The Trip, The House, The Area

Well hello. It's been over a month since my last obtuse post and since then I've come a long way. Literally. Last Thursday we left Washington state drove nearly 3000 miles across the US to Augusta, Georgia. We traveled through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah,Wyoming, Nebraska,  a little Illinois,  a little Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and finally arrived in Georgia Yesterday afternoon. Henry was unbelievably amazing for the entire trip. Like clock work he got fussy and exclaimed he wanted out of the car within 30 minutes of our planned stop for the night. He played, watched movies, got excited at every train that we passed, (which were many) and snacked until we arrived. He deserves a medal.

I, however, was not such a happy traveler. At least not for the first day. That morning we woke up and headed out at 4:30am. After saying a very groggy goodbye to my family we headed out and within an hour I was having a full blown panic attack. It was painful. All I could think about was the trip ahead, the family behind us and the strangeness that comes with moving to a new place without seeing it first. These thoughts combined with a large cup of coffee on an empty stomach and not much to do other than sit in my seat and stare forward caused the anxiety to continue for nearly three hours, until I fell asleep. When I woke up the panic was gone but replaced by horrible car sickness. That lasted the rest of the day.

Thankfully we reached Ogden Utah at a decent hour, got a hotel fast and went to sleep. The next day started out later than the first but with good time. We were all in good spirits, I was feeling fine and when more than half the day was over I took over driving. I had a hard time immediately. We had just eaten a large and satisfying meal at Sonic and I was lethargic and the long roads of nothing were making me sleepy. But then Andrew got a phone call from the hotel we stayed at the night before. The manager was claiming that our cat clawed at the carpet in the middle of the living room and they were going to charge us $200 for the damage. When Andrew told them that,

#1 OUR CAT DOESNT HAVE CLAWS
#2  he was in a kennel the entire time
# 3 he was not located in the center of the living room

well, the woman told him that she was going to regroup and call him back. 10 minutes later she calls back saying the pulls in the carpet were in another location. Andrew again, said our cat does have claws, was in his kennel the whole time and also added that he was sedated the whole night as well and that he does not approve any charges to his card. She said she would email us pictures of the damage and discuss it further but she never did. If they end up charging us we are filing it as fraudulent and I will be writing many letters and bad reviews.LOL!

The irritating call made me so mad that combined with Sonic's super yummy ice, I was wide awake and ready for hotel number two which was nicer, less expensive and had an amazing breakfast. I was sad that we got in too late to eat at the Texas Road House though.

 Day three started out great thanks to our stay at the second hotel and even though at times it felt like we were driving in place due to the complete lack of change in the scenery, we blew through Nebraska and the little bit of Illinois and Kentucky and right through Missiouri. St. Louis was a very run down city and yet it was still so beautiful. I wish we could have spent more time there but soon were making our way through Tennessee and by 9pm on day three were in our hotel in Murfreesboro, TN. It was a harder nights sleep mostly because I think were were all so excited to get into Augusta the next day.

By 1:15pm we arrived at our new apartment complex. We checked in, signed the lease, got our keys, had some issues with our locks, then more issues with our keys and locks and finally got the right keys and locks. I was thankful to see that the apartment was updated, clean and a good size. Our bedrooms here are bigger than the ones at our house in Monterey and the walk in closets are going to allow me to have a small craft desk inside of our closet. We are turning Henry's closet into a secret space with lights and his DVD player, for him to play in.The living and dining rooms are good sizes as are the bathrooms. The kitchen is micro tiny but since there is a laundry room next to it with pantry space I'm more than pleased. We also had more than enough good spaces to choose to put our cats litter box which is always something I have to worry about a little when we go to a new place.

Our first night in the new place was good. Henry slept alone in his room for almost 15 hours. That kids was TIRED! We are sleeping on an air mattress that Andrew borrowed from a friend who is already settled in. We thought our stuff wasn't going to arrive until February 6th but I just got a call saying it could come between the 26th of this month and the 1st of February so I'm excited. We have almost everything we need here to live. We went grocery shopping last night and today we are going to get some cheapo pans and knives, etc to manage until everything gets delivered.

I'm excited to get to know the area and you know I've already enquired as to where the best BBQ is! Also I need to find the best sushi in town so I've been reading lots of reviews and found a place to try. The thing about BBQ and sushi is that Northerners can come to the south and eat at a BBQ chain with mediocre BBQ and think it's amazing because they dont' know any better, and so I'm a little concerned that Southerners might be eating sushi here and thinking it's awesome and that it will end up being disappointing to me. I guess we will find out. In other food related news. There is a Sonic a mile down the road. I've promised myself that I wont eat it unless I'm walking there and back. Then it will be like it never happen.

As far as recreational activities go, well, I've been looking into that as well. I found several parks, and even a zipline place and a bouncy house place. And I googled the local zoo which is in South Carolina just 45 minutes from us.

 We drove down the main business roads yesterday and I have everything I'm going to need here. That being, a Joanns and a Barnes and Noble. Andrew and I are excited to drive around and see where we would like to puchase a house next year. I love thinking about the possibilities.

For today though, the plan is laundry and a little shopping for household items.