Roadtrip Home

I made it to my new home in Oregon! The car, the kitties, my stuff... This move back to the greater PacNW is permanent, and I cannot express how glad I am for that. Never, ever will I ever move cross country again (so much for being a hobo). Bone China and other such goodies from grandmas, etc., are lovely keepsakes which I'm very glad to have. But there were times during this move when I truly questioned whether moving things was worth all the stress. It was! But I wouldn't do it again!

Here's a video I put together with some of my favorite people/memories in Arizona followed by a few pix of the move...



Music: Ellis Paul, "Roadtrip"


My home in Corvallis is awesome! I live in a big beautiful "vegetarian house" just one block from campus. It's a converted fraternity house. In fact, we're surrounded by frats and sororities, so real-life episodes of Gossip Girl and the OC are played out each evening on the sidewalks and yards, and waft in through my open windows during these last warm and lazy days of summer. It's humorous. But it's altogether impossible to be frustrated by this or any other distraction because the neighborhood is just beautiful. The trees are nothing short of glorious, and dwarf even the largest of homes. My room is similarly voluminous, with a fireplace and two windows on the second floor. But the best part of living in the veggy house, the part anyone like me coming from Phoenix could appreciate, are the people. They range from two years old to over sixty. Composters, bicyclers, community activitists, AmeriCorps members (a kindred spirit there), oceanography students, retirees, you name it. It is the quintessential cornucopia of the best of the Pacific Northwest. And I get to call them housemates, each one.

After this week's orientation and other logistical tidbits get tied up this week, I'll dive into the bug stuff once again. For that I can hardly wait. I also plan to find at least one of the more than 25 species of scorpions that live in the Northwest -- none of which I or anyone I know has ever seen.

I'm sorry to say my plans to experience a scorpion sting were smartly abandoned. A lot -- I mean a LOT -- of kooky things popped up over the past 8 weeks while gearing up for this move. At one point I was even poisoned by some structural "upgrades" at my apt resulting in an emergency room visit and temporarily having to move out. Flukey, eh? Inconvenient, to say the least. As other major things also began to go awry, I decided not to tempt fate with a bark scorpion sting; with my luck it would have induced a RARE allergic reaction or some such.