That's right kids. Its another post telling the story of our journey over to Wyoming.
Up first... the Packing!
We started packing about three weeks before the big move date. We quickly had the attic, spare bedroom and most of the living room/dining room packed. Unfortunately, we didn't have anywhere to put it at the time, so it all went back into the spare bedroom. You know you have too many books when a single layer of boxes full of your books fills most of a bedroom. The second location that held the remainder of the items we weren't looking to keep went into the basement. It also got to be pretty full. We tried to donate to a charity or organization around us, but no one seemed to want anything, or they wouldn't come out to where we lived. I understand there were some sticks around, but it wasn't all that far out of the city. In the end we put a post on Craigslist about having items that needed new homes, gave a brief list and waited to see what happened. Lets just say I'm glad my email account wasn't the one used in the post. Andrea received a bunch of replies, many of which were people that wanted everything we had. We tried splitting it up among deserving people, but in the end because of a few no-shows we simply gave it all to one nice lady. 3 trips full. I might suggest not moving into a house that a family has lived in for 40+ years without applying the cleansing ability of fire first. So much stuff not even ours to give away, in addition to all the stuff that was ours that we didn't want to take with us. So as we approached the big day, we were about 90% packed.
Check in next moving post for the day of loading the trailer.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Looking out from our deck.
No photos of the inside yet, but I did make a nice compilation of photos from our deck off of our bedroom. This is looking out over the field that borders our block. On the far side are the community college and the Walmart that thankfully gets blocked by the hill itself. Andrea has a new favorite pastime of watching the people who walk there dogs in the field. Most people leave the dogs off the leash so they have a pretty good time running around exploring. It amuses Andrea to no end. We are looking forward to what the field will look like with snow on it. Should be a nice change of pace from the scrub grass that it is now. Click on the image to see a full screen version of the picture.
That's it for now, I'll post a similar picture when the landscape changes.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Tour De Fat
So while we were down in Fort Collins, it just so happened that the yearly Tour De Fat was going on. The Tour is a bike celebration put on by the New Belgium brewer (maker of Fat Tire among others). Bikes of all shapes, sizes and designs are aloud to take part in the "parade" which ends at the New Belgium brewery. At the brewery grounds they have music and food and of course beer available for purchase and enjoyment. This year we just stopped by quickly to get a feel for it, and are planning on returning next year with bikes and theme in hand.
First up picture wise is the schedule for the day:
Here is a creative bike... makes you wonder how the kid gets up there!
They also had a little bike "park" for some creatively designed and constructed bikes that were available for anyone who wanted to ride them.
Best of all, in good Colorado fashion was the recycle/trash/compost tent, of which there were many, all of whom were staffed, so you know exactly where to put what type of trash, so that there was no confusion.
Click here for the link to the rest of our pictures form the Tour De Fat
That's it for this post, check back next time for a picture from outside our bedroom (its a pretty amazing view) followed by our trip to the Snowy Range mountains.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
"Working" for our food.
So while its not snowing we've been enjoying our local Friday afternoon farmer's market. This past weekend we wanted to pick up some bulk items from Costco and figured while we were down there we would see what the Fort Collin's farmer's market had to offer in comparison.
The drive down takes about 40 minutes (hence the "work") to an hour. Its through some interesting scenery going from the more Northern Plains look of grasslands and rolling hills through a red rock area like Sedona to more of a forested area. Its a pretty nice drive all in all.
Once we arrived in Fort Collins, Andrea had gone to the bathroom, found herself some coffee and eventually caught up with Kristy and I.... she was finally read to go exploring.
First up was a florist who had some interesting flowers.
Next up was a stand of cheerleaders raising funds for a trip to nationals in Florida.
So Andrea got a flower necklace.... and Kristy got a butterfly on her arm.
Her butterfly had a lot of sparkle to it, but it didn't really get capture in the picture.
Next up we hit some veggie stands. We've been really impressed with the level of quality for almost all of the produce we've seen. Prices haven't been bad. Selection has been pretty amazing. All in all, very impressed with everything.
Although we didn't get much in the way of vegetables this trip, we did pick up a bag of peaches. They weren't quiet up to Schnepf Farm's peaches, they sure did blow the doors off of anything that the stores have had recently. I'm still hoping that one day Andrea will let me lease a tree from Schnepf Farms, or that we live in a climate more suitable to having a peach tree or two (possibly an orchard).
Another one of the amazing veggie stands that were there, although this one was under a red canopy. Everything has an amazing color... and that color is red.
We've also really enjoyed getting really high quality honey both here in Laramie and back in Pittsburgh. There's just something about getting locally produced honey from bee keepers in the area. This time we went with a jar that had a piece of honey comb to eat... I'll report back when we get to eating it and tell you all how it was (the honey itself is fantastic).
So;
one jar honey, a 1/2 gallon of blackberry cider, 1 loaf of focaccia bread, a jar of Asian sauce for pasta, a medium bag of peaches, Andrea's coffee and one Sherpa to carry it all. A good time was had by all, and we've enjoyed eating the fruits of our drive greatly.
That's it for the farmer's market portion of this trip, check back soon for our other Fort Collins activities. Also click on this link to see the rest of our photos of the market.
I'll see you where the road meets.
The drive down takes about 40 minutes (hence the "work") to an hour. Its through some interesting scenery going from the more Northern Plains look of grasslands and rolling hills through a red rock area like Sedona to more of a forested area. Its a pretty nice drive all in all. Once we arrived in Fort Collins, Andrea had gone to the bathroom, found herself some coffee and eventually caught up with Kristy and I.... she was finally read to go exploring.
First up was a florist who had some interesting flowers.
Who know that sun flowers could look so fluffy. I don't seem them being all that practical for sunflower seeds, but they sure were pretty and soft.
Next up was a stand of cheerleaders raising funds for a trip to nationals in Florida. So Andrea got a flower necklace.... and Kristy got a butterfly on her arm.
Her butterfly had a lot of sparkle to it, but it didn't really get capture in the picture.
Next up we hit some veggie stands. We've been really impressed with the level of quality for almost all of the produce we've seen. Prices haven't been bad. Selection has been pretty amazing. All in all, very impressed with everything.
Although we didn't get much in the way of vegetables this trip, we did pick up a bag of peaches. They weren't quiet up to Schnepf Farm's peaches, they sure did blow the doors off of anything that the stores have had recently. I'm still hoping that one day Andrea will let me lease a tree from Schnepf Farms, or that we live in a climate more suitable to having a peach tree or two (possibly an orchard).
Another one of the amazing veggie stands that were there, although this one was under a red canopy. Everything has an amazing color... and that color is red.
We've also really enjoyed getting really high quality honey both here in Laramie and back in Pittsburgh. There's just something about getting locally produced honey from bee keepers in the area. This time we went with a jar that had a piece of honey comb to eat... I'll report back when we get to eating it and tell you all how it was (the honey itself is fantastic).
So;
one jar honey, a 1/2 gallon of blackberry cider, 1 loaf of focaccia bread, a jar of Asian sauce for pasta, a medium bag of peaches, Andrea's coffee and one Sherpa to carry it all. A good time was had by all, and we've enjoyed eating the fruits of our drive greatly.
That's it for the farmer's market portion of this trip, check back soon for our other Fort Collins activities. Also click on this link to see the rest of our photos of the market.
I'll see you where the road meets.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Before it all began...
A long time ago in a town far far away.
There are two travelers who are about to start a new journey, much like the one before, but different in every way. But before the new journey could begin, an old journey had to end. The two travels knew they had to pack in as much as was possible within the next two months with as little budget as possible so that eating could happen during and after the trip.
So to begin with Andrea wanted to complete the second of two expensive activities that the National Aviary had on their regular schedule. But being a once in a lifetime event, how could we say no to it. The first we had done a year or so ago, "Breakfast at the Aviary" (or something like that) where we got a breakfast, a meeting with a few birds up and close, a tour of most of the facilities and a "free" pass to the rest of the aviary after it was all done. We had a blast doing it, but knew there was a bigger and better event for Andrea to experience. So after a bit of convincing that the cost of going to the Aviary was a bit less than trying to get down to Antarctica she was finally convinced. This time we went for something a little more special. This time we signed up for the Penguin Connection. More on that in a sec.
Our encounter was setup for something like 1:00 or around there. We knew we would be there for a few hours, so we figured we should start with some lunch. Although we didn't know they had a hot dog stand in front of the Aviary at the time, who would want a hot dog when they can have the BEST SANDWICH IN THE WORLD!!!!!
We had seen Lucy's stand for 3 years and new it was time to partake in one of her Banh Mi sandwiches before we lost the opportunity to... so we did... and it was Fantastic. If you are ever in the Strip District around lunch (or any time that she happens to be there) I would highly suggest trying one at least once.
So back to the main event. We knew they were building a new penguin exhibit and I had kind of been convincing Andrea to wait on going to the Aviary again for both the right time to visit again and for the new penguin exhibit to be open so that we could get our fullest enjoyment of the visit. Well it just so happened that the new enclosure opened towards the beginning of the year and we were moving soon... it was like the planets had aligned, for Andrea. So, the event was setup to bring you first to the new penguin exhibit, show you around the facility again (meal prep, food storage, super-worms... you know... the usual) and finishing up with a 1 on 8ish visit with our very own penguin envoy.
We were able to see him, have him walk among us and even pet him for the duration that he would stand in front of each person. It was incredible and well worth the investment (both to have fun with penguins and not have to take a trip to South America to start with.) Out best pictures of both visits are on the web. So a good time were had by all!
That's it for this post... next post will be a here and now post as we will be mixing in stuff that's going on now with trip posts until we can catch up. Also click here to see the rest of the photos from our Aviary Trip.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
There are two travelers who are about to start a new journey, much like the one before, but different in every way. But before the new journey could begin, an old journey had to end. The two travels knew they had to pack in as much as was possible within the next two months with as little budget as possible so that eating could happen during and after the trip.
So to begin with Andrea wanted to complete the second of two expensive activities that the National Aviary had on their regular schedule. But being a once in a lifetime event, how could we say no to it. The first we had done a year or so ago, "Breakfast at the Aviary" (or something like that) where we got a breakfast, a meeting with a few birds up and close, a tour of most of the facilities and a "free" pass to the rest of the aviary after it was all done. We had a blast doing it, but knew there was a bigger and better event for Andrea to experience. So after a bit of convincing that the cost of going to the Aviary was a bit less than trying to get down to Antarctica she was finally convinced. This time we went for something a little more special. This time we signed up for the Penguin Connection. More on that in a sec.
Our encounter was setup for something like 1:00 or around there. We knew we would be there for a few hours, so we figured we should start with some lunch. Although we didn't know they had a hot dog stand in front of the Aviary at the time, who would want a hot dog when they can have the BEST SANDWICH IN THE WORLD!!!!!
So back to the main event. We knew they were building a new penguin exhibit and I had kind of been convincing Andrea to wait on going to the Aviary again for both the right time to visit again and for the new penguin exhibit to be open so that we could get our fullest enjoyment of the visit. Well it just so happened that the new enclosure opened towards the beginning of the year and we were moving soon... it was like the planets had aligned, for Andrea. So, the event was setup to bring you first to the new penguin exhibit, show you around the facility again (meal prep, food storage, super-worms... you know... the usual) and finishing up with a 1 on 8ish visit with our very own penguin envoy.
That's it for this post... next post will be a here and now post as we will be mixing in stuff that's going on now with trip posts until we can catch up. Also click here to see the rest of the photos from our Aviary Trip.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
We're Here / We're Home / We're Employed
So I know I'm supposed to be typing up all the memories and stories of our trip and including pics and all... but I thought I would start off with something completely different (a post about there here and now with no pics)!
I just wanted everyone to know that we are finally safe and sound (of sorts) in Laramie, the big computer made the trip safely and Vger is back up and running in the living room/kitchen. That's the important stuff right? That my computer is ok and the robot vacuum is happy to be cleaning again. Right?
The apartment is great... wood floors through most of it, carpet in 2 of the bedrooms, washing machine and dryer included.... but best of all.... a DISHWASHER!!!!! Big windows in all of the rooms, 2 decks (one off the kitchen and one off of our room), 2 bathrooms (a boys and a girls), a nice sized kitchen with a lot of cabinets and more outlets than you can shake a stick at. Everything seems to be of pretty sound build and all the plumbing/electrical seems to be just fine. So all in all... not too shabby.
Andrea started school at the University of Wyoming last Monday. She's taking just over a full load (grad school full load is 9 credits and she is taking 12)... but they are all classes she really wanted to take and ended up having to fight for to keep them all on her schedule. She's a little bit worried of the work load (30+ books so far assigned this semester) but if she keeps the 12 credits for a semester or two then it really opens her up to take some fun classes the last 2 semesters after she has take a lot of her required courses. We'll see how this semester works out as to whether or not she will take 12 again next semester. Here's to hoping its not too bad.
So Monday before last I had an interview for a part time tech support job. I went it and went over my abilities and they loved how good I was with my hardware/software but wanted me to be stronger on the programing side of things. So they gave me homework to learn SQL enough to take a test for the next interview which would be held in one week. So over the next week I went online and went through like 5 SQL Server tutorials and downloaded SQL Server from Microsoft and did the best I could to learn as much as possible. The next Monday I went in and they tested me on what I knew. They set aside an hour to get through their worksheet, I was done in about 30 minutes.We did end up skipping about half of it because of how well I was doing in the beginning, and I did get hung up on the last portion, but all in all I think it went really well and they said they were impressed with how quickly I had picked it up. Monday they said they would know if they wanted to hire me by the end of the week, but about 2 hours later they called and said that other interviews or not, they wanted me as part of the team. So I am working as a tech support guy for a company called Handel IT who makes Ritetrack which is a human services software. So I am now learning SQL server and eventually C ++ so I can troubleshoot the software side of things and I will use my hardware knowledge to troubleshoot the normal hardware stuff as I always do. After about 4 days of work I feel very out of my element and that the amount of software troubleshooting is going to be way over my head.... but I remember feeling a bit like this every time I start a new job... so we'll just have to see how it goes.
The cats are down in Phoenix, and from what we hear they are doing well. Kitty is sleeping with Geri, who is doing her best to spoil him. She has been giving him chips and stuff so that now when he wants something when she is eating it (out of a bag) he'll bat the bag until he is given some. Titania has aparently been seen sleeping places and every now and then running somewhere... so she's alive.
That's about it for the update post.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
I just wanted everyone to know that we are finally safe and sound (of sorts) in Laramie, the big computer made the trip safely and Vger is back up and running in the living room/kitchen. That's the important stuff right? That my computer is ok and the robot vacuum is happy to be cleaning again. Right?
The apartment is great... wood floors through most of it, carpet in 2 of the bedrooms, washing machine and dryer included.... but best of all.... a DISHWASHER!!!!! Big windows in all of the rooms, 2 decks (one off the kitchen and one off of our room), 2 bathrooms (a boys and a girls), a nice sized kitchen with a lot of cabinets and more outlets than you can shake a stick at. Everything seems to be of pretty sound build and all the plumbing/electrical seems to be just fine. So all in all... not too shabby.
Andrea started school at the University of Wyoming last Monday. She's taking just over a full load (grad school full load is 9 credits and she is taking 12)... but they are all classes she really wanted to take and ended up having to fight for to keep them all on her schedule. She's a little bit worried of the work load (30+ books so far assigned this semester) but if she keeps the 12 credits for a semester or two then it really opens her up to take some fun classes the last 2 semesters after she has take a lot of her required courses. We'll see how this semester works out as to whether or not she will take 12 again next semester. Here's to hoping its not too bad.
So Monday before last I had an interview for a part time tech support job. I went it and went over my abilities and they loved how good I was with my hardware/software but wanted me to be stronger on the programing side of things. So they gave me homework to learn SQL enough to take a test for the next interview which would be held in one week. So over the next week I went online and went through like 5 SQL Server tutorials and downloaded SQL Server from Microsoft and did the best I could to learn as much as possible. The next Monday I went in and they tested me on what I knew. They set aside an hour to get through their worksheet, I was done in about 30 minutes.We did end up skipping about half of it because of how well I was doing in the beginning, and I did get hung up on the last portion, but all in all I think it went really well and they said they were impressed with how quickly I had picked it up. Monday they said they would know if they wanted to hire me by the end of the week, but about 2 hours later they called and said that other interviews or not, they wanted me as part of the team. So I am working as a tech support guy for a company called Handel IT who makes Ritetrack which is a human services software. So I am now learning SQL server and eventually C ++ so I can troubleshoot the software side of things and I will use my hardware knowledge to troubleshoot the normal hardware stuff as I always do. After about 4 days of work I feel very out of my element and that the amount of software troubleshooting is going to be way over my head.... but I remember feeling a bit like this every time I start a new job... so we'll just have to see how it goes.
The cats are down in Phoenix, and from what we hear they are doing well. Kitty is sleeping with Geri, who is doing her best to spoil him. She has been giving him chips and stuff so that now when he wants something when she is eating it (out of a bag) he'll bat the bag until he is given some. Titania has aparently been seen sleeping places and every now and then running somewhere... so she's alive.
That's about it for the update post.
I'll see you where the roads meet.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Home, home on the range....
It appears we are now among the legions of blog owners....
Hello! We're Evan and Andrea and we are about to start another cross country move from Pittsburgh to Laramie, Wyoming. Originally from Phoenix, in 2006 we packed up our bags, loaded the wagon and headed east towards greener pastures. Now, as a consequence of applying to graduate school 1,500 miles away, we are journeying back west to the land of the buffalo, Yellowstone and a stretch of the Rocky Mountains.
As we spend time in our new home we plan on updating this page with our daily lives, thoughts on graduate school and our adventures in Wyoming and the small college town of Laramie (only 27,000 people, yikes!).
Hello! We're Evan and Andrea and we are about to start another cross country move from Pittsburgh to Laramie, Wyoming. Originally from Phoenix, in 2006 we packed up our bags, loaded the wagon and headed east towards greener pastures. Now, as a consequence of applying to graduate school 1,500 miles away, we are journeying back west to the land of the buffalo, Yellowstone and a stretch of the Rocky Mountains.
As we spend time in our new home we plan on updating this page with our daily lives, thoughts on graduate school and our adventures in Wyoming and the small college town of Laramie (only 27,000 people, yikes!).
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
