Westward the Tide

Arizona has been amazing so far. Of course it's April so the weather is perfect, and I'm at home since my new job hasn't started yet so my view might be a little skewed. But still. One thing I just didn't expect was the vast variety of landscape and temperatures in the state.

I always just assumed Arizona = desert and hot. But we stopped for a night to camp in Flagstaff before we finished our trip to Phoenix and it was a beautiful 50 degree day with pine trees and a gentle wind off the mountain. It was like something straight out of a book. I would have thought I was in northern California if I had not just driven over the state line earlier that day.

We grilled trout over a fire, sat and took in nature's beauty after driving 1600 miles the past few days, and - my personal favorite - got to live out my dream of being Laura Ingalls Wilder in a log cabin for the night. True, our log cabin had electricity, a mini fridge, and a tv, but close enough!!

Yep, I've gone western. Now all I need to do is find me a hat, boots, and start saying ain't and y'all. Oh and figure out what on earth to wear when the temperatures start hitting 115 degrees in summer....

Notes from the Road

I'm back! We arrived in Arizona safely and are finally starting to settle in to a somewhat normal routine. I even managed to land a full time job right away that starts in 2 weeks. I'm absolutely loving the southwest so far, but I wanted to recap a few photos from our trip down here.

We rented a 16 foot truck, had 10 of our amazing friends come out Friday night to help us pack, and left Saturday morning. We were so blessed to have our friends help, there's no way we would have been able to get everything in there ourselves. It was also a very sobering experience to realize just how much stuff we have. We ended up leaving quite a lot of furniture here because it wouldn't fit. It's all in storage now, but once we unpack I want to go through everything and get rid of half of it. It's a bit humiliating to see all of the utter crap we've collected over the years. A purge is definitely required.

Most of our trip looked like the above photo. Lots of flat plains and trucks. I almost wish we had some interesting story from our drive, like we blew a tire or saw something crazy, but I'm really really thankful that we didn't! We made it from Wisconsin to Kansas City the first night and visited with Kacey's grandma who lives there. Then it was on to Amarillo Texas the second night. I have to say, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, most of Oklahoma, and the panhandle of Texas look almost exactly the same. Sorry midwest, but you're a bit boring when it comes to landscape.

But then this happened in Amarillo:

And it restored my faith in the ridiculousness that I was hoping Texas would be. I sort of love it with all my heart. We can be friends Texas, although next time I'm there can you keep at least one BBQ restaurant open? I was pretty disappointed I couldn't try it this time.

When we rolled into Arizona 3 days later, it was beautiful and sunny, and perfect. We had a crazy week where we bounced around from place to place until we could move in to the place we're renting for the summer. Phoenix seems awesome and I can't wait to explore everything that this new city and state have to offer! First up, some Mexican food! Somebody get me a burrito, because I need to clear out these sinuses of mine. They haven't quite adjusted to the blooming desert yet.