OR to PA (day 4- the finale)

Ok, so… Rachel and I talked last night and decided with the possibility of rain and our overwhelming feeling of “we’re so close, let’s just finish” that we had, we skipped going to Chicago. We were going to get up and get a 7amish start from the hotel, but I woke up around 4 and couldn’t sleep, and Rachel woke up, too- so we were out the door by 5 and on the road at 5:20 (after gassing up and getting McD’s breakfast). We set the clock to EST (a few hours early) to get ourselves on the same time and got going.

and... long story short, we arrived back in PA a little before 7pm EST. we were just tired and wanted to arrive here... and to be honest, i've typed myself out. not e-mailing or blogging for a few days. note how short this is- i've typed all these days, i've also done a lot of typing to help process. so... yeah.

anyway- thanks for reading- after we get the PC set up, i'll post some pictures and maybe video- keep looking for it.

later, all- leave comments, messages or even phone calls- all are welcome.

OR to PA (Day 3)

4:45pm (Central Time) We welcomed Nebraska with a hearty “thank you” yesterday afternoon- leaving behind Wyoming, and hopefully, the worst of the weather related traveling delays.

For those of you who have not experienced Nebraska, you may be thankful. It is straight, flat and ultimately- purposeless in the life of the traveler. I know something about growing crops and stuff… things like that. For that, it may be “essential”, but for this purpose, worthless. For the traveler, it is empty space between you and your destination. There is very little you may actually care to see in Nebraska- perhaps the “Pony Express Station” that is off one of the exits. Or maybe one of the dozens of small towns just off the highway that probably only have any sort of business because of the highway. There are those unfortunate enough to have Nebraska as their destination- and that is a sad place to be.

Nebraska, for driving, however, was a breeze. Despite a few showers here and there along the road, we found it to be uneventful, non-picture worthy and ultimately, a 75-80mph blip on the trip-o-meter.

Now, before we left at 7am (45 minutes before crossing into Central Time), we watched the weather channel and saw some precipitation in Iowa- and the potential for some heay stuff. As we crossed over into Iowa, the clouds betrayed that prediction. They were light and speckled through the sky- leaving us in mostly sunshine weather. This could be nice, right?

Wrong. Oh so wrong! The clouds eventually darkened, and off in the distance to the north, east and south, we could see heavy rain. And eventually, we hit that. There were some areas of heavy, major rain! Lightning striking in the distance, as well. Having lived in Oregon for a year, I almost forgot that lightning storms exist! Most of the kids in our youth group had only ever seen lightning if it was really hot in the summer, and only up in the mountains. A “thunderstorm” would completely blow their minds!

I also had almost forgotten how much I love thunderstorms. They truly are an amazing display of God’s power and I revel in my Creator at the beauty of His Creation. However, I remembered how much I hate driving through heavy rain and such, too. Rachel took on the lion’s share of driving today- whereas I had driven the past 2 days straight and she would have ripped her hair out to just sit in the passenger’s seat one more day. So, at one point, she felt it necessary to stop at a rest area because she could not see the vehicles in front of her.

All of Iowa’s rest areas on I-80 are wireless hotspots. So, seeing as we could not connect to the internet last night (thank you very much Motel 6), I pulled out the laptop to check mail and look at the weather. So, getting on weather.com, I pull up the map of Iowa. There is a red outline around most of the state, signifying a “tornado watch” and I see a line of very severe storms (red, orange, yellow color on the Doppler) moving through the state. Approximately at our very location on the highway- about 50 miles outside of Des Moines. So much for leaving weather disturbances in Wyoming. At least rain, even heavy rain, doesn’t close the highway. Although the accidents that created a small traffic jam just after we returned to driving, did cause us to get off the exit and get back on the highway at that on-ramp. At least it happened between the off-ramp and on-ramp, thus allowing us to just cross the road and get back on the highway.

As I type this, the rain is bearing down on us. Not as heavy as it has been- maybe we’ve passed through the heaviest stuff. Maybe not. Maybe we’re traveling right along with it. But I do know this- each time the lightning strikes, my heart leaps. In a positive way. In the most positive way.

I realize today that I have missed REAL weather in the worst way. Living in Medford, we experienced basically two seasons, summer and winter. It drizzles and rains and is cloudy in the winter (with maybe a snowfall or two) and it is sunny and hot in the summer. There’s a little bit of in between in May and October, but it’s hardly anything to speak of. I have missed heavy downpours, spring mud, fall colors, snow- but surprisingly, not humidity! ;-)

9pm (Central Time)- we’ve stopped in Peru, IL for the night. In case Luke is reading, yes, that is the same town we stopped in on the way to Oregon. The heavy rains continued and actually got worse through a good portion of the afternoon- made it tough driving some of the way. When we got almost to the border of Iowa/Illinois, it was raining heavy. We found a weather forecast on the radio and found that we were right in the middle of some majorly heavy rain showers and tornado warnings! The clouds were wicked dark and it was just crazy. But we kept going. And eventually found our way out of the dark clouds into Illinois, where it was not raining hard.

When we arrived in Peru for the night, the guy at the counter of our hotel told us the storm we were going through was headed our way. And, sure enough- and hour after we got here, it began pouring and was totally windy. Crazy stuff…

So, we settle down for the night…

from OR to PA (day 2)

posted a day late due to not being able to get to the interenet last night... posted while we are stopped at an Iowa rest area due to heavy rain.

We shall never speak of this day again. It shall be removed from the records of history and cease to exist!!

We woke up a little before 7 in Park City today and checked the road report. Large portions of I-80 through Wyoming were closed. Updated just after 7, there were a few more. So Rachel rolled over and decided we’d check again around 9 or so to see if it’s just because it’s early morning. So, me, unable to sleep- did some internet. And around 8, I found out that all of I-80 was open and that there wasn’t supposed to be any inclement weather. I let Rachel sleep till the alarm and we got on the road around 9:45am.

That’s a pretty late start time, however, we did about 150 miles extra on Thursday, so we can wait a little. However, getting into Wyoming turned out to be the worst thing one could imagine!! The weather was a little shaky as we crossed from Utah into Wyoming and through nothing collected on the road, it slowed traffic. We got past that finally, but not before we hit 2 traffic jams, one which seemed to have no purpose and one that was because of an accident. But, we’re in the middle of nowhere- the “no reason” jam was so infuriating!! At one point, we’d done like… 200 miles in 5 hours!! Crazy!!

By the end of the state, we had hit 6 jams- with only 2 accidents and 4 seemingly reasonless. But what was bothersome on top of that were the tractor trailers. I felt almost run off the road a few times, have never used the horn more in one day before in my life and found them to be passing other tractor trailers by barely crawling by them. It happened so much and I was getting really frustrated! At one point, I even annoyed Rachel because of my muttering about the other drivers around me. We had already started late, lost a lot of time in jams and then they weren’t even allowing me to go the speed limit!!

It was so much that I almost missed a lot of the beauty of the state. I realized, however, that I had glorified Wyoming the last time I drove through. It has a lot of mountains and a LOT of beautiful stuff, but it’s still pretty bare- and 400 mile state to drive through!! And, due to the storm, everything was totally covered in snow. It was really quite beautiful.

As the day drew on, we moved our destination from North Platte, NE to just getting into Nebraska!! But, the skies cleared, the traffic thinned (thanks to no accidents or jams) and we began to make some better time. We came down out of the Rockies into Cheyenne, Wyoming’s capital. And we kept going and hit Nebraska. We thought we’d shoot for Sidney, where we stopped in Nebraska on our way West, but we passed it, still feeling in good shape and the sun not quite down yet.

We decided to shoot for Big Springs, NE- another 50 miles or so. When we got here, we found only a Motel 6 (and as I tried to connect, I found that they open their access to all the truckers who stop too, and so I, who am paying for a room, lose out because someone else who isn’t paying connected first. Actually, apparently a LOT of truckers and other connected before me- so I can’t get internet. A rough end to a VERY rough day.

Final statistics for the day:
miles, 550
time- 9 hours
Times I wanted to scream- more than a dozen!
Times Rachel and I just laughed- a couple dozen

OR to PA- the reverse! (Day 1)

Note: Luke has already archived our pictures traveling out to Oregon from Pennsylvania. We are not taking as many pictures on the trip back, although they’ll be posted shortly after arriving in PA. We are taking video, however- and will likely make something out of that, as well.

4:30am- wake up. Roll over, roll my eyes, etc. Not the most comfortable night sleep I’ve had, but… oh well. It’s on to driving now.

5:00am- we’ve gotten the bags and stuff out and are out of Dave & Kassie’s driveway on our way.

5:10am- stop at Dutch Bros drive through coffee stand for our last drive through coffee for a while. I’m not usually big on coffee, but with a long day ahead planned, I’ll take it.

5:20am- on the 5 heading south. Up over Siskiyou Summit and beyond. It’s too early, still- very dark and not even expecting to see the sun for another few hours. Rachel has brought up the SNL: commercials that I downloaded for our iPod for the trip. That will be a useful device, I’m sure.

9:10am- stop in Susanville, CA for breakfast. 230 miles gone, through the mountains of northern California. Susanville is as the base of the mountains. Last time, we saw the sun going down as we traveled on these. Today, the sun was rising up over the frost covered everything. If it was possible to be more beautiful than last time, this was the way. Absolutely amazing. Stunning.

12pm(ish)- though still having a quarter tank of gas, we decide to stop and fill up. Because it’s Nevada- and who knows when the next gas station will be! Signs literally saying “no services for 60 miles” are up everywhere.

7:45pm(Mountain Time)- we stop at Park City, Utah for the evening. The sun is just about to go down and the low gas light has been on for a few miles. So it’s time to stop. We saw a sign that I-80 is closed at Evanston- on the UT/WY border. So, I checked it out on the internet- there’s this storm going across the country that’s in Wyoming. Tomorrow, it looks as though it may be ok, but… we don’t really know. Instead of staying an extra day in Chicago, we may stay an extra day in/around Salt Lake City (and Park City).

A little more recap of the day. Nevada is just as I remembered it. These beautiful mountains that we get close to and go around, but so much flat desert. It’s a high desert running over 4,000 feet. There’s a LOT more snow on most of the mountains this time than last, but none on the ground. Which is totally cool. So, for Luke- I know why when we drove into Nevada it seemed as though we were going up and up and up forever. There are 2 summits between the UT/NV border and Wells, where we stayed the night. One of them is 5900 feet and the other is 6900. Holy Crap!

We saw, but didn’t visit, our favorite tiny town- Mill Creek, NV. Population of 29. and all of them work in the gas station/convenience store/subway/mini-casino/hotel. And the house in the middle of nowhere about a quarter mile off the highway. We saw that, too.

This time, we got to see the salt flats in Utah. They’re pretty neat to see coming down out of Nevada, but… they’re nothing too special. Also, we didn’t realize last time, but we were weaving around mountains for about 60 miles outside of Salt Lake City until getting to the flats. We also saw the Great Salt Lake- a pretty spectacular sight to see.

Well… keep checking back- I intend to keep this running daily at the end of each day. As long as the weather cooperates tomorrow, we’re going to finish Utah, get through Wyoming and hopefully into Nebraska.

i hate packing

i'm not sure that there's much more to say than that. i've been packing stuff for the past 3 weeks or so- while rachel was at work for a lot of it, but then a LOT more as the time for our travelling drew closer. i think we've got everything packed- the truck is ready to go and the car is full (it will not stay full, but i had to make sure everything we were taking in the car would fit...

now it's a matter of throwing a lot of things in the garbage, and giving a bunch of things away to goodwill or salvation army. but... grrr. i'm not liking it- i feel so exhausted. i'm glad we're taking wednesday to clean/hang out/relax. because i need to rest a little before the extra long trek ahead of us

well, suppose that's all for now- we leave thursday. be looking for the cross-country journal (and pictures- maybe even videos) of the upcoming trip.

the next step

Ok, so one more life & stories category blog for now. Wanted to let everyone know who reads this and may not already know- Rachel and I are going to be moving back to the East Coast. Pennsylvania, to be exact. At least, for the time being. We don't have too much lined up for there, but...

there is a poor job market here in Medford, and if we wait, we will not have the money necessary to move. While we've connected with some people out here, generally, we don't have too much in the line of friends and family. those who have been so for us- thanks so much! But we have a need to be back near family at this point in time.

We also need to be in a place where we can heal and hear from God, and unfortunately, here is not a place for us at this point. we don't have a church, and only have a few close friends.

beyond that, being on the East Coast will allow for better job searching in churches and such.

There are a number of reasons that have led us to this decision, some of which i've noted, some of which i haven't. but after some consideration and prayer, we believe this is the direction we're feeling led now.

thanks to all for your prayers, love and support! We're going to be moving at the end of this month- probably around March 28th.

feel free to ask any questions or anything. and... yeah.