We are "home" finally!

Apologies for the lateness of this, our drive this morning was actually pretty short, about 4 hours, so we didn't really stop anywhere suitable for posting, and then when we got here it was all about getting settled, exploring, figuring out where to put things, dealing with huffy kitties and finding out that at some point along the trip our Xbox was stolen.

So, yes, we are here and we are safe and sound and the cats are starting to forgive us for all the indignities we heaped upon them.

Than is exploring the possibility that we can do an insurance claim on the Xbox, but we aren't holding our breath. We are looking at it this way. On a long trip there is always something that goes horribly wrong. This time it was a 300 dollar game system (he'd said 400 to me earlier but he's since looked it up and it was 300, still a lot of money) It wasn't the cats, the car, or us. It sucks, but it is certainly not the end of the world.

Here are some pics of the new digs. Sorry, some of them are a bit dark and some are a bit blurry, but I snapped them in a bit of a hurry and didn't check them. We wanted pics before we moved our mass of stuff in and messed it all up. I'll try to take better ones once I get our stuff situated neatly.














We then went for a drive, picked up some breakfast foods, obtained adult beverages, had dinner at One Pot Shabu Shabu (OMGAWESOME, Google it, it's fabulous) and then did a little walking tour of the place where he will be working soon! We are back now, it is 10PM here so... late for most of my friends and family. Lots to do tomorrow, lots and LOTS.

So close we can smell it

But not quite there yet. We are currently in a very nice room at the holiday inn suites in Bakersfield, CA. This one has a full bar and we are taking advantage of it whilst the kitties explore the new single serving digs. One more day on the road and we will be in our temporary home in Los Gatos! Will probably post something more substantial later tonight or in the morning, I have too many pics to go through to do it right now, but here is a shot of the spinach artichoke dip we are about to partake in.

It's official!

We have now officially entered California!!

Fritters for critters and also some knitting

Having breakfast in Holbrook AZ, and since we didn't stay at a "real hotel" this time we had no breakfast bar, so off we went to the closest thing that offerred a food like substance, Donuts Plus. We didn't expect much from the nondescript appearance of the building, but woah. What a surprise! Free wifi to start with, lovely fresh donuts and real coffee.
Here you can see that the little critters highly approved of our breakfast selections...

Don't judge, I'll go back on weightwatchers when I have a damn kitchen again :P Also don't let the cups and such fool you, this place is called Donuts Plus, not Daylight Donuts, but whatever, those donuts were goooood.
I haven't been able to do quite as much car knitting as I'd have liked due to the fact that I ended up having to keep the littlest cat in my lap to keep her calm (in her carrier of course, not loose) but I've done some, and my Piper's Journey is coming along. I finally decided I had enough of the stockinette part and started the knitted on border. I have like 280 stitches on the needles now.

It's freakin gorgeous, I love this yarn! The lace pattern was easy to memorize so I'm going to keep at it and see how far I can get in the next two days.
Ok, enough of this lolly gagging we have to go now and commence with the torturing of innocent kitties, because we are mean and don't love them at all. :)

One step closer

Dodgy internet again, so I'm just not beating my head up against the wall trying to get in a long post. I get better connections at the welcome centers and Love's Travel Centers, so I'll post more at our first stop tomorrow. Since I do rely on wifi to post through my iPad, and it sucks to post a big long post from my phone.

I do want to thank all of my many many MANY friends and family members for understanding that we are on the road, wrangling cats and dealing with spotty intermittent network connections, so if we can't respond individually or remember to post about every single detail we REALLY appreciate all the patience you've shown. The last thing we need during this little adventure is more stress, and all of your understanding allows us to deal with as little of it as possible, and we sure do appreciate it. Really, seriously... like.. a lot! :D
Now I'm going to have a nice adult beverage and have a little relax time before everything goes boom and explodes with fun again!

Also here is a picture of a cute sleeping kitty who is exhausted from meowing incessantly since we left Shamrock, TX.

Silly interlude

Just a quick post from a rest stop near Gallup, NM.

In Kentucky we stopped at a place and I saw this cute lil guy.

I didn't notice at the time that his "name" was supposed to be Santa Claws, (UGH) but even later I noticed how they had him listed on the receipt! I didn't see the resemblance at first, but then I did a bit of doodling and voila!

HO HO HO! I had no idea Santa Claus was really a tiny stuffed lobster...and now I know!

Another very fine rest stop

Not quite as nice as the Oklahoma welcome center, but still very nice, is the welcome center of New Mexico, I40-W. Free wifi FTW! The coolest thing here, and the only thing worth taking a picture of, is this bronze cast of a brontosaurus bone, complete with chomp marks.



Now for a bit of a proper blog post.

The trip yesterday was fairly uneventful, but we did see these fantastic windmills going through Oklahoma.


The picture doesn't remotely do them justice. I also got some video of them as we passed, and I did manage to get at posted on YouTube. You should be able to see it here. Let me know if that doesn't work. The music in the background is Billy Cobham, from a cd burned for us by Than's dad. Excellent jams!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdUtxCsDvOQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Passing through Oklahoma City we saw this and I JUST managed to snap a quick shot of it.


Turns out this was the Skydance Bridge, which is a Big Deal there and they light it with pretty colors at night. I'd like to come back and see that someday, I bet it is a gorgeous sight. Here is a pic I found on the Internet.



Google it, there are lots, it is awesome!

The cats are fine, but Trinity seems determined to meow for the entire trip no matter how much Valium we give her. We are starting to hunger for kitty steaks!

As I mentioned, the last stop was pretty much sub-par, but the beds were comfortable and the place was clean, so no real complaints aside from the ridiculously bad Internet access and the horrible coffee in the morning. Trillian did manage to scare us by getting up under the bed where we had to literally lift the mattress and box spring to get to her, but she was safe and sound and no harm done.

Neo resisted dosing so vehemently that we decided to let him stay sober, and honestly he is just fine, he's the quietest of all of them, so that's one less thing to worry about there.

Our next stop is Holbrook, Arizona, which google maps is telling me is about 7 hours away. That puts us there around 10PM Cincinnati time, 8PM New Mexico time. Hopefully the Internet access will be better there.

Ok, enough rest, the road is calllinnnggggggg.....