This is the first posting of many to come as we make our journey through the amazing city of Seattle. Together at last! We have been here three days now and it has not rained once! We take this to be a good omen. Maybe we brought the sunshine to this city.
Our apartment is even better than we had expected. Not only is it located in central Seattle, we have an amazing view. From the rooftop we can see the Space Needle, Puget Sound, Downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill and Union Lake (4 blocks north). The apartment itself is brand new and VERY classy. Although it is currently covered in moving boxes, we plan to make this place into a swank pad. After three years we finally have OUR own place; as opposed to separate apartments. It is such a nice feeling! It has been hard only seeing each other once or twice a month for so long, but it was worth the wait. Things are finally falling into place.
The drive out here was an adventure in itself. Ben had left Madison Tuesday afternoon with his friend Matt Wagner (AKA Wink) en route to Rochester. We rented a 12' U-haul truck as well as an auto transport trailer for Ben's Mitsubishi Evolution (The Evo). We were fortunate that the truck was brand new and only had 2,800 miles on it. Although the downsides were that it had no CD or Tape player. Therefore we were forced to listen to the radio the entire way. It was also a pain to drive anywhere due to its giant size. Ben and Matt got to Rochester Tuesday night and proceeded to fill the back of the U-haul with all of Chrissy's randomness. After seeing all the things Chrissy had to pack, we got scared that we weren't going to fit it all. So we had to do some late night Covert Ops (Drop 'N Run) to get rid of the Mattress and the Love Seat. The funny part is that we ended up fitting everything in the back (thanks to Matt's Tetris Skills) and had to go back and pick up the Love Seat from the dumpster. Glad it was dark outside.
We left Rochester at 9:00 AM and picked up Chrissy's friend Melissa Peick (AKA Pike) outside of the Cities. This was the beginning of our 32 Hour drive. Minnesota and North Dakota were very straight forward with little excitement. Although once we got into Montana things got a little crazy. At about 1:00 AM we encountered a vicious blizzard that completely engulfed the road. We had to slow it down to 35 MPH and could only see about 15 feet ahead of us. We were glad that Matt had driven with us as he handled the U-Haul and trailer wonderfully. We ended up hitting another storm past Billings, MT. This was definietly some White Knuckle driving!
Once we had gotten past Missoula, MT and started to come into Idaho, the sun started to rise which revealed the Beautiful Mountain background that was covered in a blanket of snow. This also lead to some more extreme driving as we had to make our way up the Mountain side in the fresh falling snow. After some minor fishtailing we made it safely to the top of the Continental Divide (6390 ft). By 5 PM central time we had arrived at our new home in Seattle. We still feel like vistitors in our new apartment but we are anxious to get everything unpacked and set up. The drive was a great experience but one that we won't want to do again (atleast not in the Winter).
Here is the breakdown of the drive by numbers (from Madison in the U-Haul):
Driving Time: 34:58:40
Miles: 2005.5
Gallons Used: 213.1
Avg. MPG: 9.4
Avg. Speed: 57.3 MPH
We look forward to everyone coming out to visit us soon! We know that you will all enjoy what Seattle has to offer. The hardest part about moving is saying goodbye to our Family and Friends. So please don't be strangers! We love all of you and hope to see you soon.
Signing off,
The Dynamic Duo
