a day where the temperatures got up into the high 90s and we were sweating within minutes of starting the hike. The views, however, made it worth it.

From August 2010

We have also been spending a lot of time looking for apartments around Boston, which has been somewhat frustrating, as the prices are high and the quality is low. We found one that we actually really loved, but by the time we called back someone else had taken it. I guess we'll have to be more aggressive next time, although the people who took it did look at it before us, so it's not clear that we could have gotten it even if we'd asked right away. It is a shame though because of the dozen or so places we've looked at, it's the only one I could see myself living in. The rest seemed merely tolerable (and most actually not even that) which isn't exactly what I was looking for in a place to live. Especially one where we'd be paying 50% more than what we were paying Seattle. I know we'll find a place eventually, and probably in the next week or so more listing will open up. The beginning of September is a tough time to look for apartments around Boston as open units get snatched up quickly by the myriads of college students in the area. But, if any readers of this blog know of any good apartments in the Boston area, definitely contact us!

One year ago today...

We left Seattle exactly one year ago today. It feels like such a long time ago when we headed out of Seattle with only a rough itinerary of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. Without a real end date to our trip, it's hard to know when it's over. Did it end when we arrived back in the US? Or will it end when we finally get another apartment? Or when we get jobs?

For the past two months since we've been back in the US, we've continued to travel around and do the things that we love, including this weekend going to Cape Cod for the weekend and catching up with our friends Karisa and Norman who we'd visited in Austin, Texas last Fall. Karisa grew up on the Cape and together with Norman are back visiting so we came down to hang out. Today Jaimee and I rode our bikes on the Cape Cod Rails to Trails for 25 miles and had a relaxing dinner, not a whole lot unlike a day we would have spent on our trip.

Eventually, we'll both be getting jobs again and settling into an apartment somewhere around Boston, but for now we're still enjoying our adventures. And I hope to get back on the Long Trail again later this week to continue my quest to hike all of it.

No new photos for the blog from this weekend. I suppose that's one indication that our "trip" is winding down. We're certainly not taking as many pictures in our day to day activities as we did previously. But we uploaded thousands already so feel free to peruse the albums.

Multiple Fourth of July Celebrations

One of the advantages of being in New England for the 4th of July is the number of different celebrations. Each town it seems has its own party, often on different dates in order to not collide with each other. We already mentioned last week's 4th of July parade in Guilford, but this past weekend we followed that up with celebrations in Somerville, Massachusetts and Catskill, New York.

Somerville, the town right next to Boston where we're staying for the month of July had their Annual 4th of July Fireworks on July 1st. There was music by several bands, including a performance by the US Navy Band. The fireworks were quite impressive, lasting for over 30 minutes and we were very close so we could see them launch from the ground before exploding up in the air. Our apartment is really close to Jaimee's sister Janelle's apartment so we just walked over to her place and watched the fireworks together.

From July 2010

From July 2010

From Boston we drove over to Catskill, New York to visit my Aunt and Uncle Lisa and Dick. They were hosting their own celebration, the 7th annual summer party to benefit the Thomas Cole Historic Site. This was held at my Aunt's house right on the Hudson River. The party was amazing. There were 350 guests, two huge tents, a live band and an amazing fireworks display, launched from the edge of my Aunt's property by the river. We felt honored to help my Aunt and Uncle put on this fundraiser and had a blast (no pun intended) mingling with art lovers and others from the Catskill (and New York City) community. We also were blessed with incredible weather (hot, but since the party was in the evening, the weather was cool enough that the temperature was just perfect). Here's a picture of the festive tent, set up for the 350 guests:

From July 2010

Then we topped off our 4th of July celebrations last night by having a wonderful dinner with Jaimee's dad and step-mom in Shrewsbury. We love being close to them and being able to just drop by for dinner and a visit. I even picked up golf clubs for the first time in several years and went to the driving range with Jaimee's dad. (I hit a few good balls, although I definitely need more practice before I'm anywhere close to his level of play).

All in all, we're certainly getting right into the swing of things (again, no pun intended) living in New England, albeit we're still in travel mode as we're in a new location almost every night and aren't working (although I do have a few job leads). It's funny how easily we've adapted to not being on our trip any more. I think moving to a "new" city has helped our transition. I've been reading with interest the blog posts of our friends Gillian and Jason who we met in Thailand (and then met up with later in Laos) who recently returned home from their trip around the world, as it shows the many different emotions that surround the completion of a big trip. (Their friends, also returning from an around-the-world trip a few months ago wrote a very touching blog post illustrating the emotional roller coaster that is returning from a big trip). Everyone reacts differently and I think us not returning to the same city and the same jobs has helped us acclimate to living in the USA again. I don't mean to over-dramatize coming home, but for us, being with family and friends has really helped us not miss the road too much (although I think I could very easily just jump back on a bus or train and go visit new places tomorrow).

Back in the USA

We're back! It seems natural to write home after that phrase but I capped it at "We're back" because it doesn't feel like home yet. Mostly of course this is because we left Seattle and have now arrived in Boston. One of the purposes of our trip was to incorporate our around-the-world adventures into our move from Seattle to Boston. But given that we don't know exactly where we're going to live and don't have jobs yet, it certainly doesn't feel like home. Even though the customs agent at Logan International Airport said, "Welcome Home" to us, I still feel like a visitor.

From Iceland

While waiting for Jaimee's family to come pick us up at the airport, I even joked with Jaimee that maybe we should have tried to get to Shrewsbury (where Jaimee's dad and step-mother live) by public transport. We could have added Boston to the list of cities we visited around the world. But, I'm glad her family picked us up. We went straight to a Mexican restaurant for burritos and margaritas, two food items that we continually craved while on our trip. It was a wonderful welcome back into the US.

I have a feeling it will be quite an adjustment period before I think of this area as home. Yes, I was born in Maine, grew up in Vermont, and therefore have a strong emotional connection to New England, but I lived in Seattle for the last 14 years and Boston is very different from Maine and Vermont (and Seattle), to say the least. But this will be good. It's a way of extending our trip in a way, and although it won't be as exotic as our previous locations, I plan on continuing this blog, using it to talk about some of the places we visit while we transition to a more "normal" life. For example, we already have plans for trips to visit Martha's Vineyard next week, Catskill (where we visited last fall) over July 4th weekend and Nantucket at the end of July. Additionally, we are subletting our friend's apartment in Somerville (a neighborhood of Boston) for the month of July, so we'll get a chance to see if Boston living is for us. In general, my plan is to live in the moment, enjoy the memories of our trip and not jump right back into a typical hectic American's life right away.

A few notes about Iceland to finish off where we left it the last time: We found the hot river area of Hveragerdi at it was amazing. It was about an hour hike through incredible terrain to an area where a glacial river runs into steaming water creating a perfect temperature for sitting and soaking. Even though the weather turned cold and rainy we soaked in the river and even enjoyed a natural waterfall massage.

From Iceland

Also, the Blue Lagoon is amazing! We spent the morning there between dropping off our rental car and catching our flight to Boston. It's an eerie area where the hot springs mix with minerals and silica creating a blue-milky colored water that felt so nice to relax in. It was a perfect ending to a perfect ending destination.

Seattle to the Enchantments

We are now officially on the road! We left Seattle on Saturday August 15 around 9:30AM. We said good-bye to our wonderful friends Greg & Laura, who had so graciously let us stay with them for the past two weeks, and after doing a few last-minute errands, we headed out for three days of backpacking in the Enchantments, near Leavenworth, WA.

Over the last two weeks we'd been saying our last good-byes to our favorite Seattle people and places. I have lived in Seattle since 1995 and will always love it.

We drove from Seattle to the Snow Lake trail head for our trip to the Enchantments. For those not familiar with this area, it's a Wilderness Area in central Washington encompassing several glacier lakes. We used upper Snow Lake as a base camp and spent two nights there with a day hike on the second day to Aasgard Pass. Here is a brief map of the area, showing the "zones" and rough geography of the area.

The hike to Snow Lake was about 7 miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain, and the day hike to Aasgard Pass was roughly another 8 or 9 miles (one-way!) with 3,400 feet of elevation gain. It was a very tiring few days, but the scenery was amazing, including lots of mountain goats. I won't go so far as to say it's the most beautiful hiking in Washington, but it probably does rank right up there.

Here's slideshow of the trip. (Although I will say these pictures do not do the place justice. See pictures from my friends Kyle and Daniel who did the whole loop last year).


Now we are resting up from our hike at Jaimee's Aunt and Uncle (and Mom now too)'s house in Kamiah, ID. On tap for this week is floating down the river, and getting ready for our future WWOOFing by helping out on the "farm" around here. Jaimee's Aunt has 34 chickens and a huge garden.

School-less-ness

All of my teacher friends are going back to work soon. They've been talking about it for a while now and I've been pretty happy about my new positions as "unemployed" and "traveler." We talk about the students, the schedules, the meetings. I've been totally content to reminisce and even wonder about the year to come with them. I am thrilled about my plans for the coming year. I am especially excited about the adventure that I'm about to begin with Asa!

And, until today, I've managed to stay out of the stores that remind me of the season.


One of my favorite times of year is Back To School Time. I've even been known to send greeting cards in celebration of this season. I've always felt excited about the classes I'll be taking (high school, college, and grad school) and the classes I'll be receiving (new students, older students, and support staff). I plan my outfit for Fall Picture Day. I even get myself so worked up that I have at least one Back To School Dream/Nightmare each August.


Today I ran into the department store to buy some yarn to finish a crocheting project for a friend that is having a baby. Right there at the entrance was a giant Back To School display of all of items that make the season so much fun. New markers, pens, book bags, glue sticks, notebooks, locks for lockers, lunch boxes...they were all there, right by the door. It totally shocked me. All of that stuff was there, and I didn't need any of it! I instantly got a bit sad and mushy. I walked up and down the rows of school materials, just seeing what was available for students and their teachers this year. It was this same shock in 1999 that prompted me to go to grad school. I loved Back to School and I still do.

I ended up buying a 50 cent notebook for my purse. I'll need it during our trip and it fits in the little sock monkey notebook jacket that I already have.

I'll be shopping for Back To School next Fall. Knowing that I have this wonderful trip to adventure through will help me wait. But, I do want to wish good luck to all of you Back To School shoppers!

Bon Voyage Party

We just got back from a wonderful party at Sadie, Steven and Angus's house in West Seattle. It was great to see all our friends (although we missed those that couldn't make it of course) and hear all the well wishes for our upcoming trip. We will miss all the friends we've made through the years in Seattle and we hope that we can all stay connected via this blog and through other virtual means. So, please leave comments and follow along with us on our adventure!

Here's a slideshow of pictures that Sadie took during the party:

Ax Happy Hour

Following up on the previous post, we went to Happy Hour with some some friends and came back to a sad sight. That totem pole in the photo below is our former tree.

As we got closer we saw that all of the downed limbs are now on the ground. There's one pile in front of my car and then too huge piles behind my car. Apparently my landlady didn't want to pay for the "Arborist" to remove them as that is "too expensive." You notice that I wrote Arborist in quotes...that is because he fell out of the tree. And then left. With all of the limbs in front of our apartment. Until Monday.
I moved a bunch of the limbs by pushing and jamming them so that we could walk in and out of apartment. The whole building is up in arms. Chung, the landlady says she will hack up the limbs and trunk and put them in the yard waste. For our whole tree. It is going to take years, and this from a woman who can't remove the two beater cars dumped in the driveways or the quarters from the laundry machines before they jam up majorly. I was stressed about packing and moving out of this place before, but this whole episode has only gotten me more excited for our departure and adventure (and a little tempted to not leave the apartment in "move in condition," what ever that might mean to our crazy landlady)!

There Goes The Neighborhood!

I arrived home today from a 7 hour drive from Idaho to visit my mom at her new home. It was a long ride, but uneventful and sunny. I struggled through a little traffic on I-5 and then got in every red light between I-5 and our apartment (except for the Fremont Bridge one). I pulled up to the apartment just as the grungiest green pick up truck stalled out and collided with our front sidewalk strip. The driver rolled down the window and asked if I lived here. I assumed he wanted to use the phone since his truck did not seem to be in working order, but it's sadder than that. He told me that he was going to be sawing the giant pine tree down that sits in front of our apartment. It's an old tree, probably one of the oldest in the neighborhood. It is the tallest tree that can be seen from our walk way. It is a favorite for local cats and squirrels and it hides our ugly apartment building.

Here's a photo of the tree just as the guy started to chop limbs off the tree.

I'm sad that the tree is coming down. Mollie, our upstairs neighbor fought Chung, our deadbeat landlady to keep this tree for the local animals for years. Mollie died in May and now her apartment and ours are up for rent. I guess Chung is taking this opportunity to do some work around here.

Here's the link for google street view. Our tree is right there, forever, or until Google cruises down the street again with its camera crew.


View Larger Map

Take that Chung!

Garage Sale

We had a garage sale last Saturday, and I'd call it a success. We piled all our stuff for sale in our living room before we moved it outside:

Here's Jaimee setting it up on our sidewalk lawn strip:

Here's a shot of our books for sale:

Most of our larger items actually sold. These included a dresser, a book case, a sewing machine, bike rack, two printers and some coolers. We also sold our old sleeping bags and some camping gear (including a backpack I'd had since 1992!). We also sold a lot of books and our three boxes of CDs were a big hit with shoppers. It felt good to get rid of stuff and we made over $250. We're still trying to get rid of the TV and stand (dealing with craigslist people is driving me kind of crazy) and we also need to sell Jaimee's 2004 Honda Civic (any buyers?)

Everything that didn't sell that day fit into one wagon load to Goodwill. Most of the rest of the stuff in our apartment is spoken for; we already have buyers (takers) for our bed, bedside table and lamps and the rest of our bookcases. We're holding on to our couch for now, but eventually we'll need to get rid of that too, although I think we'll probably just give it away for free. In the end we should only be shipping about a dozen boxes or so.

Selling Stuff

I think it's finally starting to sink in that we're really moving. Last week we sold our coffee table and today we sold our kitchen table and chairs. This now leaves us with nothing to eat on! So, tonight we had a picnic in our living room (We had a delicious Greek salad.)

Tomorrow someone is coming to buy the TV (and stand) behind us. The fact that we're leaving in about a month is both daunting and exciting. We've also begun packing up our (I guess mostly my) books so that our bookcases are now empty: