We Made It

4 days of travel.  4 time zones.  8 states.  Countless bathroom breaks, granola bars and movies but we made it.

A work relocation brought this Iowa family to Oregon and we are settling into life on the West Coast.

It's not even been a week, but a few early observations about our new home:

-People are super friendly.  Most clerks will chat you up as they check you out.

-People are also weather wimps.  The last few days it's been "freezing, bitterly cold"... yeah, the highs have been in the 40s.  Midwesterns don't use the term "bitter" until it's at least 20 below zero.

-Getting gas sucks.  You'd think having someone else fill your tank while you sit idle in the car sounds great but in reality, it is the longest, most aggravating excursion possible.

-It is insanely beautiful here.  Getting groceries, oh, there's Mt. Hood.  Playing at the park, oh, Mt. St. Helens over there.  Majestic is the only word I can think of and pictures don't nearly do it justice.

View from Mt. Tabor Park

-Coffee, coffee coffee.  It's everywhere and delicious.  Still trying to find my new "Java Johns"- with no success... they just don't make Marys around here but I found a fantastic drive-thru called "Dutch Bros".  The coffee is good and well priced and the employees are all super friendly and efficient.  If there is a line, one employee will be outside taking pre-orders so your drink is ready when you get to the front.

Complete with inspirational sayings

-Grocery pricing is really different than the midwest.  You can get a gallon of milk here for under $2.50 but the cheapest pack of bacon is $6!

We are renting a home here south of the city in wine country.  It's been about 10 years since we have rented so it's a little different for us but we are excited to have more freedom (aka time) to get out and explore the area instead of working on house projects all the time.  Completely unintentionally, we stumbled on a converted barn house.  It's been a dream of ours to convert a barn and we didn't have time in Decorah so it's really fun getting to live in one now.

Stars lead to driveway and garage door

The barn is at the top of a mountain- about 1000 feet above the town below.  Roads to the top are narrow and curvy- something that my straight, flat Iowa/Illinois driving is getting used to.  It also gets really foggy up here.

 Like no joke, can only see a few feet in front of the car, lose the road foggy.  But man, on a clear day it is beautiful. We can see Mt. Hood from our deck looking past the neighbor's house and get a straight view from the end of the driveway.

From the deck

From the road

Our rental has all the living space on the 2nd floor- below is garage space.  Single level living with three kids is awesome.  The house has a HUGE deck overlooking the valley.

The house even has wind and solar power!

From the deck, the door opens to an open concept living, dining and kitchen.  It is so bright and airy with a loft ceiling and huge windows.  From there, a long hallway leads to three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a million closets- there is seriously a crazy amount of storage here.

We are pretty much unpacked at this point and will share pictures as we can.  Today, I have the two finished kid's rooms.  E was sharing a room with F in Decorah but asked for her own room.  With the big move, we decided to grant her wish so she has her own room now.

Double closet which we used for toys

I bought 2 prints at the Decorah High School Winter Craft show and hung them here.  A great reminder of Decorah.

F and L now share a room which backs up to the living room.  This room doesn't have a window to the outside but gets light through a window into the living room.

I took pages from a "Where's Waldo" book and framed them

They got the dresser/bookcase combo I renovated last year as well as a lot of toy storage.

More to come soon!

Day 3: Epic Road Trip from Ohio to Oregon

In our 12 hours of driving today, we went through a 33 degree temperature fluctuation.  This morning, we work up in Rawlins, Wyoming to F excitedly proclaiming that it was snowing.  Less excited, at 5:13  am, we looked over and saw indeed there was a slight dusting on the ground.  

After a typical hotel breakfast, our 4^th in as many days, we packed the car at a chilling 24 degree morning.  In the course of the morning as we traveled through the desolate plains of Wyoming, we dropped to 18 degrees, of course when the kid’s had a pee emergency so we had to hightail it out of the car in bitter cold with insane winds into a rest stop bathroom.  Not a trip I wish to repeat.  

Ominous Road Warnings

Overall, our drive today was like driving on the moon.  We expected to be driving through mountain passes all day as we went from Wyoming to the Oregon border, but instead were mostly driving on flat roads with rocky outcroppings around us.  

As we left Wyoming and entered into Utah, we finally got to go through an exciting mountain tunnel and had a bit of nice mountain viewing but that was really it.  F was excited by the baby mountains and the big mountains which he called “mommies” for some reason.

Sick of cold cheese, ham and crackers for lunches, we decided to stop for a hot lunch about an hour north of Salt Lake City.  We choose a dive diner which had the BEST chili we have ever eaten.  Amazing, meaty, beany and smoky chili.  The clientele were all hardened ranchers wearing Stetsons, spurs and worn jean.  Sounds like a romance novel fantasy but reality is a lot more grizzled with silky, feminine looking scarves. 

 

L eating lunch

After lunch, we continued driving on the moon getting a few more mountain sightings in the distance.  

We made a bit of a detour in Twin Springs, Idaho for a snack/coffee stop and got our first “scenic overlook” at a bridge over the snake river.  Heights are not my cup of tea so with knocking knees, I took a quick peak and picture and let the boys check out the view a bit longer and do boy things like pee on big rocks.

Driving through Boise, we hit our first traffic jam of the journey, temperature then at 51 degrees but luckily cleared out of it quickly to arrive in Ontario, Oregon at 7 pm , Mountain Time.  

night driving is not conducive to state sign pics

Amazing Mexican food in our bellies, we are no longer just a haggard shell of our former selves.

 

the one different thing about our Oregon hotel room

Miles: 639

Hours: 12 (had an hour lunch break that slowed us down today)

States: 4

Bathroom Accidents: 1 (this was before we left the hotel when L peed out of his pjs)

Coffee Stops: 1

Day 2: Epic Car Trip Ohio to Oregon

Day 2 on our car trip and no one has been killed or left behind.  Success.  We are in the process of driving to Portland to begin a new job and driving with our 3 little kids to get there.  Yesterday, we traveled from Cincinnati to Omaha (more on that here).  Today, we tackled Nebraska and half of Wyoming.

Overall, the trip has been very uneventful today, for which we are very appreciative of.  We started off strong, leaving Omaha at the planned 7am departure time.  The brief view we got of Omaha was promising and looked to be a super cool city.  Perhaps a great vacation spot in the future.  We grabbed some great coffee on the way out of town from a drive-up coffee stand- they seem to be popular out west.

We had a bit of a bump in the road a couple hours in when F threw off his headphones and shouted, “I need to poo!”  Any with toddlers know that this means he has a turtle head ready to go.  Of course, we were in Nebraska where stops are far and few between.  Luckily, he managed to hold it for 10 minutes until we found a stop.  Crisis averted.

 

Nebraska Landscape

We got a call from the truck driver with our household belongings around noon.  His truck had broken down but he was finally back on the road with an anticipated delivery date a day later than originally expected.  Not a big deal to us since he will still beat us there.  Failed to ask if truck trouble was minor, or truck tipped over with destroyed piano.  Let’s hope it was the former.

As I mentioned yesterday, we don’t really stop for lunch so we stopped at a few rest stops to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom.  Our next food stop was in Cheyenne around 2 pm, Mountain Time for some coffee and pastries.  The view we got of Cheyenne was not as promising as Omaha and I don’t anticipate another stop there in the future.  Very industrial and overall run down- not what we expected.

Leaving Cheyenne, we ran into a random snow storm, of course going through the first mountain pass.  About 7 years ago, I slid off the highway in Illinois in my Jeep during a horrible storm and ever since then get SERIOUS snow driving anxiety.  Like, want a cigarette or heavy drinking anxiety (both of which I’ve never done).  Signs warned of doom until Tuesday at 11 am (snow/wind warnings) but luckily, the road was never closed and it passed quickly with me breathing into a bag in the passenger seat.

Tonight, we are in Rawlins, Wyoming.  After the Mexican restaurant we found on Yelp turned out to be closed, we settled on a country version of Applebees right in downtown complete with GIANT menus, chicken fried steak slathered in gravy and sundaes for the kids.  Perfect end to the day.

Miles: 639

Hours: 11

States: 2

Potty Accidents:  0 (but close today)

Coffee Stops: 2

Day 1: Epic Road trip Ohio to Oregon

12 hours in.  Andy has swass (sweaty ass).  A month after Andy has started his new job in Portland, we are finally moving the whole family out there.  We are taking 4 days for this epic adventure and will (hopefully) share some delights about each day.  Here is day 1.

6 am (Eastern time)-  We roll out of our hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio and head to Waffle House for breakfast.  Why are we in Cincy instead of Decorah?  My Great Aunt Mary passed away and her memorial service was this weekend.  A career librarian, Aunt Mary would have loved our blogging literary tendencies.

7 am (still Eastern time)- We hit the road, aiming for Omaha, Nebraska bellies full of waffle.  We have 4 days planned for nearly 2500 miles.  Our thought is to bang out the “boring bits” in one long day, then step it back from there.  Growing up in the Midwest, we have driven the roads in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa frequently and don’t need to savor the sights. 

Our morning is uneventful with a stop every couple of hours to let kids pee and run around.  We travel a lot with the kids and have determined that life is easier for us if we pack food in the car for lunches- usually cheese, salami, crackers, hard boiled eggs, nuts peanut butter packets so we don’t have frequent bathroom stops PLUS a lunch stop which would equal a deathly long car ride.

1:30 pm (Central time)-  A pit stop in Iowa right outside the boarder.  2 miles into Iowa on I-80 and we are already frustrated with the truck traffic and discourteous drivers who don’t understand how to use a left lane.  Andy and I have switched driving duties at every bathroom break to prevent driver and kid fatigue (passenger seat victim is in charge of passing out food/activities to kids).

The boys have napped and E finally seems to have found something to occupy herself, creating a headpiece and necklace out of pipe cleaners.

  Andy and I have taken a break from listening to Aladdin, 101 Dalmatians and the Toy Story series to “watch” Happy Endings on our laptop.  (Don’t worry, driver doesn’t get to see, just hear!). 

4:15 pm (still Central time)- L is starting balk from sitting in the car seat all day and Andy is sick of car snacks and “bird food” for lunch.  We have 100 miles to go to hit Omaha and our planned Frudruckers for dinner.  Dreaming of toasted buns, seasoned fries and warm, yellow cheese from a push dispenser. 

6:30 pm-  Dinner consumed and the hanger monster is now at bay.  Heading to hotel when E starts a conversation- “I want to be married in Decorah” .  A bit of of the conversation:

E:  “I want to be married in Decorah"

A/M:  “Who will you marry?”

E:  I don’t know.  He will just be handsome.  I can marry whoever I want.

F:  I just want to marry mommy.

E: You can’t marry mommy.  She is married to daddy.  You can’t get out of marriage.

F:  I just want to marry mommy.

E:  MOMMY IS ALREADY MARRIED.  You can’t get out of marriage.

F: I Just want to marry mommy.

Me:  I’ll marry you buddy.  ::heart warms””

Tally for the day:

Miles:  724

Hours: 12

States: 4

Bathroom Accidents:  0

Coffee Stops:  2