We left Missouri a day early so we can break the long drive into two easier days.
Last night was exciting. While I was cleaning one of the kitchen walls some water must have dripped into one of the electrical outlets because after a while there was a very bright flash and pop and the kitchen breaker tripped. Then when I tried to reset the breaker it popped again, this time tripping the main breaker for our apartment. No power for the rest of the evening since the property manager was an hour out of town and he was needed to access the building's utility room. Luckily, our friend was able to set us up in his family's motel for the night, so at least we had some furniture comforts.
This morning the property manager got the power back on but the wet outlet from last night sent several more sparks into the kitchen sink.
After loading up the car and checking the mail one last time, we drove across the Mississippi River and waved goodbye to Cape.
Historic Cape downtown and flood wall as seen from the river.
As we made our way through Illinois we saw a sign advertising a Giant Superman Statue in the (nonfictional) town of Metropolis, but we mistakenly thought we had to go inside a museum to see it. But we did find an acceptable substitute nearby:
Bunsen did fairly well in the car. She was very quiet and sleepy, and appeared content in the backseat even though she was surrounded by piles of boxes.
At the moment we're in Knoxville for the night and still deciding whether to drive through Shenandoah on our way to Maryland.
August 27, Update 2:
The movers came today, packed up our belongings, and loaded it onto their truck in just under three hours. It was impressively efficient, though 80% of our stuff was already packed into the tote bins we've been dragging around since college.
Though now our place has a very lonely echo. Not that we're at all sad. The only disadvantage is that while we will now be able to get all the cleaning done over the weekend fairly easily, the living arrangements are a little more Spartan:
Bunsen has been downgraded from a chalet to a budget junior suite
Living room
Bedroom
The only task now is to figure out how we're going to spend the next three days.
August 16, Update 1:
Tonight I became curious as to what it would look like if I put all of our significant road trips onto one map. I added up all the mileage and so far the map represents just under 12,000 miles of road. Twelve. Thousand. That's not including my first and third visits to New Orleans, my job interview road trip (still debating whether to add that here), the Canadian vacation, and a number of shorter trips. Being in the middle of the country sure provided a lot of opportunities for travel. Once we're on the east coast the epic road trips will probably be restricted to I-95, but there's still 1,900 miles to be had on that road :)
View Roads We Have Travelled in a larger map
August 18, 2010
We are moving. Soon.
This week we were approved for the place that we applied to, so we're all set to move into our new apartment in Maryland (just outside DC) on September 1st 10th. Our current lease ends on August 31st, so we'll be a little homeless for ten days. We'll make it work.
Since I'll be in the middle of training for my new job through at least the end of the year and we'll be trying to save a bit of money, we haven't made any travel plans for the near future. This doesn't mean that we won't make short weekend trips along the east coast here and there.
In the mean time, I will be making additions to this post as we prepare to leave.
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