Day 1: On the road again

We saw a few folks Wednesday night before we were planning to leave. After they left, we decided we weren't tired, and were ready to go. We finished packing, and by then, we were ready for a short nap. We got up at 5:30, stopped by our storage unit, and then we were on the road by 6:00am.

The first leg was a short one--to Louisville. We stopped there and saw our good friend Matthew. He treated us to breakfast at the Brown Hotel (a famous hotel in Louisville). Breakfast was very nice. The lobby smelled like grandma farts. Good thing we didn't have to eat in the lobby.

Even though Samara said she wouldn't post a picture of Matthew, here he is! He's a good-looking bloke. Doubly so when he stands next to someone ugly like me.


After breakfast, it was time to get out of Dodge. The plan for the first day is a 12-hour push to Omaha, Nebraska. That will give us an easier second day and time for some sightseeing. So, as Kieran would say, we were oscar mike.

Out of Louisville, we went through Indiana and Illinois. Those states went by fairly quickly. Then we hit Missouri. That's the first long state-wide drive. We hit St. Louis, and saw the arch up close as we drove by. For lunch, we shared a burger at Steak'n'Shake.


Missouri gets really flat as you cross it. Once we got to Kansas City and turned north, it was kinda weird. Here's some pictures of Samara driving, me riding, and the flat horizon.


After the turn, we stopped for dinner at a local barbeque chain, Bandana's. It was pretty decent. Samara drove the last leg and got us into Iowa, and up to our first night's sleep. We crossed just over the border into Nebraska and we're staying at the Econo Lodge in Omaha.

More tomorrow after we do some sightseeing. See you in South Dakota!

Leaving Lexington

We are leaving Lexington in a few hours. This is the last post until we reach Omaha or some place with the internet. Who knows if Omaha has the internet. It's a series of tubes, you know. (Aaron says that's funny somehow.)

Good Bye Lexington, we will see you in a year.

Hugs and Love,
Samara and Aaron

Packed

Just a short post to say that we are officially packed! All of the boxes that were piling up into one corner have been loaded into our Canyonero. It actually has quite a bit of cargo room. Much to Samara's chagrin, I was even able to pack my welder and drill press along with some other tools. I'm hoping to find an indoors project to keep me entertained, since I won't be able to work on cars. At any rate, everything fit, so we are very close to being ready to leave now!

Going away party in Lexington

We had a small going away party here in Lexington. Allen hosted it at his house and his mom bought us a cake. No, I don't have pictures of the cake, but it was a chocolate cake with buttercream icing and it had a picture of an igloo on it and a little guy in a parka. It was very cute and very tasty. From left to right: Brad, JD, EV, Aaron and part of Kieran.


From left to right: the rest of Kieran, Andrew, Jonathan, Paul, Jeffery and Zack.

There are a few people that are not pictured: Kirsten, Violet, Allen, Natalie, Matt, Dennis, Teddy, Abi, Juicy Ann, Anne Ohdaddy and myself.

I will miss my friends more than I will miss anything in Lexington. More than I will miss the shopping, the restaurants, or the other stuff that is in lexington. *HUGS*

Jury Duty

Because of my Patterson School master's degree in diplomacy, it took me a total of four years to complete law school. During that entire period, I was a property owner, registered voter and Kentucky driver. Now, I'm pulling up stakes and headed for Alaska this week.

So what arrives in the mail today? My jury duty notice.

I would have loved to serve on a jury at any point during law school, but now that I'm headed to Alaska, I clearly cannot stick around to spend October on a jury.

Cruel fate.

I'm wondering whether I should risk simply sending in the form with my excuse, or if I should make a special trip down to see the Chief Circuit Court Judge, just to be sure. I have a few days to do one or the other before I'm headed off into the horizon.

On a separate note, we have pretty much completely finished packing. Ann's stuff got moved into the house today, and is almost completely here. She has a few things left in her apartment, but we made use of my dad's pickup truck while we had it. He and the rest of the family will be here tomorrow to visit a bit and pick it up.

The time to leave is drawing near!

Just about packed and getting excited

We are now just about packed and ready to go. We only have to actually pack the canyonero with all of our worldly possessions, move Ann's furniture into the house, go to our going away party here in Lexington and leave. I believe that we are planning to leave on Wednesday August 20th or Thursday August 21st.

We have been mailing some of our clothes and some household items to ourselves in Alaska. We decided to send it just to "local delivery" since we don't have a PO box yet. We'll get that when we get up there. It seems that people only have PO boxes and no one uses their street address, which seems strange to me. In fact, the guy we are renting an apartment from didn't even know the address to the apartment when we called the first time. He emailed that later to let us know since we needed to turn on the utilities there.

I am getting excited as we get closer to the day that we leave. I am going to miss all my friends and love ones, but this is an adventure that we just couldn't pass up. I am looking forward to the drive up to Seattle and then the trip to Anchorage and even getting a job and working. I am not looking forward to 4-6 hours of daylight in the winter or the 60 inches of snow, but like all things, I will deal with it as it comes.

One last note, I need people's addresses. If you want a birthday/christmas/postcard you need to comment with your address.
--Samara

In the middle of packing

I just wanted to give everyone an update as to where we are in the packing situation.
As you can see from the pictures, stuff is everywhere! I hate the way it is, but I believe that this is what is supposed to happen before you move...rooms a'splode.



Tucked neatly in what is currently the front room (but I've heard that it is going to become a bedroom), is everything that is going in the yard sale on Saturday. It's a mess and I'm looking forward to being able to see the floor again.



And this is the mess that I call my bedroom. We have started to pack up the clothes we are going to take on the trip, on the plane and what is going to be shipped via USPS.

Oh and we have bought our plane tickets! We are to leave Seattle on the 26 at 8:00am and arrive in Dillingham some time around 2:00pm.

That's all I really have for you right now. Enjoy.