Friday, September 21, 2007

the wild west

it's been awhile & for whoever reads this i assume you are wondering if we ever made it to oregon...well, we did. we are in portland. we arrived tuesday evening and have spent the last few days going back & forth between portland and corvallis. but let me back track first and finish sharing about our road trip.

we left gillette, wy on saturday to drive to yellowstone. it took longer than we had expected so we didn't get to yellowstone until about 5pm. we got to our campsite just in time to see a herd of bison eating in the field next to us. about an hour later we were eating dinner when they moved from the field to OUR campsite, right by our table! anyone who knows me knows i'm not a fan of animals, but really big animals...they flat out scare me! add to that the signs everywhere warning of bears (and the knowledge that yellowstone is one of two places in the US where grizzly bears still exist) and i was not too excited about sleeping in the tent...which explains why i moved to the car (with calla) in the middle of the night.

yellowstone was awesome. like the badlands, i say go if you ever have the chance. it's beautiful. we spent all day sunday at the park and wish we'd had longer.

sunday night we drove to idaho & spent the next two nights there visiting my sister kaitlin. it was wonderful spending time with her & seeing her school. then tuesday we headed out to portland and arrived tuesday night.

things we weren't expecting-

-crying (hard) when crossing the oregon border. i wish i could say it was tears of joy, but it was more of the reality that we weren't going home (which, chicago still feels like home) and weren't going to see our friends & family next week (will we ever get over that one?).

-calla being a (dare i say it) perfect baby. we are pretty sure between chicago & oregon she cried for an hour...total. she was wonderful.

-greta being willing to do anything...and loving almost all of it. greta has always been our "adventure" girl, but recently it had seemed she was growing a bit more timid. this trip proved otherwise & we love her love of life...and learn from her too.

so now we are in portland. yesterday i interviewed for a job. the interview went well so we'll see if it works out. mike had orientation today & we finally saw the house we will be living in, which was awesome! we lucked out on this one. the town of corvallis is super cute so we are excited to share it with anyone who decides to visit (in case you don't know...we love visitors & hope to have lots!).

pictures will come sometime soon, but i thought a posting about life was good for now. :)

4 comments:

simplicity said...

So glad you've made it safely and that so far things are well in your new place. Looking forward to pictures. We'll have to set up a time to connect on the phone sometime soon...

Melissa said...

so glad you made it safely. praying that you settle in smoothly and feel confident and joyful about this new stage of your lives. :)

Ann-Marie said...

good to hear you arrived safely--the frisks were asking about you last night. :)

you are missed, but i hope we'll get to see you soon.

The Bramleys said...

Ha! Ha! I am totally freaked of bears! I would have not stayed there, period. Or, I would have spent the entire night locked in the car with BOTH kids! I had a good laugh after reading your entry. We miss you already. I dropped dinner off to Scott and Lisa tonight. Linnea is so beautiful! I know they are really missing you guys. Hope things continue to go well! Rachel