Day 1: Ellensburg Washington
Parting shot from 1 Aspenwood.
Today was a frantic tsunami of activity, miscommunication and even more good-byes.
The day began with the arrival of 2 vans to our door. The first van only carried equipment to help the movers move. The second van was the shuttle van ,meaning the movers would move everything onto this van. It would go to the warehouse, and then some unlucky people would have to unload and reload all our stuff into a 53 foot trailer truck that will take it cross country toward Ithaca.
After this frenzy of last minute packing and dropping items that we were shedding, we faced an eerily empty house.
We had pawned Sophia and James off on our beloved babysitter/honorary eldest daughter - Lindsay, for the day. We were waiting for them to arrive. I walked over to chat with my neighbor about something and then all of a sudden an entourage of minvans started driving towards our home. And one by one 4 of Felicia's closest friends with their kids in tow stopped in for one final tearful goodbye. It was quite overwhelming and much too kind of them to stop in at the final minute of our time in Port Moody. They sent us off in tears and deep love.
We arrived at the border proudly clutching the R-1 Visa that ensures our entrance into being legally employed in America. We were directed into the ominously sounding "secondary inspection". We queued up with James who was loudly demanding to know where the planes were, as he thought we were now at the airport.
The agent was quite friendly and asked why Ithaca. My spiritual side wanted to answer, "Because, God told me too." But my common sense side proudly answered, "Because I got a job!" He ignored the birth certificates and marriage certificate that we had carefully preserved for this moment. He did the obligatory stamping and that was it: on our way to being American residents!
We stopped in Blaine for gas, cherry coke and beef jerky.
And then 3 hours straight of driving. My listening choices were eclectic: a sermon from 80 yr. old British preaching legend Dick Lucas, Death Cab for Cutie, Dawes and finally a sermon from a pastor from Redeemer Presbyterian who is NOT Tim Keller.
As the darkness surrounded us we made our way East through snow and low lying mountains. We arrived in Central Washington's Ellensburg. Because it is night, we really couldn't see much of the town. One thing that we did notice is that the fast food signs are ridiculously high, in efforts to tempt passing motorists on the inter-state. When you drive right next to them, they look like ridiculous Babelesque tributes to bad nutrition and convenience.
We checked into the hotel and then the ridiculous ordeal of trying to move ALL of our luggage out of the van, onto the trolley, through the lobby, into the elevator and finally into our room. The ordeal was so taxing, I half expected that amazing race guy to be in our room to hand us our next clue.
We quickly changed into swim suits and headed for the pool. Apparently heating the pool is a luxury not afforded by this particular chain. After chattering our teeth, we headed for the much more comfortable luke-warm waters of the hot tub.
Now, we're back in the room, getting ready to sleep.
Tomorrow will be along day of driving that will deliver us to Bozeman Montana.
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