Adios Oregon... Our trip east...

So, what feels like 10 years ago we moved to Virginia. In all reality, it has only been about 3 months. I finally got my computer set up to receive the pictures from my phone so now I can actually blog (I know as least my mom will be happy!). :) Hopefully over the next few days I'll be able to get you up to speed on our life over here and where the journey has taken us thus far. It is pretty pathetic, but I have only taken about 10 pictures with our REAL camera since we've moved. Sad, I know. If you have Instagram, most of my posts will be pretty boring for awhile. :)


We had been waiting to move since June 2012 and each month it seemed to get delayed and delayed and delayed some more. Right before Thanksgiving we received a phone call letting us know that they were ready for Garrett to start work during the 2nd week of December. We headed off to Garrett's grandparent's house in Idaho a little overwhelmed with all that we had to do at home before we'd be able to actually hit the road. As it turned out (which should have been no surprise), there was a hiccup with the paperwork which left us able to spend Christmas in Oregon with family, and then head to Virginia shortly after that. In hindsight it is seems so nonchalant to say that it kept being delayed etc, but at the time it was so incredibly frustrating not ever knowing what was going on or when we were actually going to be able to find a house, pack up the rest of our stuff (I may or may not have had a few minor meltdown/complaining/tantrum incidents towards the end). Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for the extra time with family and friends, but the lack of communication majorly challenged my type-A personality. I just wanted to plan and organize something. Anything. Just to have one thing checked off the list--my very looong list.

Just like things usually go in life, it was out of my hands. We got through Christmas still unaware of when we'd actually be leaving and still without a place to move into once we actually arrived on the other side of the country. Shortly after Christmas, we got the news that we had two weeks to get things buttoned up and get on the road. Because of delays with the moving company, we had to start driving before they actually came to our old house to get all of our stuff. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of not being there to micro-manage how/where everyone was packing and organizing our stuff, or being left unable to make sure our house looked perfect for its new owners. Those two weeks were soooo busy. I can't begin to express how much gratitude and appreciation I have for my mother, my in-laws, and everyone else that helped us get our house in Oregon taken care of so that we could make it to Virginia by Garrett's start date. It was such a unique experience because we had so much time to prepare, but nearly everything that needed to be done couldn't actually be done until those last two weeks.--which may have been what turned me into a crazy lady.

Once we got everything cleaned, finished packing for our trip, we said goodbye to our sweet sweet neighbors (Virginia doesn't come close to producing the kind of neighbors we had in little ol' Monmouth. In fact, we have met one neighbor in the 3 months we've been here. -But that is fast-forwarding the story.), snapped a few last pictures in our first home (that we LOVED), and headed to Newberg to prepare to say goodbye to family (but, like I always tell my mom, it isn't goodbye. No one is dying. It is just "see you soon").

(Terrible picture on my phone)

Our first baby room.

We headed off to Newberg where our whole humongousely-mixed family got together to spend the evening and see us off. It just so happened that the Ducks played that night, so Garrett insisted we stay until the game was over. It was so great to see everyone, but it was hard to give hugs and say goodbye knowing just how great the distance would soon be between us and them. I wish I would have been better about taking pictures with everyone, but, as usual, I wasn't. My mind was definitely in another place, trying to soak up every last drop of what has been home for my whole life. Now anyone that knows me, knows I love a good adventure. It's just that in the past my adventures have been set periods of time. I loved every minute of them, but always knew I would be returning home at some point. This however, was a much more open-ended adventure. I was excited, but along with excitement came a whole wave of other emotions. At any rate (Ug. I can't believe I said that. The world's worst realtor used to always say that.), here is a picture of Hudson that last night at my mom's house.

So that Thursday night, after the stinky Duck game, we left town and headed for Pendleton, 

where we spent our first night in the camper. 

The roads were a little snowy, but we made it just fine, and believe it or not, that was the only precipitation of any kind we saw on the whole drive. Hudson slept most of the way to Pendleton, and woke up when we stopped. He was super excited to sleep in the camper. Something to understand about Hudson is that he is a sleep-challenged child. ;) He has never been able to fall asleep with us until very recently. This made falling asleep in the camper interesting. Unfortunately, the camper doesn't stay heated while you are driving, so each night when we stopped, it took a little bit for the heat to get going and everything to warm-up. Here is Hudson all snuggled up on the first night of our road trip.

Friday itinerary: Pendleton, Oregon to Evanston, Wyoming: 597.2 miles or approx. 9 hours

Hudson woke up bright and early. We whipped up some breakfast in the camper and hit the road headed to Boise, Idaho. Since Hudson got a sinus cold right before we left, I was able to give him some Benadryl in the car, which turned his 45 min car naps into at least 1.5 hours! Woohoo!

It didn't take us long to arrive to Boise. It was snowing, so we found a big parking lot to stop for lunch and let Hudson and Coal run around for  a bit. (I have some really cute videos of our trip, but they take about 2982983587 years to upload :/)

Lunch in the camper (Of course we found out after we arrived in Virginia that we were going to be reimbursed for all of our food during our drive. I may or may not have been slightly bitter about all the meals I prepared in the freezing cold camper.) :) oh well.....

After the fun in the snow was over and everyone was well exercised, we got back on the road in an effort to make good time arriving to Evanston. We packed a huge bin of toys for Hudson in the car, as well as plenty of snacks. We had a little DVD player for his Spanish immersion dvds to play, and he took full advantage of the iPad. Side note: I was seriously so proud of him the entire trip. He remained rear facing the whole drive, and only had one meltdown during our whole entire trek across the country. Pretty impressive for a 16-month-old! AND, I never had to go sit in the back and entertain him. It was lovely!

 That night, when we arrived in Evanston, it was coooooooooold. I can't find the picture but it was like -6 degrees. That might not have been so bad if were cruising into a hotel and just had to survive the walk from the truck to the hotel room. But instead, like true road-trippers, we crawled into the literally more than freezing cold camper at about 11:00 pm, after finding a very snowy parking lot to stay the night in. Hudson was quite cold, but acted as if we had fed him a 16oz Mountain Dew for dinner. He was bouncing off the walls and took a loooooong time to wind down, while the camper took a looooooong time to warm up.

Saturday itinerary: Evanston, Wyoming to Fort Collins, Colorado: 371.6 miles or approx. 5hr 33 min (and yes, when you're driving that far, the 33 minutes count) 

We managed to survive the night on about 4 hours of sleep. Hudson went to sleep late, and woke up before 6am. Originally (since he likes his own space when he sleeps), we had planned to make a little bed for Hudson in the eating area of the camper. The problem was, it was always so cold when we stopped, that we didn't want him away from us, and he was too wide awake to lay down alone knowing we were in the same "room". It was definitely a rough morning. We were wiped out exhausted. I think the only thing that really kept us motivated was knowing that we had a very short driving day ahead of us (only a little over 5 hours), and we would be welcomed into Fort Collins by the great company of the Canonico family and their comfortable and warm house.

The entire drive was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies and sunshine all the way to Virginia.

 We. were. tired. --(and wanted a shower. We couldn't use the shower or bathroom in the camper because it was full of Garrett's work clothes and other stuff that we knew we'd need before the moving truck arrived)

Garrett needed a little break driving, so we let Hudson take over the wheel for a bit.

Finally, Saturday afternoon, we arrived at the Canonico household! We were sooooo very grateful to see them and be able to stay a night in their beautiful home. We played paper dolls, legos, trains. It was wonderful to see Jack, Alice, and Charlie, and also give Hudson a chance to run around and play without having to get back in the car. Tricia made an amazing dinner, we talked for a while and then fell into bed...and slept the whole night!

Sunday itinerary: Fort Collins, Colorado to Omaha, Nebraska: 515.3 miles or 7hr 41 min

We enjoyed hot showers, a yummy breakfast, clean clothes, and good company on Sunday morning, and all too quickly it was time to get back on the road. Sunday was another big day of driving. Garrett has a Marine buddy who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. He wanted to meet us for dinner (yay for 2 nights of no camper cooking!), so our goal was to make it to Lincoln by dinnertime. Hudson happily hopped in his seat and, after hugs and thank yous to the Canonico's, off we went. 

 Doing much better after a fabulous night of sleep.

 I'm not sure if he secretly planned this, but right about when we needed to stop for lunch, we happened to stumble upon Garrett's favorite place on the planet...

 Hudson had a great time running around, eating a yummy lunch, and looking at all of the dead animals. Let me just say that Cabela's is the perfect place to hang animal heads/bodies. It is much more perfect than say, my living room. In fact, the next time Garrett kills something and wants to stare at its face for the rest of his life, I'm going to see if Cabela's would like to have it instead. I'm sure my husband would be proud to know his kill made the wall of fame at Cabela's. :) happy husband. happy wife.

Anyway, back to the story. That night we met Garrett's friend for dinner, which actually has an interesting story behind it. Since the friend knew the area, we asked him to pick a restaurant (keyword: restaurant) close to the interstate. He told us the name and gave us the address. Wanting to be prepared (and since we still had more driving to do), I called ahead to make sure we didn't need to be put on a list or make any type of reservation. The lady on the phone acted like I was a little crazy, kind of laughed, and said there was no wait, and there would be plenty of room for us when we arrived. Okaaaaay. So 30 minutes later we pulled into Culver's. Translation: Fast-food chain similar to DQ that doesn't exist on the west coast. If you know me well, you know I have very little love in my heart for fast food of any kind. However, Culver's is famous for their soft serve ice cream, and since they had M&Ms, I survived just fine. :) Below you'll find Hudson dipping his less-than-yummy dinner.  Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures from this time of our trip. Nope, not even of Garrett and his friend, whose name I can't even remember. Wow. Wife of the year right here. (I may have missed the photo opportunities because I spent the majority of my visit at Culver's chasing around a one year old that had been locked in the car all day. And since I had no plans of ever returning to Nebraska, and because we were in such a classy establishment, I let him run. and run. and run.)

So we said goodbye to said friend, and continued the trek to Omaha. Along the way, we stopped for gas. (I told Garrett I had to pump the gas all the way from Oregon to Virginia so that I would be prepared to pump my own gas once I arrived in my home.) Now what I'm about to share with you takes a whole lot of talent. It was late when we stopped for gas. And cold. I got out of the passenger's side of the truck, and somehow managed to reach my right arm over my left and put it in between the truck and the door, while using my left hand to slam the door. Below is the start of the consequence to my stupidity. It eventually turned all black, throbbed for about a week, and after a bit, the nail fell off. Not the world's worst injury, but definitely preventable....and of course, my husband didn't laugh at me at all. Not. at. all.

That night, we arrived safely in Omaha with a throbbing finger, a tired daddy, and a crazy-hyper baby.

Monday itinerary: Omaha, Nebraska to Chicago, Illinois: 471.3 miles/7hr 4min

Hudson woke up early again, so we had breakfast and started the long drive to Chicago. We were able to make plans to spend a night in with the McKenzie family (they had a son who was in the Marines with Garrett). They are the sweetest family ever, and I 'm so sad we didn't get any pictures with them. They played and played and played with Hudson. We ate a great dinner, got to take hot showers, and get a great night of sleep. This was our second time visiting the McKenzie's and I think they will always have a special place in my heart. Maybe we'll get to see them more often now that we live closer. 

Elmhurst. A suburb of Chicago.

Tuesday itinerary: Elmhurst, Illinois to Dumfries, Virginia: 739 miles/11hr 11min

*We were originally planning to stop in Pittsburgh (which would have shaved 4 hours off of our drive time), but since we were making such great time, after Hudson fell asleep for the night in the car seat, we decided to just push on through to the end. This last day we went through several states and it was a lot of fun to see everything.

Indiana

 *Ironically, all the roads with the tolls were crappier than the road we didn't pay tolls on. Interesting...

Tuesday was a long day of driving, but thankfully it was still pleasant and enjoyable. At just about midnight on the dot, we arrived safely at our new temporary home...

Monmouth, Oregon to Dumfries, Virginia: 2,888 miles or 43 hours