Seattle, WA for the Long Haul...I Hope!

This is going to be a long post as too many big events have happened since my last post.

I seem to have a habit of coming back to places I've lived in before, and it has happened again. Shortly after a huge life change, - getting married to an amazing fellow in Madison, WI - I experienced another big change - starting a new job. It didn't stop there though...Just a week into my new job, my hubby, Mike, got offered a job with the organization for which he has wanted to work for a long time in Seattle, WA! We haven't even had time to go on a honeymoon, and we had to leave our jobs in Madison, sell our house, and move to the Pacific Northwest.

This is particularly huge because Mike has only ever lived in the Midwest, while I, on the other hand, have lived in Seattle when I attended 8th grade and 9th grade but hated it at the time. I knew now that my contempt was associated with having a bad time fitting in at school and less so with the actual city, so I'm excited to experience the city with a fresh mindset!

The journey to Seattle took us longer than expected. To anyone driving a moving truck to Seattle from east of Wyoming, avoid the route that takes you through Cheyenne, WY in late Fall through early Spring! We got stuck in Cheyenne for four days due to sustained strong winds, which is apparently normal in the area! We finally had to go south in order to get back west because we would've been stuck indefinitely in Cheyenne if we wanted to continue on our original route! Our journey took us through Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Portland, and Washington! Our kitties endured the drive through 10 states! They deserve some kind of medal for a heroic display of cat patience!

Kitties spent way too much time in the car!

The best thing about being cooped up in windy Cheyenne - great breakfast at Luxury Diner

Boy cat opened every drawer and cabinet at every hotel room

Girl cat caught up on her beauty sleep

Thanks to our friend's great apartment suggestion, we settled into Lynnwood, a neighborhood north of Seattle. The neighborhoods east of Seattle are extremely popular and pricey and the traffic getting into downtown Seattle is particularly bad. The traffic is still bad from here to downtown Seattle, but it's still better than coming from the east.

Lynnwood seems like a very diverse area with easy access to a plethora of awesome grocery stores and restaurants. Route 99 (runs north and south) has become our lifeline as I can get all of my daily errands done along this road! There are also several things we've noticed on Route 99 that are very different from our neighborhood in Madison: 1) Legal marijuana shops, 2) at least 1 brick and mortar and/or coffee trailer/shack stationed at every block, 3) coffee shacks that feature scantily clad baristas, 4) Teriyaki fast food joints every other block.

There are a ton of places to explore in our neighborhood alone, and we've barely scratched the surface in our 2 weeks here so far. We plan to explore one area each weekend, and as I am unemployed at the moment, I aim to blog regularly about the places we've explored. I hope I can revive this blog again as we get to know our new city!

Home at last!