Arrival

Whew! All is well, safe and sound in Maine. My email box is overflowing (250 messages!!!) as is my Bloglines (2014 updated feeds!!!) So please forgive me for the sluggishness of my updates and/or email responses, I’ll be up and running again in no time.

We arrived on the east coast June 11th, dropped the kiddos off at my in-laws for a visit, and Andy and I drove two days up to Maine to check out the new house and start doing the fix-ups it so badly needs. After a very intense week-and-a-half of sanding, sawing, and painting, we drove back to retrieve the girls and returned to Maine this evening.

As of today, I’ve spent 20 days of this month in a car. Bleh, bleh, and triple bleh. I’ve seen mountains, plains, and high sage country, and more interstate than any sane person would want to. I’ve seen snow and temperatures over 98 degrees Farenheit (and let me tell you I did not deal well with the heat. I’m totally acclimated to Alaska. Luckily, downeast Maine temperatures seem similarly moderate so far…) I’ve been in the only car in sight on a road in the Yukon, and I’ve seen my life passing before my eyes on the New Jersey Turnpike. I can hardly express how happy I am to be out of a moving vehicle.

Posting to the blog from the road proved impossible, as internet access on the Alcan (Alaska-Canadian highway) is sparse (read: non-existant); you may have predicted such, I was playing the die-hard optimist. Though we’re not totally set up at the new house yet, the neighbors are letting us “borrow” their wireless internet connection. (As a side note, we have the most awesome neighbors, it’s as though they were hand-chosen for us.) I’ve got an enormous amount to share, and hardly know where to start, so it will probably take a few days. First of all, there was a last minute addition to our entourage:

Yup, li’l Miss Hannah has made her first trip across the country, and actually seems better for the wear. She is very fond of us now. She didn’t ever figure out how to back up once she’d reached the end of her leash at the campsites each night, and so provided some of the more humorous moments of the journey. Nothing like a 15-foot nylon lead to take the edge off a haughty feline’s attitude… She and Rudy bonded while riding in the camper together. I caught them snuggling for an afternoon nap more than once.

I’m ashamed to admit there was surprisingly little knitting, but I was looking out windows and studying maps for most of the trip. I also picked up a nasty cold in British Colombia, which left me with a nasal infection for much of the trip. Ah well, there will be plenty of time for wool in the coming days… The Rusted Root sweater visited Mt. Rushmore, and I made Andy take a photo, since I never posted one of it finished.

I took so many photos, and there was so much to see. I should (and probably will) dedicate an album in my Flickr account to the trip and post a link. Here are some of my favorites, and I shall share more soon.

Belive it or not, all of those were taken either directly out the car window, or right off the road. What an amazing continent we live on…

All for now, and I promise to do some catching up very soon!