A beautiful Christmas Eve day in Seattle

What another wonderful sunny day today.  We took the dogs for a extra long walk and then headed for Pike Place Market.  We figured it would be  crowded the day before Christmas, and we were right!  We still enjoyed ourselves, walking the mile down there and enjoying a nice breakfast at The Athenian.  We have breakfasted there before, but it has a wonderful view of the water and it was a nice start.

We did a little shopping, but believe it or not, spent a good deal of time looking for a drug store.  We found one just a block away from the 8 story Macy’s, which we ended up shopping at, as I needed some nice cookie sheets.

Not much else to say about today.  We will be spending Christmas with just the 4 of us tomorrow, which is fine for us this year; much unpacking and baking to do tomorrow, But, we will get to spend Monday with some good friends.

B and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Holiday Season and will keep you up to date throughout the New Year.

At The Athenian for breakfast

Outside at Pike Place Market

The pups are feeling right at home

We made it!

3,500.  That’s the number of miles we ended up traveling as we finally reached the front door of our home here in Seattle.  This last day was the easiest as we only had about 160 miles from Portland.  And wouldn’t you know it, the rainy city greeted us with a full day of nice sunshine!

We were a bit worried how the dogs would adjust to living on the 9th floor of a downtown condo, but staying in 6 different hotels over the last 8 nights, from the 1st to the 6th floors, prepared them, I think.  They are used to elevators now and didn’t hesitate a bit, to go out, when I opened the door to our little porch area, 9 stories up.

It was a long journey for all of us, but all in all, it went well.  To be honest, though, I will probably have nightmares for the foreseeable future, mostly concerning loading and unloading a vehicle over and over again.  And, I never want to make 12 trips up and down 3 flights of stairs at 5am, ever, ever, again.

I hope everyone has enjoyed our trip.  But, don’t turn me off now; I plan on continuing this journey as we start our new lives here.  Check in from time to time and I hope to have new adventures for you, or at least a tale or two, which B says I’ve become known for.  I will do my best to keep it rated below an “R”.  Chow for now.

Outside the condo before the "last" unloading

B and Bajhi by Puget Sound

Bajhi checking out her new digs

No caption needed:)

Portland Skyline

Not much to share today.  It was a bit of a shorter drive and we spent the first part of the trekk in the mountains of Northern California.  We made it to Portland without much fanfare and the fact that we are only 150 miles from our destination is killing us.  But, we decided against trying to press on; it would have seen us arrive in Seattle during rush hour, and neither one of us wanted that.

More tomorrow once we arrive and get settled into our new home.  Chow.

Howdy!

We hit California today, and spent most of the day driving through/around/skirting the Mohave Desert.  Beautiful, desolate and brown are the best way to describe our drive through most of Southern California.  What stuck out the most was the endless array of mountain ranges on both sides of us.

As you can see from the picture below, the rest stop we hit in the middle of our desert drive was all dirt; the dogs took a few minutes to understand that this was indeed the “grass” in which to do their business.

We saw multiple Wind Mill Farms between Barstow and Bakersfield, and I gotta’ tell you, the driving in Bakersfield is horrendous.  I think our drive tomorrow to Redding, CA will be nothing but heavy traffic.  I am starting my deep breathing exercises tonight!

Windmills were like trees for miles

Our terrain for hours

B and Bajhi, Snow Divas

For the very first time in my 42 years, I believe I have met “the wall” in terms of being physically whipped.  No joke.  So, with that measly excuse, ahem, we have decided to stay in Flagstaff a third night and won’t depart for Bakersfield, CA until Tuesday.

So,  with some extra time on our hands we spent a good part of our Sunday morning at a wonderful dog park we found just a few miles from the hotel.  The dogs had a great time and used up some good energy.  We will probably go back tomorrow.

We went downtown today to do some shopping and just in time to witness a beautiful snow fall.  Flagstaff has some great stores in it’s historic district and we found it utterly amazing that we met 3 different people (in the store where I bought some new boots) that were all transplants from Seattle (and all missed living there, though they love Flagstaff). We had some good conversations today and got some good tidbits about our new home.

We happened to look at the weather channel today and noticed that Albuquerque and Amarillo both got dumped on today, 6 plus inches of snow!  Guess we got this far just in time.

Snow Flurries in Downtown Flagstaff

Hello, from Flagstaff!

If you told me it would get colder as we traveled south and west I would have thought you were nuts….

We finally hit snow today, as we landed in beautiful Flagstaff, Arizona.  Chalk up another 600 mile day, which started at 4:00am., but saw us not actually hit the road until 5:50. Why, you ask?  Because the large hotel we stayed at last night had only two luggage carriers, and two very, very wonderful people decided to take them up to their room last night and sleep with them, leaving me to take exactly 11 trips up and down 3 flights of stairs, before coffee was consumed, in order to leave when we did.

It was dark when we left the smelly plains of Texas, and we were greeted with a wonderful sunrise in the beautiful state of New Mexico.  What a pleasant drive it was, too.  It’s hard to describe, but there was something mystical about driving through an endless highway with almost no traffic.

B says Flagstaff reminds her of Boulder.  I couldn’t say, but it does have a ski town feel to it.  It is also the home to Northern Arizona University, so there is also a nice college vibe here.  We found a nice pizza place called PICAZZO’S that has almost a full gluten free menu.  The pizza was good and B was happy; which is all good:)

We are spending two nights here, so hopefully I will have more tomorrow.  Chow.

Wait, wait, wait. We're moving where??