Long-Awaited Update

Well, we live here now. How about that. This wasn't intended to be only a travel blog, since we're still Noreasters, and don't necessary plan on living here forever, unless the housing market falls through the floor. Again. And maybe for a third time (seriously, for an asking price $600,000 @ 1200 sq. ft., you can rake the leaves, ingrate).

In the meantime, you can check out my Flickr photoset of San Francisco (which we don't live in) (yet).

Moving Vacation Best Of/Worst Of

• Best Hotel: Embassy Suites, Salt Lake City, UT
  
• Worst Hotel: Quality Inn, Lawrence, KS
  
• Best Continental Breakfast: Embassy Suites, Salt Lake City, UT
  
• Worst Continental Breakfast: Rodeway Inn, Reno, NV
  
• Best On The Road Lunch: The Chicago Diner, Chicago, IL
  
• Best On The Road Dinner: Free State Brewing Co., Lawrence, KS
  
• Best Random Roadside Attraction: Hannibal, MO (home of Mark Twain)
  
• Worst Random Roadside Attraction: Little America, WY
• Best Driving Experience: Being woken from a nap and seeing a gigantic wind farm
  
• Worst Driving Experience: The insane descent into SLC (beautiful, but Marc was driving)
  

Arrival

We arrived in San Mateo yesterday afternoon. Our apartment is nice and a decent size. Of course, we have nothing to fill it with. haha. We're at a coffee shop right now and Marc is trying to figure out the internet situation.

Right now we're at a coffee shop in downtown San Mateo. There's a really nice downtown area with quite a few asian and indian restaurants, which is always a good thing. After we're done here we're going to trek to Whole Foods to do a little grocery shopping.

General area demographics observations (only a trip to Target and 2 hours at a coffee shop to base this off of): Mostly white and asian, sprinkling of hispanic.

Current weather: Sunny, 70. Overnight low: high 50s. Marc loves it. It's beautiful, but I could go just a tad warmer. However, not having to use an AC is great.

We also have an address; I will email it very shortly. I love mail! (hint, hint)

Reno...

... is an odd city. We got here around 7 PM PST and, following our cross-country routine, only had enough energy to go get something to eat. Marc found another vegetarian/vegan diner (not as schwanky as the one in Chicago, but still delicious) in the downtown-ish area, but we did not feel like sticking around. I wouldn't characterize Reno as sleazy, but it's a little... off. It's like an Allentown with gambling. But we managed to find a cheap hotel and we leave tomorrow for San Mateo! I'm looking forward to getting a look at our new apartment and moving our (minimal amount of) stuff in. We might be sleeping on an air mattress for awhile, but we finally have our own place :)

Day 5 - The Great Divide

Picture Post:

Figure 15. Scrub brush and rolling hills -- Not quite the
Majesty I was expecting.

Figure 16. There's the Majesty. Unfortunately, I was driving
and someone-who-will-remain-nameless is slow with
grabbing the camera, so there are no pictures of Utah's
Fireworks 'N Liquor stores.

Figure 17. Again, Colorado to me says, "Rockies," not,
"Just like Kansas."

Figure 18. Ah, there we go.

Figure 19. Getting better..

Figure 20. More like the Arizona mesas, but I'll take it.

Figure 21. Not as impressive as it looks.

Figure 22. One of the impressive Utahan river valley
descents, but nothing like the final descent into Salt Lake
City. At that point, I was busy driving, and someone else
was holding on for dear life.

Figure 23. More valley.

Figure 24. While Em was on the phone with her grandmother,
I scrambled up a chalky mountain in slip-ons to snap some
shots of Echo Reservoir.

Figure 25. The white thing on the right is the car.
Harrowing descent.

Figure 26. Awww

Figure 27. Downtown SLC. Gorgeous, but I can't take
credit for this one.

Figure 28. This one, I can. Cheap cameras don't do well in
low light, but because SLC is in a basin with a larger
mountain to the East, pre-dawn has this odd glow,
and it's technically pre-dawn long after the sun has
risen on the other side of the mountain.

Playlist:

• Basically, just Freakonomics on cd.
  

Picture Post, Day 3 (short)

Figure 14. Y...yeah. Chicago.

Picture Post, Day 4 (Denver, CO)

Figure 9. Reppin' Wamego for my boy Zack.

Figure 10. Dwight Eisenhower's boyhood
Presidential Library and cement factory
(background).

Figure 11. Dwight D. Eisenhower is actually in the
statue. When druids pray around the circle on the
first Sunday of the lunar month, he wakes and
roams the grounds in search of Heinrich Himmler.

Figure 12. F This Guy

Figure 13. Thank You, Jeebus