Burlington, VT

I have arrived in Burlington! After many, many hours spent driving we got to Burlington on Tuesday... technically it was Wednesday morning, I suppose. Wednesday during the day, I tried to resolve some administrative issues and walked away having resolved none of them but with a shiny new student ID in hand. Kinda frustrating, but eh *shrug*.
Thursday Kyle and I ventured north to visit the French-Canadians of Montréal. I was under the mistaken impression that it was a bilingual place. Really, it's just French-speaking, but they know English. It was rather fun to dust off my French skills a bit. We were both wrong to expect that we would easily find crepes there. However, we did explore the namesake of the city, Mount Royal, per Andrea's recommendation, and had a fun time walking all over it.

Montéal has bike boulevards! Oh, jealousy!

On Mont Royal, they don't have signs showing what the landmarks visible from the viewpoint are. Instead they have labeled sights, like gun sights. It's BRILLIANT!

cityscape behind us

The most incredible lawn mowing technique ever devised!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today, Friday, I dropped Kyle off at the airport for his return to the homeland. I got sad, but I distracted myself by getting admin stuff done that I failed to do on Wednesday, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy (and productive) inside. I also met the prof that I will be TA'ing for... which is the new term I must learn to replace the GSI'ing term used by the (valiant) Wolverines. Both mean that I am helping with the prof's teaching load. I got a really good first impression of her, and she said she will teach me SAS! (I'm pretty sure this will only mean something to Dre. It's a stats thing, don't bother to google it, Mom.)

Downtown Burlington... eerily Boulder-esque, non?

Rocky Mountains

We are in the Rocky Mountains!In front of Long's Peak

Wild and Intrepid Travel Report!

Kyle and I are alive and well in the fine town of Laramie, WY, the location of the University of Wyoming. Here we have located WiFi, or as they call it in Wyoming "WiFi". We have also located sandwiches and potatoes (do not worry, we also had potatoes in Idaho). Joy!

The first truly thrilling event of our trip was driving through a crazy, crazy bug cloud. The bug density was far above average and the car (and my bike, boo) show the results. The bug splats you see pictured below were "collected" in about a 10-15 second span of time.


Following a brave show of endurance during a late night drive, Kyle brought our party safely to Craters of the Moon National Monument. Here one can see the results of volcanic activity in the wild west. Only the boldest explorers dare to enter unattended; this is why we brought the guard cats...

The next morning we explored the caves on site and were lucky that our timing lined up well with a record-breaking guided walk. Unfortunately, the record broken was for the best attended guided walk of all time, so the interpretation suffered a bit. However, we did get to do the cave thing and learned a bit more than we would have sans guide.

After our Craters morning, we completed our crossing of Idaho and learned that they eat their fries there with "fry sauce" a blend that was described both as "ketchup mixed with mayonnaise" and "thousand island dressing without the chunks." I found it to be unremarkable, and salt and vinegar remains my favorite fry topping. Also, I am not sure if it is an Idaho thing or just the restaurant where we ate, but they called a fried bread (without any fruit) a scone. Foreign land!

Shortly past the Idaho border is Grand Teton National Park. Kyle and I went there, delighted in the free admission weekend, and watched evening fall over the mountains and Jenny Lake.


We woke up in Lander this morning, and visited NOLS for breakfast joint recommendations. They sent us to the The Maverick, where we worked together to conquer Kyle's enormous pancake!
Now, I am off the get the oil changed, possibly wash the car and take the cats for a walkabout. We should wake up tomorrow in Colorado!

Moving

So, I guess I really am moving... and doing a road trip. Just the same kind of circumstances that led to the formation of this blog so many years ago.

Kyle and I will get on the road tomorrow (Sat) morning with planned stops in The Tetons, Denver (maybe), Omaha, home and Montreal. I am really sad about leaving and nervous about arriving, so not too excited about things at this time. I'm sure the fact that I have not been working for a couple weeks adds to that feeling since seeking my life's work is the only reason I am leaving good ol' Portlandia. Not having the life-draining Netflix job constantly reinforcing to me why I am going makes a difference, unsurprisingly, in the way I feel. At the same time, everyone is appreciating me extra here and telling me how wonderful I am - who would want to leave that!? The promise of absence makes the hearts of my friends grow fonder :)

However, everyone I talk to who is in the know says that Vermont in general and Burlington specifically are lovely and good places to live. I will also get to live in a new region of the US, which is something that I have on my "to do" list. Heh, hopefully I won't be sour on Burlington for 2 years like I was on Portland...

All in all, I am overwhelmed. The cats seem calm about things at least.

Careful!

Don't put a bag over your baby's head!

This is picture helpfully included in some packaging material for a printer I recently acquired.

Unemployed

Yesterday was my last day at Netflix! Too bad it is time to start packing and not time to start following the example of the cats.