Monday, December 26, 2011

The Drive Back

As you all know by now, the East Coast was not for us. I guess you never know until you try something like that, and it was definitely a learning experience, but Justin and I are so happy to be living in Seattle again. We had so many challenges and obstacles living in Philadelphia. We never found community or felt like it could be home, albeit as temporary as it was supposed to be. It really made us evaluate what we loved and appreciated while living in Washington, and how much we took that for granted. It was nice to be closer to my family (we got to see them 4 times in 1 year, a record!), and I know it wasn't easy for my mom to say goodbye to me again, but we made the choice to "come home" to Washington. We know how blessed we were to have made that move one time, and how much more to be able to do it two times (financially). We thank God for the opportunities we had and feel especially fortunate that we could come home. We will continue to trust him in all we do.

The morning of the move started out a little rough. Like 10 minutes after getting the truck, I took a corner too short and crashed the side of the trailer into a wall, bent the tire rim and then had to wait a total of about 4 hours for it to be repaired. Justin and his dad took the moving truck to the apartment and I waited at the storage unit for the repair guy. It was already like 80 degrees and humid by 8:30 in the morning (get us out of here before another hot and humid summer). When the repair guy arrived, he didn't have a new rim, despite the fact that I told them that was what was broken. So he had to go back to the garage, which was like 45 minutes away. Needless to say, not the start we were looking for. I felt terrible for crashing the trailer and delaying the start of the trip, but did feel a little better when I heard I was the first of 4 trailer accident calls that garage had that day. Guess a lot of people underestimate those turns. The guys had the truck loaded before the trailer was ready so they came to relieve me of my waiting duties so I could go back to the apartment and clean. When all was said and done, we got on the road 1-2 hours later than originally planned. We had a few more obstacles along the way, but it was worth it to get back to the Pac NW.

We drove through the Badlands National Park on our way through South Dakota. Such beautiful landscape. And we might have seen a herd of bison, but they were too far away to know for sure.


Our National Park Travel Dog



We stopped at Wall Drug again and I can't pass up a photo op with a buffalo. Go Milligan Buffs!


Gas stop in Montana. Almost home!

We stayed in Spokane our last night on the road. My father in law suggested we leave in the middle of the night to ensure we would have time to unload the truck, return the rental and things like that. I was a little skeptical at first, but was so happy that is what we did and were home and unpacking everything by mid afternoon. And what a pleasant surprise to get to our condo and be welcomed by a card, some balloons, cupcake treats for us and a toy for Scout. Thanks Matt, Lauren and Gwen.

No comments:

Post a Comment