I'm glad we decided to get an early start on the drive up, as it ended up taking around 18 hours to make it all the way here. It was a long, grueling, and mostly uneventful journey. The only trouble, if you can call it that, came when my mom pulled up to a Chevron station in Oregon and began to pull out her card to swipe at the pump. The attendant was none too happy about that, saying that here in Oregon, gas stations are full service, meaning that only the attendants are allowed to touch the pumps in any way. He then pointed up at the side of the pump where it read, "Mini," as if that explained everything. He went on to allege that the state of Oregon was trying to take all of their jobs away, eyeing us as if we were part of the conspiracy.
(not the actual pump we were at)
But we made it up to Eugene in the end, and after a night's stay in a hotel, we arrived at River Terrace Apartments. We got a quick tour of the facilities and our new apartment and began to slog through the 43 page lease agreement. Then, we discovered that unloading things from a trailer and cars goes a lot faster than packing them in. It wasn't more than a few hours before we had everything in the apartment. We took a lunch break, stashed the Escalade and trailer in the mall parking lot down the road, took a quick drive through downtown Eugene, then got back to work. We made good progress, got to the point where Courtney and I felt confident that we would be able to handle it from there, then returned to the mall to have dinner at Dickie Jo's Burgers. Jeff and my mom decided to go ahead and leave from there to give themselves some extra time to make the trip home. We were, and are, so grateful to them both.
The past week has been a mix of further unpacking, shopping, and a bit of exploring. Highlights included walking around downtown to get our Eugene library cards, finally getting all of our books and DVDs unpacked and onto shelves in the second bedroom (or library, as we're calling it), and trying some new restaurants like Shari's (per Grandpa's suggestion) and Sushi Island (where plates of sushi ride around on conveyor belts).
Yesterday was the tough day. We drove up to Portland, did a bit of driving around, and shopped a bit at the Ikea there. Then I dropped Courtney off at the airport to catch her flight back to Ohio. At least that's what was supposed to happen. Unfortunately the flight from Portland ended up delayed too long for her to make her connection, and she was forced to spend the night in Denver. But, as I'm writing this (2 pm, Saturday), she has arrived in Columbus, collected her baggage, and been picked up by her mom AND CAMBRIE MY AWESOME SISTER IN LAW (edit requested by Cambrie).
This has ended up being a much longer post than I intended; I meant to just give a quick update. So I'll end it here with a couple of pictures of the area around our new home. As you'll now see, I'm not much of a photographer.
A view of the Delta Ponds Park from the River Terrace property
The Willamette River, a five minute walk from our apartment
P.S. I'll be sure to include some pictures of our apartment in my next post. But I'd like to get a bit more unpacking and cleaning up done before I do.
