The Move: day 1

Hello from Spokane, Washington!

I should backtrack a couple days and talk about our exit out of here. Jeremy and I packed like crazy on Thursday till late in the night. We had to finish packing the apartment, mostly the kitchen, and we wanted to pack the car as well. The idea was to take along any valuables and irreplaceable things, some plants, and suitcases. Our pile of stuff for the car kept growing and growing, but considering myself a Master Packer, I was undaunted.

At least for a little while. I must confess that after three boxes were put in the car, I had no idea how we were going to fit everything else! Jeremy took over and I continued in the house. We had Jedidiah over for a brief dinner and goodbye, packed for another couple hours, and fell into bed.

We were up early on Friday packing furiously again. I had reached my limit with all there was to do and the feeling that we didn't have enough time or boxes or room! But in the end we managed to fit everything in the car we needed and we had enough boxes.

The movers arrived promptly at 9:00. Moses, a short stocky guy covered in tattoos, and his helper, a sort of bumbling guy with crooked teeth. They were a great team and handled everything carefully. Two and a half hours later they drove off with (almost) all our worldly possessions. Hopefully we'll see them in Minneapolis!

After a brief lunch, Jeremy and I commenced with the cleaning. Well - we should have got help with that or planned it better because we weren't done by the time our check-out time came at 3:30. It was kind of disappointing for us and the landlords. But that's all over, so - moving on!

We drove over to Patty and Doug's house for our last night in Seattle. We whipped up a lovely pizza and eventually settled down to watch About a Boy. We woke up around 7 this morning, had a lovely breakfast of oatmeal with apples, and some scones. Then we were off!

We're heading east on I-90 for most of the way. We stopped in Ellensburg at the Yellow Church Cafe for lunch. We had a lovely piece of quiche, salad, and some biscuits. (Not as good as my biscuits, but what can you do?)



After a brief walk around town we jumped back on the road. Somewhere in the middle of...um... nowhere, we saw signs for a petrified ginko tree forest. We went to explore but found the interpretive center was closed.





We stopped for a pick-me-up tea in Ritzville (one of my sister Jessica's favorite places!) and then finally came into Spokane.

Now, we had made arrangements for staying with some friends overnight, but they had to cancel because they came down with some horrible flu. We tried to contact some local Friends (Quakers) for a place to stay, but that didn't work out. So there we sat, in a Shell gas station just off I-90, poring through a 2-year-old AAA catalog, calling hotels and whatnot in the vicinity looking for a cheap enough, but nice enough, place to stay. We finally settled on one up a hill near a big hospital. We dropped off our things then headed back west for a small dinner at the Latah Bistro. Wow - what a tasty dinner it was!

We're heading on to Montana tomorrow...