Our stuff arrived

And boy do we have way too much of it. It's rather difficult to move around in the apartment right now. At least it didn't rain all day like the forecast said it was supposed to.

The Apartment

We've been in New Haven for 4 days now. No one has asked, but I'm sure people would like to know about the apartment, so I've taken some pictures. The apartments has 2 bedrooms and 1 bath and is arranged in a "townhouse" style with the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs and the kitchen and living room downstairs. Here's a floor plan:

For reference, north is diagonally down and to the right.

The rectangle at the bottom left of the kitchen in the floor plan is a breakfast bar, and "downstairs" is actually on the second floor of the building. On the top floor, the bedroom on the left is the one we'll be using as our bedroom and the other will be the study area/computer room.

Now for some pictures taken of the apartment itself. These pictures were taken on the day we arrived in the apartment and the pathetically small pile of belongings you see on the living room floor is everything we have until the truck arrives (possibly tomorrow).

Downstairs:

The view looking in the front door.
The door at left leads to the terrace, while
the counter in the foreground is the breakfast bar.

The kitchen is rather long and narrow.

Part of the living/dining room area.
Especially sharp-eyed readers will note that the
cats are in the cage in the far corner: this is because
when we moved in it was extremely hot in the apartment,
but there were no screens in the window. We called management
and they installed the screens about half an hour after this picture was taken.

The cage remains in the apartment as a "safe haven" for the cats.
They go in there less each day.

A bit more of the living/dining room.

The view back from where the cats' cage was in the above pictures.
Note the sad pile of belongings. ;-)

Upstairs:

It's extremely difficult to take useful pictures of bedrooms and bathrooms, but here's what I have.

Our bedroom as seen from the doorway.

Our bedroom looking back towards the door from the window. (Like I said, it's really hard to get useful pictures of empty rooms like this.)

The study/computer room.
The window faces roughly northeast.

The bathroom. The cupboard door is open
because we had the cats locked in here while we
unloaded the car and Gizmo hid in the cupboard.
It took a few seconds to find him when Rachel went
in to visit the cats at one point.

The view from the terrace:

We have a corner apartment with a view of two rather busy one way streets; George and Howe.

Looking to the left as you step out onto the terrace, you see
George St., which runs northwest-to-southeast.

The intersection of George and Howe is basically due east.
Note the lovely view of the dumpster at the bottom of the picture.
The white thing in the bushes is a seat cushion. It looks like somebody
tried to hit the dumpster from their terrace and missed by a lot.

Howe St. is straight out the back of the apartment.

Looking pretty much due south. Howe St.
is to the left. Below is the driveway used by
those residents lucky enough to have a garage
for their car. (We're on a waiting list; right now
we have to park on George St.)

Unfortunately, Howe and George are both pretty busy roads and the intersection is controlled by a traffic light. That wouldn't bother us, but it's late in the season to buy air conditioners so we're having trouble finding any so we have our windows open 24 hours a day right now. In addition, there are two hospitals within a few blocks, so a lot of ambulances go by with sirens wailing.

This isn't exactly heaven, but we'll only be here for a short while (possibly 2 years) so we'll make do. Once it gets cold, the windows will be closed and they actually block the sound pretty well. If we don't find an air conditioner this summer, we will definitely get one or two as soon as they hit the market next spring so we don't have to listen to the traffic all summer again.

A couple of cat pictures to finish up:

Gizmo quickly established "his" spot on the stairs.

This picture shows where Gizmo likes to lie.
He's the dark spot up at the corner.

A closeup. Gizmo's spending less time there as he adjusts
to the new place, but it's actually a good out-of-the-way
place for him where he can see both upstairs and down, so
he returns to that spot any time he gets spooked.

Phoenix, on the other hand, seems to think that he's a computer. He certainly fits in the bag really well.

Looks like we could just zip him in and go for a trip.

Day 6: Macedonia, OH to New Haven, CT (522 mi)

We have arrived in New Haven! The many long days of driving are over. We are staying in a hotel tonight and moving into our apartment tomorrow. From the apartment, we will have no internet access for a few days, so this is the last post for a while. I'll just take you through our trip more-or-less in the order in which we saw it today.

As we were driving through the "mountains" of Pennsylvania, Rachel observed that the trees seemed to be "exuding fog". Eventually, the trees released enough fog into the atmosphere that it came pelting to the earth in the form of a lot of rain in a very small amount of time.

A couple of images of the fog-exuding trees of Pennsylvania.

Some time during that rain storm, we stopped for lunch. Lunch itself wasn't all that exciting (Rachel got something at KFC and I went to Burger King), but I spotted the following billboard while waiting for Rachel to get her lunch.

A billboard somewhere in Pennsylvania.

This could technically be read in the way they meant it, but I prefer to believe that they are willing to sell you fish and chips for a kiss.

Continuing on our drive through Pennsylvania, there were various signs telling us of things "next # miles" (deer next 5 miles, for example). The best signs, though, were the ones that said "Buckle up next million miles". (For comparison, the circumference of the earth is about 22,000 miles.)

As we continued to go through the hills of Pennsylvania, we came across what we considered a humorous sign which read "Highest point on I-80 east of the Mississippi 2250 feet". Considering that, on I-80, we had been over 8000 feet just a couple of days before, this was a little sad.

The last surprise of the trip came about 30 miles inside of New York. We had been traveling along a freeway (I-84) with a speed limit of 65 ever since Scranton, PA when we came across signs warning of reduced speed ahead. No problem, but when we got to the speed zone, the speed limit dropped to 55 mph and it was declared that this was the state speed limit. We just wondered why, if the state speed limit is 55 mpg, we were allowed to go 65 mph for 30 miles inside the state before the state limit was imposed.

As mentioned above, we move into our apartment tomorrow. We'll have to get the key, then transfer the cats. It'll be fun. :-)

Day 5: Davenport, IA to Macedonia, OH (509 mi)

Before we get to the day's travels, I want to talk about the cats for a minute. They are handling the car part of the trip very well, as I have mentioned before. The hotel part is a bit more frightening for them, especially Gizmo (who tends to hide). Of course, as I'm writing this, they are both lying on the bed looking all relaxed, but as soon as we start moving about the room, Gizmo will probably hide and Phoenix will follow us around trying to make sure we don't leave him or something.

The cats feeling a bit insecure.
(Gizmo is the lump under the bed skirt--
it was impossible to actually get under the bed.)

Now to the drive: we started the day by going from west of the Mississippi to east of the Mississippi (in a nice hot thunderstorm).

The I-74 bridge over the Mississippi.
(I-74 was easier to take from the hotel;
we rejoined I-80 shortly after crossing.)

The Mississippi looking south from the I-74 bridge.

The Mississippi looking south from the I-74 bridge.

Illinois has some nice varied terrain for the most part, though it gets pretty flat as you approach Chicago. Then there are Indiana and Ohio; they have hills, but there are long periods of flatness with nothing but farms and trees as far as the eye can see.

A picture of the fields in Indiana.
This picture could just as easily have been taken in Ohio.

The thing about this day that was really new for us was dealing with toll roads. The first toll we paid was 60 cents in order to finish leaving Illinois on I-80. We crossed most of Indiana on the Indiana Toll Road, which is I-80 and I-90, for a cost of $6.25. Spaced out across Indiana on the toll road are "Traveler's Plazas". These are basically rest areas with a gas station, some fast food restaurants, and a small convenience store. That way you can get food and/or gas and stuff without having to leave the tollway, pay a toll, then come back onto the tollway again. The Ohio Turnpike (I-80 through most of Ohio) has the same concept, but they call them "Service Plazas".

A Traveler's Plaza along the Indiana Toll Road.
The gas station even had pretty decent prices!

We finish our drive on the Ohio Turnpike tomorrow when I-76 splits off from I-80. We'll be taking I-80 while the turnpike follows I-76.

I have a shorter list of interesting place names for you today, but here they are:

First we have the town of Starved Rock, IL. There is also a state park by the same name. I haven't done any research on it, but I would have bet almost anything that it was impossible for a rock to starve.

Next we have Fifth Third Field in Toledo, OH. I assume this is a ball field...

Finally, we have Gore Orphanage Road somewhere east of Toledo and west of Cleveland (I know, that's a long ways; too bad). We can only hope that the orphanage is named after somebody and it's not a description of how well the place was kept or how they treated the orphans.

That's it for tonight. We've gone through our last time change of the trip and so it is already getting late. Tomorrow, we finish the long drive to New Haven.

Day 4: North Platte, NE to Davenport, IA (578 mi)

I take back what I said yesterday about the Nebraska plains. As you head further east, they get really flat. There are a few ripples in the soil here and there, but that's about all until you get into the last 30 miles or so of eastern Nebraska. In Iowa, the plain is mostly rolling hills, but there still are a few places where there are no hills of any import for miles around. To someone used to the mountainous Pacific Northwest, it's eerie. No pictures of anything outside of the car today--no point, really. It was all just cornfields for the most part. (Davenport is, by they way, in Scott County.) It was nice, though, not to change time zones today; the entire trip was in the Central time zone. Losing an hour when driving for many of same is not fun.

The cats have gotten into the routine. They, in fact, seem happiest when in their cage in the car. (Gizmo has spent two of three nights hiding under the bed and is trying to get under the bed in the current room, but that isn't possible here. It also wasn't possible to hide under the bed in the second place we stayed, or he probably would have spent three of three nights hiding under the bed so far.) Gizmo seems healthier than he's been in months. Apparently, the long lazy days of dozing contentedly in the cage with no other worries agree with him. For this, we are very happy.

A typical scene inside the car

Rachel wants me to tell everyone that we tried to give cheddar cheese (a small piece) to Phoenix this morning and he just sniffed it and wandered off. Who's ever heard of a cat that doesn't eat cheddar cheese? He sure begs for it enough, so I guess is smells good even if it isn't worth eating to him.

Getting to the drive itself today, other than the flat plains, the trip through Nebraska can be noted for two things: "road construction" that consisted of many miles of closed lanes with nothing in them (no workers, no parked construction equipment; nothing) and the fact that we never saw a police car of any jurisdiction during the entire trip across the state. (So far, in crossing Iowa we've only seen one police car and that was for the Pottawattamie County police. It drove by while we were getting gas. There are about 5 miles left of Iowa for tomorrow morning, then we cross the Mississippi into Illinois.) There was one place where an electric sign warned drivers that there were state police ahead so not to be speeding, but the police were either absent or invisible. (The whole concept of invisible police scares me, though, so I prefer to believe they were absent.)

Gas prices continue to be strange. They have pretty much leveled out for the last 400 miles or so, but the "super" grade tends to run about 10 cents a gallon cheaper than "regular". I think this is because super unleaded contains 10% (corn) ethanol and this is corn country, but that's just a guess.

Oh yeah, there was one more thing in Nebraska that was interesting: the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. I wish we could have gotten a picture of this huge arch over the freeway, but by the time we realized it went over the road, it was too late to dig the camera out. (Remember, we are not sightseeing, so any picture would have had to have been out the windshield of the car as we approached.) Here is a web site for the monument with a picture and an explanation of what it is.

In Iowa, we passed through a small corner of Madison County, but we saw no bridges.

Now for the most entertaining part of this post: weird place and business names!

First there was Kim's Nebraskaland Truck Center. I didn't see the place itself, but there was a billboard advertising it a few miles east of North Platte. (Speaking of billboards, can anybody explain to me why the billboards in Nebraska and Iowa are a couple of hundred yards off the freeway? It makes them hard to read sometimes, which is annoying when you are an out-of-stater trying to figure out where to stop for lunch.)

Next we have Pottawattamie County in western Iowa. Don't know what it means or even how to pronounce it, and we spent quite a while trying to find something with big enough print for us to see for sure how it was spelled as its length seems to make everyone want to write it in a smaller font than can really be read. (Edit: According to the New York Times, the pronunciation is pawt-uh-WAHT-uh-mee (and Barack Obama had trouble pronouncing it about a year ago when giving a speech there). It is one spelling for the Potawatomie tribe that once lived in the area.)

Third we have the town of What Cheer, Iowa. No explanation necessary.

Fourth is the (former) colony town of Homestead. That doesn't sound all that funny on its own, but it was the seventh of a group of towns all founded by the same people. The towns were Amana, West Amana, South Amana, High Amana, Middle Amana, East Amana, and Homestead. (Start Sesame Street jingle, "One of these names is not like the other...")

Finally, we have the Iowa gas station/convenience store chain of Kum & Go. It may be just us, but we thought that sounded more like the name of a roadside quick-service brothel. It also cast the chain of gas stations called Love's into a different light and left me wondering if the gas stations were full service or self service (and what, exactly, that meant in this case). I'll leave any further off-color jokes to you.

Day 3: Rock Springs, WY to North Platte, NE (476 mi)

After yesterday's marathon drive, today's drive (one of the shortest if not the shortest of the whole trip) was a piece of cake.

The cats were very calm about it. Boring even. Here are the obligatory cat pics, though:

Still insisting on both being on the cushion

"X" marks the (napping) spot
(I guess Phoenix was in Gizmo's way.)

Interesting stuff for the day:

I had my idea of the continental divide completely redefined today. After a couple of climbs out of Rock Springs, we came out on a plain with soft rolling hills. As we drove across the plain, I could see mountains in the distance and was thinking that we'd have to climb those to reach the top of the Rockies and, therefore, the continental divide. Imagine my surprise when we came to the top of a not-particularly-high rolling hill and were confronted with a sign marking the continental divide! My surprise was even greater about an hour later when we again came across a sign marking the continental divide. It turns out that the divide itself splits around and through the Great Divide Basin. We never did make any of the fantastic climbs to a high pass in the Rockies that I was expecting.

Throughout the parts of Wyoming that we drove today, there are signs approximately 5 miles apart that say "Strong Wind Possible Next 5 Miles". The winds were pretty strong all day, but it seems like the signs could have been posted more efficiently.

Coming down out of the Rockies and onto the Nebraska plains was pretty anticlimactic, but I learned something. The plains aren't as flat as I had always understood them to be. Most of the time, you can't really see all that far because you're surrounded by rolling hills. When we could see off into the distance, it was usually obscured by the rain storms that seemed to be everywhere. We only drove through a small amount of rain, but the way one moment you're dry and the next the windshield is being pounded by very large raindrops is pretty impressive.

The best place name of the day: Point of Rocks (somewhere not too far east of Rock Springs). We didn't see the geographical feature that this refers to, but my guess is that it's some sort of point made up of rocks.

For those who may be curious, the car is running amazingly well. We're getting 23-25 mpg even though we're doing 75-80 mph (speed limit 75) with the air conditioning on and climbing some pretty steep hills and passes from time to time. The gas prices have gone steadily down as we've gone east, too. The station right outside my hotel window as I write this is charging $3.639 for regular.

Day 2: Kennewick, WA to Rock Springs, WY (764 mi)

Oops. When planning this trip, we were sure no one day was scheduled for more than about 625 miles. We knew yesterday would be our longest day, but didn't realize it was over 150 miles longer than the next longest. We realized our error only when we checked Google maps for the directions to the hotel here in Rock Springs. We also lost an hour when we entered the Mountain time zone, so we actually arrived after midnight--this is why I didn't post anything last night. Still, our day's drive took us through parts of 5 states (WA, OR, ID, UT, and WY) and on 3 interstates (82, 84, and 80). We won't be able to say that again on this trip.

We put a couple of extra blankets in the cage so the cats wouldn't have to fight over the cushion anymore, so of course they figured out how they could both use the cushion and the extra blankets were rarely used. Figures.

Yes, Gizmo is lying in the litter box here.

For the most part, the cats did very well with their 14 hours in the car yesterday. Phoenix was restless (read: wandering around and crying) for the first hour and a half or so, but then he settled and slept. He started getting impatient at around the 11 hour mark, so gave us some good loud yells about then, but then he went back to sleep for the rest of the drive.

Interesting sights along the way:

When stopping for food in a small town in Oregon, we came upon a sign for Busty's Pancake and Waffle house. That got a few snickers until we got close enough to see that it actually said "Rusty's". More boring that way, but Rachel reminded me that I didn't tell everyone about Coffee Jigglers in Ellensburg, WA on Thursday. It was a typical coffee hut in a parking lot, but the name (and the scantily clad woman that was their logo) tells it all. We didn't stop there.

When stopping for dinner last night in Two Falls, Idaho, we crossed a great gorge containing the Snake River.




The whole area reminded us of Coulee country in eastern Washington. (Rachel mentioned it first.) Later, we found out why when a rest stop had a sign explaining about Lake Bonneville. (Follow the link to see why that's any explanation at all.)

After dark and after getting onto Interstate 80, which we will be following for the next few days, I was startled several times by signs that said "INTERSTATE 80 CLOSED". As we got closer, we could see that it explained in smaller type that the freeway was closed if there were flashing lights and gates across the highway. I presume that's for dealing with winter snows.

I should wrap this up so we can get on the road again. I just want to say, however, that "Flaming Gorge" brings up some frightening mental pictures and I'm not sure I ever want to visit the place.

The First Night

This was the cats' first experience in a hotel, so it was interesting to see how they handled it. Phoenix explored for just a few minutes, decided it was okay, and settled down to be petted. Gizmo, on the other hand, quickly found he could hide under the bed and just ventured out for brief explorations and/or petting every once in a while.

The humor of the evening was provided by Phoenix when he decided to explore the TV cabinet pictured below.


All was fine while he stood on the ground or leaned on the cabinet to sniff, but when he jumped up into the shelf below the TV, which is about 2 feet off the ground and only about 4 inches high, Rachel and I were treated to a glorious view of his golden butt as he scrabbled to get into the opening. He eventually succeeded, explored while squashed flat for a few seconds, then jumped down before I could get the camera turned on and the flash warmed up. I tried to get a picture of it for you, though. Seconds later, Gizmo sniffed at the shelf but chose not to repeat Phoenix's fiasco.

Okay, I just thought I'd update everyone on the cats' first experience in a hotel. Now we've got to get ready to get on the road.

Day 1: Lakewood, WA to Kennewick, WA (246 miles)

The first day's drive was about half of what we expect to do on a typical day. We didn't expect to get started until the afternoon, so that was just as well. I have a friend from college who lives in the Tri-Cities area, so we decided to visit him.




We met my parents for breakfast at 10:00 this morning, figuring that after breakfast we would spend a couple of hours packing up the car and then get on our way. My parents came to get some stuff from the house and help us pack up--about 3:00, we broke for a late lunch, then came back and finished packing the car. We finally hit the road about 5:30. Thank goodness my parents were there, or we wouldn't have gotten on the road for another 2 or 3 hours after that. (Thank you, Mom and Dad!)



The cats took to the cage pretty readily, actually. Phoenix seemed to just accept it as another weirdness that he had to tolerate (like the house slowly emptying of all of our stuff) and settled down to a nap (on most of the cushion). Gizmo spent a little while looking out, then settled down himself, only grouching occasionally. There was a quiet battle for cushion space, though, as any time one of the cats stood up, the other would stretch out to occupy most of the cushion. Gizmo finally just simply laid down on top of Phoenix to make him move as we came out of Ellensburg.

Because of our late start, we didn't get into Kennewick until about 10:15. Freshman (the friend we were going to visit) has to be at work at 6:30 in the morning, so had to go to bed. I'll be getting up in just a few hours to meet him for breakfast before he goes to work, so I should be going to bed soon, myself.

Oh, and the humorous place/business name of the day is The Inn at Horse Heaven in Prosser, WA.