Update.

Hi all.

Just a quick update.

1) We are on post housing and no longer living in a hotel! This is a goodthing.

2) Last night we had margaritas at one of Matthew's friends' apartments... it was great to have some healthy social interaction!

3) I interviewed for a temp agency and it went well. I am currently waiting for assignment. I'm struggling with not being "productive" but also relishing this time of freedom in a strange way. Mixed emotions of course.

4) Am starting a Wilton Cake Decorating course tomorrow at Michael's to occupy some time and need for creativity. Should be fun.

5) Just read the "Twilight" series. Thoroughly enjoyable despite the juvenile writing level, and also made me feel like I should really think of a story line, write a novel, and become a famous author. No?

6) Matthew is kicking some a and taking some names in his classes. People seem to know him as the quiet, put together, punctual, prepared dude. I'll take that! He's finding some of the classes interesting, some boring, and overall pretty happy I think. We've got a good little routine going, and I don't mind seeing him in his uniform every day too. Something about the beret....mmmm...
All right... going to pick up the Civic from its doctor appointment (regular check ups folks!). More to come- comittment to more faithful blogging hereby stated.

Road Trip. For Serious.

Now here we go! Finally! It took a while to get these all loaded.

Let me say that there are hardly any of people- we didn't see many people on our trip cross country! Well, we did see Gav and Kelley, Lisa and Kyle, and a few more familiar faces, but over all, we saw funny signs, cities, and a lot of road. So... bare with us. This is our first cross country trip. In about 2.75 months we'll retrace our steps out west, and then back again we go, but further South to Kentucky and Tennessee. So... have a looksey!

Here we are, just getting on I-80 from my folks' house where we left a group of people we dearly love. Saying goodbye SUUUCKS, so don't expect us to do it when we're back for two weeks in April :) We figure we won't say goodbye because you'll all come visit us Tennessee anyway! Right? RIGHT!!?

So off we go. At this point we're what... 20 minutes in? And we're experiencing light snow fall and wind... thankfully it got MUCH better. Not so good... our windshield wipers which John Teter generously funded the fixing of busted again (or perhaps were never permanently fixed) and so we had to stop every once in a while and squeegy (sp?) off the windshield. Thank goodness I have an experienced windshield wiper on my team, right? RIGHT?!

Comin' up on Devil's slide. It IS pretty neat, and its a hallmark of the I-80 East route.

Head on shot of ol' Devil's slide.

Not sure why I took this picture. But hey- go with it.

Wyoming honestly doesn't have much to look at along I-80, and so here you've got one pretty rock what got shot up by my camera.

There were ridiculous amounts of fireworks stands... all through Wyoming and then again all along our trip through Missouri.

Windpower! YES! They look like big aliens.

The wind power from a distance. Again... aliens!

Dirty windshield...

One HOT window cleaner.

It was actually pretty scary driving through WY. Matthew did a great job navigating the roads... even when we couldn't see the road because of the blowing snow hiding the road from us... YIPES!

Wy.

Woohoo! We're on the road!

They have these fences that break the wind.
I like how KS does it better- they plant trees!

Again, scary roads.

At a stop we made we saw this little trailer. A trucker's chapel. Pretty super.

It just sounded so friendly!

Well wouldn't you know, there's ol' Abe Lincoln! Just peering out over the Wyoming planes.

We saw signs ALL over the place warning of blowing, ice, snow, etc. Every 5 miles we'd see signs saying "Sever wind next 5 miles" and sure enough, after that 5 miles, we'd see another sign. Wyoming IS severe wind. period.

Yay! Civilization!

Welcome to CO, that's right! We missed the WY sign, sorry.

I tried to take a picture of Bronco stadium for Whitney cause I know how she LOVES them Broncs, but I think its is possessed- I could never get a decent shot (cue creepy ghosty music).

More proof of demon spirits at Bronco palace.

AW! We got to see our friends Lisa and Kyle- and this is just TWO days before she had her baby! That baby was 7 pounds 8 ounces- that is one MOTHER of a little dude to fit in that tiny body! He was dubbed Nolan Brent Schroeder (middle name after Lisa's late father). CONGRATULATIONS! I have baby pics I'll post later. And saweet! We'll get to see the little guy (we hope!) when we drive back through in April. Does't Kyle look official in his uniform? He's Denver, P.D.

After our time with Lis and Kyle we headed down to Pearl street to visit some Cain family favorites- Gavin and Kelley of course! They put us up for the night, and even showed us a bit of Denver. They took us to dinner with several friends, and even in the span of several hours we decided Denver may be a possible settlin' down place. It was super neat. Here I am the next morning preparing for the road...

(side note: G and K are renting this house for 3 mo. until they move into a house they like. Thus.. things aren't quite settled. Just in case you were wondering).

Here they are. This series of pictures is dedicated to my non-photogenic brother. he's a handsome enough lad, but he has major trouble NOT looking like a total pot head in pictures because the poor guy can't keep his dang eyes open! That little beasty of a dog is one of four animals they own, and her name is Cookie (she was originally supposed to be named Beans which I love, but apparently dogs do better with 2-syllable names).

Aw, Dabin!

And then it gets goofy. Can you tell I'm related?

Ahh! hehe, I love them! So they also have another awesome dog named Josie, and two cats named Kitty and Lucy. I'm pretty sure I've posted on Kitty and Lucy- they are super fantastically fat kits and Kitty can do backflips! Yep- you heard me! BACKFLIPS!

Leaving Denver. Fortunately we got an early start.

Further out and a better view of D-town. We WILL be back!

Leavin CO (it took a LOT longer than I thought!).

Entering KS! Teter family country!

See if you can read these signs- AMAZING.

You can read this one better- we saw signs for probably at least 50 miles out for various oddities, including the 8,000 pound prairie dog. That's right. 8,000. Eight. THOUSAND.

And other fun things, like 5 legged steers, rattle snakes, etc.

I'm sure they had a miniature pony too.

Alas, Matthew would not permit us to stop. It feels like you HAVE to stop. I mean, who has the audacity to claim they have -not a super huge prairie dog, no- an EIGHT THOUSAND POUND one! Amazing. I HAVE to meet these people!

Perhaps he was worried, like me, that it was a way to lure unsuspecting tourists (Utahans specifically? We'll never know...) to their hideout and then steal our car, clothes, money, lives... what have you.

But here we are. Haggard and making it slowly but surely!

It was no fun driving next to this big boy.

All along the way we saw lots of anti-abortion signs. It was just... an interesting thing to observe, I suppose.

I LOVE this! Manhattan, KS! "The little apple."

I feel like this is the only chance that Ogden and Manhattan, my two fave places, would ever be on an official sign together. So had to capture it.

Every time we passed signs for Kansas City I kept hearing Jackson 5.

There she is! Ol' Kansas City. A place where Matt's mom lived, my parents lived, and my big brosef (see pictures above) was born! Woo! Oh, and home of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Missouri was pleasant. Nice sunset sky.

And again- an observation. Just lots of signs that said JESUS. Nothing else. Just JESUS. I guess it was just to keep his name on our lips? It felt a little strange, but hey, I suppose he is omnipresent and that's one way to remind us all...

The Gateway to the West! The St. Louis Arch.

Illinois, here we come!

Arch again. Its big. 660ftX660ft. Big boy!

A picture of the city of St. Louis- Matthew was driving so this is really for him. Not a great picture, but you get the idea.

IL.

This felt like a bunch of big cities... Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisbille, and of course, St. Clair ave, whatever that is. Too bad they spelled Claire wrong, right?

And again... this gigantic cross! Like, this thing was HUGE. I think it was attached to a VERY small church, but it was just huge.

Indiana!

Lots of fireworks places. I think this was like a fireworks factory or something. I've forgotten.

Ohio!

Crazy amounts of Birds in OH.

West Virginia (we were ready to land, can you tell?)!

A cool bridge in a weird little place that I don't really remember now...

Pennsylvania!

WOO! Getting close!

And so. After 1,875 Miles (plus some, really), 11 States, and 4 pretty long days of driving (oh, and the turn of one New Year...) we made it to Maryland! Now that I'm writing this we've moved out of the Extended Stay America Hotel and we've moved on to post! Life is good, and we're feeling settled. And we'll be turning around and doing it all over again in about 2 months and a week!

Matthew after the trip:

Matthew's facial hair under control- gotta get that business into regulation before he does to work!

So there you have it. Sorry the commentary wasn't more interesting. We keep snapping pictures of adventures out here so I figured we'd move on to more posts rather than belabor this one any more.