Tuesday, September 11, 2007

the road trip!

so, i thought i'd catch everyone up and at least post about the road trip from portland to providence.

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we packed up the trailer left portland on friday the 17th after having lunch with some friends and stopping at our favorite coffee shop in town: CREMA.
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then we drove down to Eugene to meet up with Jon's mom and brother and jon's best friend from high school (isaac) and his (isaac's) wife for dinner at McMenamin's. mmmmm one last dungeon burger with a bocca patty and a wheat beer with lemon . . . aahhh mcmenamin's, i will miss you.
jon and isaac in front of a poster signed by conor oburst hanging on the wall at mcmenamin's:
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we stopped and saw jon's grandma for a bit and crashed at jon's mom's house for the night (moving is exhausting!)

in the morning, we had breakfast and said goodbye and headed to grants pass to spend some time with my family. one of my cousin's got married and we had a brunch the next morning to celebrate my grandpa's birthday. it was a blast! i love my family!
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stopped at dutch bros one last time with my sister and her husband and then got on the road on our way to nevada . . .
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goodbye southern oregon:
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it turned out that our road led directly through kalamath falls where jon's aunt and uncle lived, so we stopped in and said hello. they showed us their garden and gave us some soup and hurried us on our way saying that most gas stations closed for the night soon and if we wanted to make it through the night we had to get to lakeview before 10pm.

here is jon rejoicing because we drove in JUST as the gas station attendant was closing up and he let us get gas before shutting everything down (actually i think he'd turned things off already and turned them back on for us!):
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so, that was sunday night . . . we drove and slept and drove and filled up the gas tank until wednesday morning.
here are some highlights.

entering Utah
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jon trying to keep the sun off:
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"art" in the salt flats so you don't go crazy while driving through:
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entertaining ourselves at a rest stop
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in the night we would pull over at a rest stop for a few hours when we just couldn't stay awake any more (thanks michelle for the mad libs! that helped! also, i would read to jon from "the lord of the rings" to keep him awake until i would start feeling a bit carsick). in the mornings jon would make a super secret probably not allowed fire in our camping stove and brew us up some trader joe's coffee (thanks nate and deb for the coffee you sent!) and we would head out again
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on the 21st it was our 3 year wedding anniversary, so to celebrate we went to . . . . perkin's in kearny nebraska!!! most romantic and healthy thing ever (sarcasm noted)
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but it was nice to eat a real meal instead of traveling food.

for example, jon broke down and got hisself some dunkin donuts and coffee
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(dunkin donuts is HUGE out here!)

as we were driving in to tennessee, our odometer went over 100,000 miles on the subaru!!!
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we have successfully doubled the mileage on our 11 year old car in the 3 1/2 years that we have owned her. we really need to find a more environmentally friendly way to travel. or we need to have more friends who are willing to drive on our adventures! :)

wednesday morning around 11 or so we drove in to tennessee where jon's dad lives. i immediately showered and crashed for a few hours. i was sooooo tired. it was very hot and muggy, but joe had a great set up with fans and an air conditioner so we were comfortable. we stayed the night with jon's dad, he cooked for us and took us fishing and we met some of his friends. my favorite was going to tellico grains, a bakery in a nearby town that had a very "portland" feel. it's nice to find an outpost of civilization when you travel, even if they do give you your americanos in styrofoam cups.

father and son fishing
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sunset over the smokey mountains
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joe's garden:
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jon and joe:
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telico grains
inside:
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outside:
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we left tennessee on thursday morning, stopping at telico grains for sandwiches and some yummy herbed bread with olives to go. we drove up through virginia (where amy tempted us with a pool and NW beer, but we didn't give in [sob] and kept on driving). virginia was soooo hot and muggy that it seeped through the windows and the air conditioning didn't even help. so we used our west coast skills and turned jon into a cowboy (thanks michelle for the scarf! we got it wet and kept ourselves cool!)
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i feel alseep somewhere in new jersey and woke up in new york. ack! these drivers are SCARY! we crossed the toll bridge and survived the chaos
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within 3 hours we were entering rhode island
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we can see these smoke stacks from our bedroom window. what a view . . .
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the sign for wickenden st - where we live!
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i was the one driving when we arrived in providence. i successfully maneuvered the car and trailer into our tiny parking lot
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and then i crashed on our new roommates futon
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so, thanks to our family and friends for their encouragement and love, support and help. we couldn't have made it here without you - especially those of you who bought stuff from us! we had just enough cash to make it here and buy some furniture for our room.

thanks especially to those who made us cds to keep us entertained and to michelle and the girls for the "hobo bag" of goodies they gave us. last but not least, thanks to arwen for her many phone calls and texts that kept my spirits up as i got further and further from the people and places i loved.

so far, things have been good . . . i'll write again soon with pictures of our new place and to tell about some of the adventures we've had since being here.

we love you! and all of you who have had babies since we've left (seriously, there have been a lot of you) kiss those babies for us!

love,
tabitha and jon

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