7 Mile Hike, Gyros and Totes My Goats!

Our time in Austin so far has been AMAZING!!!

On Friday, we slept in, hung about a bit relaxing, and then went and had lunch at Thunder Cloud Subs, followed by a SEVEN MILE HIKE! It was actually super fun and aside from me standing in an anthill (lotta bites!) and having pinky toe problems, it was a great way to spend the day. We got a chance to talk, get some exercise, enjoy the fresh air, and see some beautiful scenery in Austin. I was surprised at how green it was, even though the creek bed was dried out.

Lunch at a locally owned sub shop

Natalie gave me a couple bracelets that are supposed to help with keeping bugs away, which is totally great and something that I need. But right out of the package, they smell very strongly of citronella!

After that, we got all cleaned up and then went to Tino's Greek Cafe for dinner where we got to meet some of Drew's new friends, who were all super nice and very tall. The food was great and the portions were huge! I got a gyro dinner plate that came with soup, salad, and three sides! Yummy!

To help us digest post-dinner, we relaxed and watched the sunset at a little pier area by Lake Austin. I was about to get coffee but decided to wait until we got to the movies. We went to this super cute movie theater called Alamo Drafthouse where the seats have counters in front of them and you can order dinner, drinks, dessert, etc. Drew, Jennifer and Adam ordered shakes, while I ordered hot chocolate chip cookies with ice cream. They were great supplements to an incredibly hilarious movie- I Love You, Man. I think that Drew and I did awkward arms during half the film.

View of Lake Austin at sunset

We ended the night by stopping at the grocery store to pick up egg dye for Easter eggs, and food for Sunday's bbq (can't wait to try the sweet tea) and then of course another round of Mexican Train Dominos before passing out and getting ready for another day of fun! We are loving our vacation/time off from work!

TEXAS!!!

From Carlsbad Caverns, we headed into Texas. The speed limit on the small highway was great- 80 mph! And we definitely drove friendly, the Texas way (just like the welcome sign asked us to!). We made a pitstop at Fort Stockton (to break up our drive to Austin). There wasn't much to see there, but our Super 8 hotel did have Texas shaped pancakes!




From there, we drove to Austin, TX where we were reunited with Drew and Jennifer!! First we arrived at Drew's house and hung out and caught up until it was time to pick Jennifer up from the airport.

Drew seeing Jennifer for the first time since August!

Before this trip, Jennifer and I had been talking about making "Family Reunion" t-shirts and surprising Drew with them. Of course, there wasn't any time at all before we moved and Jennifer had such a busy weekend on duty that I didn't think she would have the time to get the shirts sorted out (plus, I'm pretty sure I asked her about them on Tuesday and she said there were no shirts for us. Sad.). In any case, Jennifer surprised all of us with some FABULOUS shirts! I am so excited to wear them this weekend!! Thanks to Mitch, Stephen and anyone else who helped out!



We had dinner at this totally fun Tex Mex restaurant (Trudy's, I think?) and then ended the evening WCF style- with a LOOOONG game of Mexican Train Dominos, which we continued tonight...and must continue again tomorrow night to finish up all the rounds. Currently Adam is dominating at the dominoes!

Jennifer looks excited, but I'm pretty sure we were in round 6 of the game and all of us were dog-tired...except maybe Drew! Lol.

One week of canyons, caves, and the road!

The road trip has been going great! Adam and I first headed out to the Grand Canyon. We did a stayover in Kingman and ran lots of errands on our first few days- filled up our propane tank, got our tires rotated, bought a few extra supplies, and then we were set.

It was my first time going to the Grand Canyon, and it was definitely grand! It was also incredibly cold, which I don't think we were quite expecting. We're glad we brought our heavy coats after all- good call on the u-turn back to Ridgecrest. We camped at the Mather Campground and cooked as much food as we could...needing to clear out the car because we overpacked in that area. (6 chicken breasts + 6 tilapia filets, + 6 turkey burger patties)/2 people = way too much food!

Wooden bears! Just for Drew and Jennifer!

The view of the road...we'll be seeing a lot of this... =)

My first views of the Grand Canyon! It's grand! And canyon-ey!

It was really cold there...around 40 degrees in the daytime!

After Grand Canyon, we made our way towards Albuquerque. We had a great time with Adam's family (his Uncle Mike, Aunt Dorothy, cousin Cody and Uncle Roger). Aunt Dorothy made delicious green chile enchiladas for dinner. The next day we went to Padillas for stuffed sopapillas, and we got to see the new house that Adam's parents just bought. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Albuquerque in the future!!!

On our way towards Albuquerque, we decided to stop and see the Petrified Forest in Arizona

Sadly, after talking with the park ranger, we found out that we should've gone to the Petrified Forest through their other entrance in Holbrook...so we didn't see it after all! Next road trip!

Entering New Mexico!!

Adam's parents' new house in Albuquerque

It's official!

Cody, Aunt Dorothy, Adam, Shocky and Mr. Mario =)

After Albuquerque, Adam and I headed out to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. We stopped in Roswell, NM for a quick Dairy Queen stop so that Adam could eat his cherry dipped ice cream. He said it wasn't as good as he remembered when he used to visit his grandma.

The caves were really neat. We got to Carlsbad in the evening, so we left for the caves the following morning. We got to the caves around 10am and did the 1.5 mile hike down into the caves followed by the self guided tour of the Big Room. Then we did a little picnic in the car to avoid the gusty winds, and then we went on a guided ranger tour of the King's Palace. The caves were really neat, and definitely a new and different experience. Took tons of pix...they came out so-so because of the lighting. =) Plus I haven't uploaded any of my pictures from my dSLR so maybe I'll have more to add later.

Adam and his cherry dipped cone...which turned out to be gross and not at all what Adam thought it would taste like. Most of the coating ended up in the trash.

Roswell had a lot of alien-themed motifs around town, including alien streetlamps and this UFO shaped McDonalds. We didn't see anything, but we did see something green shoot through the sky. Not sure what that was though. Hmmmm...?

We walked through miles of cave formations like the one above. They have lights installed so that you can see some of the more spectacular cave formations, but without the arfiticial lights, it would be pictch black. On our ranger led tour, we got to experience the total darkness if there were no lights, which was neat.

Sadly, we missed the bats this time. I guess every year in the summer, thousands of bats fly out of the mouth of the cave at dusk, but we were too early. Next time!

Last Day and First Day

My last day of work didn't feel like my last day of work. I even tried to check work email today (but I have already been taken off so no more ejyee for me). We were trying to get out of the house by 3pm, but alas...we decided to stay to have dinner with Jennifer and Ray. At least, that's my story! It definitely wasn't because we weren't finished packing or that I had a breakdown at the house, jamming things into bags, boxes, etc. We didn't leave the house as clean as I would have liked, and we did forget a few things at the house, like sponges, dishwash soap and other random things under the sink. Oops.

Thankfully, we ended the evening with some YUMMY India Cook House. We ordered the normal Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Korma, with sides of garlic naan and veggie samosas. That totally hit the spot and I was definitely feeling much better. Plus it was great company.

Thanks Mitch, Ray, Joe, Stephen and Jennifer for this wonderful scrapbook page:


Don't worry, Jennifer made sure that we were removed by April 2, 2009. Seriously, I don't know if we would have been able to make the move without her. Especially since she offered to take additional stuff to the Goodwill and to Working Wardrobes for us and act as my storage unit for all my scrapbook supplies. We owe her big time. Like, BIG time.

We made it into Ridgecrest by Thursday at 11:30pm. This morning, we got up early and pretty much spent the entire day going through all of our stuff because we were literally just tossing things into bins and bags the day before and nothing was sorted quite right. By the end of the day, we had our Road Trip pile, our Peace Corps pile, and our Store for 2 Years at the Yee House pile. Kind of like Clean House, except that nothing was going away and it still seemed like we had way too much stuff. We ended up purging another box of things to take to Goodwill. We finally headed out of Ridgecrest around 7:30pm and only had to do one U-turn (we decided it would be a good idea to bring heavier coats with us on this roadtrip after all. No need to experience Sequoia Round 2).

Matrix packed to the brim and ready to go on our 2 month trip!

Now I am at the hotel in Kingman, AZ studying some Spanish (sort of). We had a pretty decent first day of our roadtrip (made it to Kingman in 4.5 hours) and only forgot eggs (yup, left the dozen eggs in Adam's parents' fridge). We also realized that we brought 6 chicken breasts, 6 tilapia filets, and 6 turkey burgers for the two of us. Drew and Jennifer aren't with us to help make a dent. Hopefully they stay frozen until Austin so we can grill out!

On the schedule for tomorrow- Route 66 Museum, Wal-mart for supplies, possibly get our tires rotated and then GRAND CANYON!! Can't wait!

Moving

Wow, moving is so stressful when you aren't just moving things from one house to another. We have moved lots of unnecessary things from San Diego to Ann Arbor to our three homes in Irvine. So now that we are in the mode of getting rid of everything except the bare essentials, it makes me realize how much I have and how little I really need.

I think the other thing that is challenging for us is that we want to make sure that all the things we are getting rid of finds a new home elsewhere and doesn't go to waste. Thank goodness for Freecycle (and Craiglist too)! If you haven't checked it out, go to http://www.freecycle.org/ to get the scoop. We've been able to pass on everything from a filing cabinet to partially used toiletries (like lotions and such). If I had more time, I'd probably Freecycle the spices and other miscellaneous things that we are finding in our last 2 days here but can't take with us. And of course, Goodwill does not take partly used food items!

I cannot believe that I have one more night here in Irvine. Though there is a possibility that if we don't get everything packed up and cleaned in time, we are S.O.L. (and I don't mean our house, which for those of you that don't know, is named Sol) and will have to stay for another night and push our trip out.

Too much miscellaneous!

Ok well it is very late but I'll post pix of the mess that is our house!!

All my scrapbooking supplies that ended up not fitting in the car (aside from Lupe's Cricut supplies since they weren't mine). Now I am renting storage space from Jennifer Gamble. ;)

Miscellaneous things for the road...like Zout!