Georgia or Bust!

I know y'all are just dying to hear the details of our journey! Right? Well, if not, then I recommend you skip this post. Because there are no photos, just silly little things that made the trip fun.

Prep day: Had a barbeque with our nerdy marriage group. Most of the day was spent packing and loading up the truck. Thank God for amazing friends because I'm pretty sure we never would've been able to do this all in time without them. Afterwards was dinner and chilling, which we're very good at. The number of times we've lost track of how late it's getting is remarkable. That's how much fun we have together. Said goodbye to Heather and Ron, which wasn't so bad knowing that eventually they'll be moving closeish within a year or two. Hard, but not too bad.

Day 0.5: JT got off work late and we were hussling to get on the road. Said goodbye to Carly and Kyle, which was HARD! Best darn neighbors we could've ever asked for. Seriously, how awesome is it to live down the street from really good friends?
Headed towards Bend, which was stop number one, and ran across some problems. While going through the beautiful forests that most people oooh and aaaah over we realized a slight problem. Our dash lights and high beams weren't working. JT had no idea how fast he was going and could hardly see, which made everything so dangerous given how many places the road was bumpy, windy, and altogether scary. Finally, about 5 minutes out of Sisters, a cop pulled us over asking if we knew our running lights were out. After telling him what was going on the officer helped us figure out which fuse was causing the problem and fixed it. In the middle of an extremely busy road where NO ONE slowed down or gave us space when passing by. That guy was a total sweetheart. Mayhaps an angel?
Got to Casey's mom's house very late and attempted to reunite Truffle with her sister. THAT didn't go well. First she curled up in her crate then she hid under the couch. Suspicions that she thought we were leaving her crossed our minds. She spent all night hiding under the bed. Said a semi-goodbye to Casey and Josh. Which basically means we said goodnight but never woke them up to say goodbye. Wrote a note instead. It was EARLY and Casey said she's not good with goodbyes, which was good for me because I was downright tired of crying from goodbyes. Not that it stopped me or anything. Sigh.

Day 1: Drove through the Oregon badlands. Felt like going through certain parts of California. Went through the entire state of Idaho in which we saw a town made entirely out of trailer homes with the exception of two houses. Found out that the town is home to one of BP's biggest...something. Not oil drilling but something. Which explains why all the houses are cruddy and why there were only two real houses. Those probably belonged to the head honchos. Also saw a town with a population of 1. It had a store and a house. That's it. Lots of wind turbines in Idaho. Like, a ton! And cows. And corn. Not much in the potato department.
Made it to Wyoming and right where we wanted to stop JT realized it was way out of the way (which, if I may add, I told him when he was writing out our route. Do you think he listened to me then?) so we continued on, hoping to go to another spot we considered which was maybe 2 hours away. Within ten minutes of this decision lightening started bursting everywhere. We were behind three truckers with cows for cargo, trusting them to let us know when it was no longer safe to be driving. Got off not long after they did to stay at a ghetto hotel where I stayed up all night due to a certain mother-in-law making me paranoid about bedbugs while JT slept like a baby. Mind you, we checked for bedbugs and not one of the places we stayed at had any. Didn't stop me from scratching up a storm just at the thought of it.

Day 2: Third of the day was spent finishing up in Wyoming and the rest was dedicated to Nebraska. Let me tell you something about Nebraska: there is NOTHING there. The only thing worth mentioning is how much road construction there was. We got stuck in road work areas about 10-12 times by the end of the day. We also got our first taste of humidity, which JT describes as "being hugged by a fat, sweaty, Comicon guy whose flesh molds around you." Descriptive, yes? Got into Iowa, thinking we'd stop there for the night, only to find ourselves in Missouri while we were looking. It was kinda like, "Hmm...where's a hotel? Do we want to drive to Missouri? That could be a ways away, let's just...oh hey! We're in Missouri! Problem solved."

Day 3: Missouri was interesting. Everywhere you look there are billboards for "adult superstores." Awkward. Then, when we got to a gas station, JT discovered that they sell hard liquor there. Rum, vodka, the whole nine yards. At a gas station. Where people are driving. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about Missouri. Went through St. Louis and got so mad. I missed a perfectly good shot of the arch because my stupid seatbelt locked at just the wrong time. Grrrrrrr. That was only the second time it had done that all trip and it just had to choose that moment.
Kentucky was pretty. Lots of green, lots of water. Weren't there for too long, just three hours or so.
Tennessee was gorgeous. All you Oregonians who want to live somewhere that's beautiful like Oregon but warmer, Tennessee is the place. Looks and feels just like it, but with heat. Beautiful. And going through Nashville at night reminded me of Portland at night, so there you go. Very pretty.

Day 4: Georgia!!! Two hours into the day we crossed into Georgia and wow! Wasn't sure how I felt at first. Suddenly went from luscious green to needle trees. NEEDLE TREES! I thought I had left those in Oregon! Give me back the trees from Tennessee! But it was all good. Got to Savannah around 3:30 in the afternoon (looooong before we had originally planned, yay!) and holy schmoly! All you can see is trees steeped with Spanish moss dripping down into the street. There's gorgeous, old money mansions right next to run-down shacks. There's no ghetto, middle-class, and ritzy areas here that are clear and distinct. The ghetto is right next to the millionaires and the middle class are scattered higgledy-piggledy among that. We got to our apartment complex and talked with the manager. Got to learn about what was being worked on, what our neighborhood is like, met a few of our neighbors (the manager is one of them, yay!). Doesn't seem like a bad place! To make it all better, there's a SCAD bus stop right outside our complex. Bonus for me, because that means not paying for a bus pass!

But, since our apartment isn't ready yet, we're at a hotel at the moment. They're finishing laying down the new carpet and putting in the new appliances today so tomorrow at around noon I'll be able to start unloading the truck and calling the place home. JT has his first day of work today, which is only about 15 minutes from home. So jealous, he got to go through historic downtown before I did. Then again, I get to get a feel for our new place before he does. Somehow I feel like that's an unfair trade-off. Don't think we'll get to explore the city this first week at all but maybe next weekend, once everything is unpacked and settled in, we'll get to see the town and start understanding our new home!