Tuesday, August 30, 2011

No more moving. For at least six months.

To my children: Are y'all happy now? Everyone settled in the perfect apartments? Love your jobs? Yes?

Good. Because your dad and I are NOT moving anyone for awhile.

What a busy weekend. Friday, John and I and Daughter #1 and her boyfriend loaded up all of her STUFF for the final stages of her move to California. The road trip started in Seattle early Saturday morning and ended up in San Francisco late Saturday night.

Yes, this was a crazy idea, but.....it worked. Probably because I invoked good travel vibes by wearing THE NECKLACE. (Shut up, Terese.)


After packing up the vehicles, we took a quick tour of Daughter #2's workplace high atop a downtown Seattle skyscraper. Here's pics from her workspace.


Lake Union in the distance.


Mount Rainier.


Puget Sound.

Yes. Pics all taken from her firm's windows. Yikes. I don't think that I would get any work done if I had an office there. I'd spend all my time gawking out the windows.

We rolled into San Fran later that evening, and began unloading stuff into Daughter #1's new apartment on Sunday morning.


Her windows face this lagoon off of the San Francisco bay. I took this pic from her patio.


Some...or should I say....lots and lots of assembly required.

As every mom knows, it's phenomenally hard to leave your kid in a new place. And although it could be worse, my kids are still scattered from one end of the West Coast to the other. Sniff.....sob.....snerk..... But even though they're far away, I feel so much better about it all when they choose to live in beautiful places.

I left smiling.

By Sunday night, John and I began the trek home but stopped for one night near Shasta Lake. Ahhh. I really want to go back to that area and explore when we have time. I was so zonked after all the hubbub that I couldn't muster up the energy to take pictures. Now that's a real indiction of my energy levels.

On Monday, it was back on the road again. Our final detour of the day was in a small town about two hours south of Portland. The conversation went something like this:

Julia: Are you hungry, honey? We could stop for supper and then be home in no time. Driving driving driving driving...

John: Good idea. What do you want?

I have no clue. Just pick something. Anything. Find it on the navigation thingie and just tell me when to take the exit.

Beep....scroll scroll scroll.....click click click.....How about a BBQ place?

Sounds great. Set it as a destination on Garmin and let's roll.

Drive drive drive drive drive......

We should have been there by now. What?! Garmin says ARRIVING AT DESTINATION? Good grief. There's no restaurant in sight. Restaurant? Do YOU see a restaurant?!?

Grumble grumble grumble grumble.

Hey! There's a covered bridge! Oooohhh. Aaaahhhh. Wait a MINUTE. The sign said that it's a centennial bridge, but it also says that it was constructed in the 1990's. Hm. Not old - but gorgeous.


The bridge has a restaurant named after it, let's eat there.

Suspicious silence.

Oh, c'mon. I don't trust Garmin to find us another restaurant. Let's give it a shot.

Good choice: Local, fresh, pan-fried oysters, crisp warm baguettes, spring greens salad with fresh raspberry vinaigrette, perfectly steamed asparagus spears, and followed by a chocolate ice cream sundae topped with candied almond slivers enjoyed with steaming coffees. The bonus? Early bird special prices at eleven dollars a meal. Unbelievable.


No other food pics. I gobbled it up all too quickly.


Gorgeous cool evening. Do I HAVE to get back in the car?

Drive drive drive drive drive drive....

Fabulous to be home. If there's not a new post tomorrow, know that I would still be drooling and snoring into my pillow.

2 comments:

Amy Junod said...

Yea navigation thingy! We use the Australian voice on ours...Karen. She never steers us wrong. "Your destin-A-tion is on the RITE."

I hope that you take it easy. Sjogrens doesn't like it when it's ignored.

Pretty pics as always!

ShEiLa said...

I agree with the whole moving sentiment... I hate moving.

Love where you were though... awesome photos.

The garmin did the exact same thing to us. On the Oregon side of the Columbia... we ended up on the Washington side of the Columbia and 'the place' to eat was never seen when it said... 'Arriving at destination'! Oh well. WE went home and ate since we were so discouraged.

ToOdLeS.

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