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In which we have arrived...
Aug. 5th, 2007 10:46 pmI kept intending to post about our trip... I mean, it's (hopefully) the only cross-country drive of this type that I'm going to do, at least in the relatively near future, and it was an adventure. We ran into SCA folks on their way to an event in the parking lot of a mini-mart in Missouri (Calontir), saw two zoos (St. Louis and Denver), ate at a wide variety of restaurants (from the /fabulous/ Fat Toney's in St. Louis to the forgettable and over priced Last Territory in Tucson), logged in somewhere over fifty hours of driving time between the two of us, and saw a lot of really interesting things.
We encountered wild antelope in New Mexico, White Castle burgers and "Red Pop" in Missouri, and a 20 foot tall statue of a prairie dog somewhere along the road in Kansas (I think it was Kansas... that was on our 871 mile day, and it's all a bit of a blur).
As I said, I kept intending to post all about it, but as we're getting our feet under us and moving forward, it's already fading into the background in the light of the hustle and bustle of preparing for the Viking's first day at work (tomorrow) and the Valkyrie's first day of school (Wednesday) and my return to work on the three projects I'm currently contracted for with White Wolf.
As things stand, we made it safely from Massachusetts to Bisbee, Arizona, and we're now looking forward to nothing longer than a 5 hour drive sometime soon to see my parent's in Yuma.
We sold our house (it closed on the 1st, despite an 11th hour attempt by the buyers to bully us out of 2K /more/ in financial concessions), and are now living in a vacation rental in Bisbee. It's a little two bedroom place we're (somewhat) affectionately refering to as "Aunt Selma's House*". It's easily 100 years old, but in that "wasn't fantastic when it was built and hasn't improved much since" kind of way that many old houses can be. But, it's cheap ($850 a month rent with no pet or security deposits. This includes all our utilities other than cable and the internet.) and it's much bigger on the inside than I expected (many houses in Old Bisbee are under 1000 square feet, having been built as miner's homes early on in the town's history). And, it's on a month by month basis, rather than an ongoing lease, so we are keeping our options open for finding the right house for sale when the time comes. Most of our stuff is in storage at the moment, but we're settling in bit by bit.
Eventually, we're wanting to get a place of our own, probably out in the area north of Hwy 90 in the area called San Jose (not /the/ San Jose, mind you, but the San Jose district in Bisbee, which consists of maybe 60 or 80 1 to 2 acre lots with houses (predominantly brick ranch styles, built in the 50s and early 60s).) But, the market's still doing a slow creep down from the insane heights of last year and the year before, so we're biding our time and watching for the right place in the mean time.
I've got tons of pictures I need to figure out how to download onto my new little mac laptop (my Viao died just before the move, which was /quite/ frustrating. But since the Viking had bought it for me when I first decided to take up writing professionally, almost 7 years ago now, it probably deserved to be retired. It weighted a ton, and I'd written three full-length novels and hundreds of thousands of words of game material on it.) But when I figure it out, I'll post some of the images from our trip, and the beginnings of our life in Bisbee.
(* = When we first saw the inside of the vacation rental, we were all a bit disappointed. It's chock full of Goodwill-quality furnishings, eclectic decor (predominantly from the 60s-70s) and makeshift updates/repairs. But, it's a roof over our head, and it will work okay for us for the time being. But in the spirit of keeping a positive outlook at it, we've decided amongst the three of us that it's not really 'our" house. It's more like the home of your crazy but generous Great Aunt, who lets you live in her place while she's out wrestling alligators in the Congo or the like. It's full of weird little bits, and no matter what you do, it will never really be "home", but it's okay for now and you're grateful for it, for what it is.)
We encountered wild antelope in New Mexico, White Castle burgers and "Red Pop" in Missouri, and a 20 foot tall statue of a prairie dog somewhere along the road in Kansas (I think it was Kansas... that was on our 871 mile day, and it's all a bit of a blur).
As I said, I kept intending to post all about it, but as we're getting our feet under us and moving forward, it's already fading into the background in the light of the hustle and bustle of preparing for the Viking's first day at work (tomorrow) and the Valkyrie's first day of school (Wednesday) and my return to work on the three projects I'm currently contracted for with White Wolf.
As things stand, we made it safely from Massachusetts to Bisbee, Arizona, and we're now looking forward to nothing longer than a 5 hour drive sometime soon to see my parent's in Yuma.
We sold our house (it closed on the 1st, despite an 11th hour attempt by the buyers to bully us out of 2K /more/ in financial concessions), and are now living in a vacation rental in Bisbee. It's a little two bedroom place we're (somewhat) affectionately refering to as "Aunt Selma's House*". It's easily 100 years old, but in that "wasn't fantastic when it was built and hasn't improved much since" kind of way that many old houses can be. But, it's cheap ($850 a month rent with no pet or security deposits. This includes all our utilities other than cable and the internet.) and it's much bigger on the inside than I expected (many houses in Old Bisbee are under 1000 square feet, having been built as miner's homes early on in the town's history). And, it's on a month by month basis, rather than an ongoing lease, so we are keeping our options open for finding the right house for sale when the time comes. Most of our stuff is in storage at the moment, but we're settling in bit by bit.
Eventually, we're wanting to get a place of our own, probably out in the area north of Hwy 90 in the area called San Jose (not /the/ San Jose, mind you, but the San Jose district in Bisbee, which consists of maybe 60 or 80 1 to 2 acre lots with houses (predominantly brick ranch styles, built in the 50s and early 60s).) But, the market's still doing a slow creep down from the insane heights of last year and the year before, so we're biding our time and watching for the right place in the mean time.
I've got tons of pictures I need to figure out how to download onto my new little mac laptop (my Viao died just before the move, which was /quite/ frustrating. But since the Viking had bought it for me when I first decided to take up writing professionally, almost 7 years ago now, it probably deserved to be retired. It weighted a ton, and I'd written three full-length novels and hundreds of thousands of words of game material on it.) But when I figure it out, I'll post some of the images from our trip, and the beginnings of our life in Bisbee.
(* = When we first saw the inside of the vacation rental, we were all a bit disappointed. It's chock full of Goodwill-quality furnishings, eclectic decor (predominantly from the 60s-70s) and makeshift updates/repairs. But, it's a roof over our head, and it will work okay for us for the time being. But in the spirit of keeping a positive outlook at it, we've decided amongst the three of us that it's not really 'our" house. It's more like the home of your crazy but generous Great Aunt, who lets you live in her place while she's out wrestling alligators in the Congo or the like. It's full of weird little bits, and no matter what you do, it will never really be "home", but it's okay for now and you're grateful for it, for what it is.)
