we're here!

The good news is...we're here in CA, alive and well! the bad news is...my blogging style is totally cramped. We're all settled in at Jeff's great-grandma Dorothy's condo and its the most wonderful B&B we could have asked for, except for one minor dilemma. She has dial-up, and we can't even check email! So today, my withdrawal symptoms from chocolate and the world wide web finally boiled over. We're at a cute coffee shop now and we're coping.;)

The remainder of the road trip went well, except for gas stops, that is. Getting 6 mpg made our fill-up times a little depressing. Moving lesson #3: Gas=money. Glad that we survived all the sketchy casino-gas stations in Nevada. We even had dinner one night at an Arby's casino!

Imagine yourself standing on a sea of white Dippin' Dots. We really did! Actually, we stopped at the Salt Flats in Western Utah. It was by far the craziest thing I'd ever seen. It looks like snow, but it's actually a barren dessert wasteland of salt! Nice.

We arrived here in Cali on Thursday night and San Fran welcomed us with the usual fog. Above is a pic of us crossing the Bay Bridge from Oakland. If driving across the country in a Uhaul with a car trailer wasn't enough, he had his official initiation in trucking when he took on the hills, twists, and general tight squeezes of San Fran. At one point (after GPS had let us down), we came to an intersection and wound up in 3 lanes at once! One of these lanes we shared with the Muni (bus/train) tracks. The only problem was that the train pulled up right beside us, with an angry driver shaking her fist. To further welcome us to the city, we had another excellent lesson in U-haul's customer service deficits. I hate to defame the great American company, so I'll just leave it at this--we've adapted a new mantra: Friends don't let Friends drive U-hauls! By Friday night, we had successfully stuffed our every earthly possession into a dark 8x11' room somewhere on the sketchy side of San Fran. Honestly, I don't think I've done so much manual labor in my entire life. Jeff was proud of my couch-lifting, washing machine-hefting, and box-stacking abilities! We unloaded the entire truck ourselves without having to hire any illegals outside the gate to help us (against U-haul policy).

Tomorrow, the real world starts: Job interviews! I am freaking out! As always, we'll keep you posted, even if its at the speed of slow. Oh, and I've been meaning to say thank you everyone for your sweet comments and encouragement about this blog. I feel so loved! Blessings, everyone. Miss you all!