Let's Trek Forward: photos

Last Monday, an 18-wheeler pulled up in front of our house. A group of 6 or 7 movers came in and packed up all of our things.

Another guy came to build crates for our TV and a glass tabletop.
Movers have a weird method for packing everything. One newbie on the moving crew packed a lamp in 3 separate boxes. 1 lamp, 3 boxes. I also saw him put a guitar, a drum, and ramen noodles in one box.

Castle in the kitchen...okay, that makes sense...

Boxes everywhere.

The movers put in about 11 hours that day to get all of our things packed in boxes and loaded on the truck.
We stayed the night at my parents' house, cleaned up our house a little the next day, and then headed out. Also, a guy came to put Justin's car on a trailer bound for Phx.

The first day, we drove to Nashville, TN. A lot of the photos I'm posting are tagged with their specific locations in Picasa. And the coolest thing is, you can see a map showing all the photos I took with my phone on the trip in the locations where I took them! https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/albumMap?uname=JamieCRichardson&aid=5595127228671512161#map

The mountains of NC and TN were very pretty.

The cats did not appreciate the scenery as much. Beeb was meowing woefully. Spooky was lounging contentedly the whole time. Callie spent some time lounging and some time meowing.

A Smart car passed us on the highway. Justin was surprised "Is that a Smart car on the highway?"

I responded "Yes, and she's passing you." The speed limit was 75 for much of our drive!

After 6 hours of driving, we were very happy to see Nashville, where we planned to stay the night.

We left the cats in the hotel room and ate dinner at McNamara's Irish Pub.

The next day, we left Nashville and drove for over 10 hours to stay the night in Yukon, OK.
The Tennessee River was really pretty.

We saw an interesting silver pyramid in Memphis.

We crossed the Mississippi River! Justin had never seen it before.

These pictures are blurry because they were taken by a phone through the filthy window of a moving car, FYI.
I didn't take many in Arkansas....frankly it's not the most exciting state to drive through.

Oklahoma was a little better.
I enjoyed seeing many huge wind turbines.

In Texas you could see for miles.

There were also cattle, which is what you expect to see when you're in Texas.

I have a lot of great photos to sort through from the rest of the drive, so I'll be posting more later :-)

Thursday evening, I flew out to Phoenix for the purpose of finding an apartment for Justin, myself, and the cats. Alex picked me up from the airport, despite the fact that she was in a car accident the previous day. She took me to a restaurant called Postino for dinner. The ambiance was very relaxed and fun. The doors were open to the patio, where mist was spraying from above. Reggae music was playing. We sat on the patio and it was really a perfect temperature. We each got a cup of soup and shared a delicious and intriguing bruschetta plate.

Bruschetta at Postino

In case you're interested, the flavors from left to right are: warm artichoke spread, brie & apples with fig spread, roasted peppers with goat cheese, and smoked salmon with pesto. All amazing. And they randomly gave us 3 olives on the side...we couldn't figure out the reasoning behind giving 2 people 3 olives.

I may talk about food a lot in this entry, because I'm really excited by the wide variety of wonderful restaurants in Phoenix.

Friday morning, we got up early and went to work out at Alex's gym, and then we went to eat breakfast at a little place called Tryst Cafe. No pictures from that, since we were very hungry and just dug right in. The food there is all organic and delicious. After breakfast, the apartment search began.

We visited 5 different apartment complexes. Overall, I was disappointed to find that most of them were more expensive than their websites led me to believe. They just happened to be all out of the cheaper apartments, apparently. At one apartment complex, the woman who worked there, when I complained about the high pet rent taking the total beyond my budget, said "do you have to bring the cats?" Are you kidding me?!? Maybe some people treat their pets like objects but we treat them like part of the family. How presumptuous, to assume we want to live in their complex so badly that we'd give up our sweeties. Grrr. Another place had beautiful landscaping and ponds, but really mediocre bland interiors.

I actually picked out one apartment complex while I was there, but after coming home and talking to Justin, we decided we could afford to spend a little more, and live slightly out of the way in order to live in a safer, classier neighborhood. The apartment complex we decided on is actually very nice and new. It has a nice fitness room, some free group exercise classes, a rooftop solarium at the clubhouse with 2 gas grills, 2 saltwater swimming pools, hot tubs, balcony, walk-in closets, and covered parking. It's a little far north, at the very edge of Phoenix, but still just 10 minutes from my job and around 10 minutes from a movie theater and some stores and restaurants.

Here are some photos I took at our apartment of choice; click to view larger:

Rooftop Solarium at the Clubhouse

Dining Room and Kitchen

One of the pools

Living Room and Patio

Bathroom

Sometimes the way they stage these apartments is kind of strange and funny. In one bedroom, there was fake Chinese takeout on a tray on the bed! It was a little gross, I think.

After we looked at all the apartments I was interested in, we got to do fun things for the rest of the weekend. We ate at various restaurants, went in the pool, and walked around various malls.