The dirty, broken, ugly teal recliner

Of course Kiki has taken to this chair immediately. He'll be in for a shocker this weekend when I put it in the trash. It's been over a week since I contacted the movers/guy who owns the chair, and they still have not called me back (on my neighbour's phone, since I don't have one still). So I can only assume that the guy received my missing box with my hammer and screwdriver in it, and has decided that was a better deal than his chair and he doesn't want to trade back.

My spare room/office/studio

This is the room that the moving van threw up in. Until I figure out storage, furniture, whatever... the floor will remained covered in stuff that I can't put away because I don't have anything to put it away into.

My bedroom

and my neato showercurtain, which isn't in my bedroom, but rather my bathroom...

My livingroom

This is the most live-able of the "disaster" rooms. Mostly it's just lacking furniture. But note my exciting corduroy ottoman!

My Kitchen

Here's a few shots of my kitchen as it is currently... yes, that is a double sink. Yes, that is a dishwasher. Yes, that is a patio off my kitchen. Tee hee!

Part 6: to Bakersfield, California HOME! (Friday, Aug. 12)

Finally, the last day of our nearly 5000km drive (4800km, then if you count coming to LA for the weekend, it's a good solid 5000km) arrived. I suggested getting the hell out of Baker ASAP and eating breakfast in Barstow, which is a real city. We ran out of gas (well, diesel actually) not 10 miles from Barstow and had to put a couple bucks worth at some place that had a Mobil with diesel right before Yermo. I like the name Yermo, it's fun to say. We had a delicious buffet breakfast at the flying J in Barstow, fueled up the car, and began the last 3 hr trek to Bakersfield. At Mojave my bladder was about to explode and the hills were alive with scads of windmills. While I took a pee break, mom took photos.
Suddenly we were in Bakersfield, home! We found the apartment with little difficulty, met the manager who had been so helpful in organizing everything long distance, she's great! Signed the lease, and "moved in". Well, I moved in the stuff that was in my car anyway... not much. Kiki defended his new territory from some grey furry cat, and although he was furry with all claws and Kiki is naked with no claws, all it took was some weird warning meows from Kiki on my front step for grey kitty, who has been master of this apartment complex for 7 years, to step down. It was pretty funny to watch. Things are nearly settled, I should get a social security number Monday or Tuesday, then I can get a bank account, then I can pay the movers, then I can get my stuff...

Part 5: to Baker, California (Thursday, Aug. 11)

This was a long, long, long day. The day started by getting unto Utah and taking a small detour to go visit the infamous town of Cisco, from whence the Cisco Kid originates. I had been there once before and distinctly recalled it being a ghost town, a ghost town that I desperately wanted to explore. There was one resident as far as we could ascertain, and s/he ran the convenient store (which contained a random assortment of animal carcasses and chocolate bars covered with a layer of dust). There was an outhouse with no roof, and lots of ruined ghost-town type huts and trailers that I desperately wanted to investigate and photograph. My opportunity arose! See section below for that... By the way, the outhouse was "out of order" this time around - how is that possible?
Following Cisco we had lots more Utah to drive through (note the spelling of Utah on the Cisco sign in the section below), sadly cursing the lack of time to leisurely hike through all the national parks, but I insisted that my mom see Bryce Canyon - it wasn't THAT much of a detour... Until we had to backtrack that is... Ah well, Bryce National Park is amazing, we went to Fairyland Canyon, where you don't have to actually enter the Park and pay the (fairly pricey) entrance fee.
Our plan was to make it past Vegas ('cause I informed mom that we definitely did not want to stay there) for the night. We got to Vegas, it was getting late, we had to stop. Alas, the hideousness, loudness, smell and sketchiness drove us away and after an icky pee stop, we continued on to Jean. Jean is the next city on the I15 in Nevada, and as it turns out, it is mini-Vegas, only with fewer options of places for people to stay. Clearly I had forgotten that these places are NOT FOR SLEEPING! You stay awake gambling or you nap at your slot machine, what need would there be for a roadside motel? We continued on to Primm... Primm was also mini-Vegas, but is was also bordering California, so we knew that not too far ahead there would be some town with a motel for us. There was. 60 miles away. That town is called Baker and it sucks. It was like 10 million degrees there due to all the neon lights and trucks sitting on tarmac with engines running full blast with air conditioning. We found a motel "Bun Boy" (sadly, I forgot to take a photo) and a place to eat "The Crazy Greek". The motel didn't take "pet's" so we plead ignorance and snuck Kiki in. I took no photos of this place, except Kiki in road-kill position on the tile floor to escape the heat. It was horrendously overpriced...

Cisco, Utah

We stopped at Cisco, which, unlike many other ghost towns, is not marked as a ghost town on the map. To my great surprise, while the town still appeared dead, there was an amazing amount of traffic passing through. Where could all these people be going??? They all seemed to know convenience store lady, waving their hellos as they drove by. Great convoys of vehicles passed through, I nearly got in an accident and Kiki nearly got run over because these cars just came out of nowhere! Anyway, I took lots of photos at Cisco, pop. 6, where there is a resident pet crow named Pretty Boy - photos coming as soon as I connect my own computer to the internet...

Part 4: to Glendale Springs, Colorado (Wednesday, Aug. 10)

We took a scenic route today to see Chimney Rock (one of many, this one in Nebraska) after starting our day with the most delicious cappuccinos from the coffee house near the Super 8. The coffee house was run by two older ladies; the one serving us called us "gals", it was too perfect. Anyway, along this scenic route we got to see small town USA instead of the standard no town USA we'd been seeing on the highways. I mean freeways. We turned off the freeway at Ogallala, driving past "lazy J liquor" to get to the country road. The first little town we passed was called Lewellen, it advertised being "a little town with a big heart". The school in Lewellen is located on School St. It had a big water slide-type chute coming out of the back of it, presumably a fire escape. As we were leaving Lewellen, seconds after we entered it, we found traffic slowing - can you imagine what it was held up by? Did you guess farm equipment? That's what I guessed, and then as we approached the farm auger-tractor thing we see that the guy who's driving it is... pause for dramatic effect... TALKING ON A CELL PHONE!!!
Ok, done with that. At this point I am starving (as I usually am around lunch time) and I declare that one of these towns MUST have a cafe, and as soon as I find one, we're stopping at it. In Osh Kosh (I am not making up these town names) there was the S&S cafe. It was located nearby to a motel with a sign that read "bikers welcome". The special was chicken fried steak and the cafe was filled with delicious looking freshly baked pies and cinnamon rolls. We knew it must be a good choice.
From there we continued on the road, driving through another small town called Broadwater. As we drove through I said "oh my god" about 15 times and not 5 minutes down the road I had to pull a U-y and go back for photos. Please see next section for those...
Getting back to the freeway we had to wait for a train wiht 129 compartments (I counted them and was feeling quite dizzy afterward) to pass, going less than 50mph, and when it finally was gone we saw on the other side of the tracks these giant egg things in these giant egg catapult things. I have no idea what they are, but there's a photo if you care to hazard a guess. We finished our day at a lovely little (expensive) motel in the mountains. We snuck Kiki in.

Broadwater, Nebraska

Part 3: to York, Nebraska (Tuesday, Aug. 9)

Due to the time change, I woke up alert and ready to get going by 6:30am - so I had a long shower and tried to be patient and quiet while my mom slept... We were still on the road early, and our plan was to stop at one of the many travel plazas hosting Starbucks that we had seen the previous day in order to caffeinate ourselves. Of course, as luck would have it, we didn't pass by anything that remotely resembled a place that would have coffee until about 4pm, and that was something that called itself "Little Red Espresso Hut", the sign was immediately before the exit for it, which was under construction, and we missed it. No major weather this drive, only many, many cornfields and caffeine headaches - or rather, lack of caffeine headaches...
We stopped in York, a small sleepy prairie town marked by a rainbow coloured hot air balloon structure. We're staying at a Super 8 again, but they forgot to charge us the pet fee tonight (woohoo!), had dinner at a sleepy country diner and I couldn't resist the "apple dumpling" dessert, even though I certainly didn't need it at all. It was amazing! Coming out of this diner with the soft 50's diner music playing in the background, where everything took place in slow motion except the devouring of my dinner, here came this whole tart apple baked inside it's own flakey pie crust, served with cinnamon sauce and vanilla ice crea. Miles, you would've loved it!!! And by "it", what I mean is the whole package of atmosphere and apple-y goodness.
To top it all off, I was just about finished up eating when a "woman" walked in. Or should I say waddled? Yes, it was definitely waddling... Ok, so I'll start at the feet: bare foor in yellow leather loafers, no ankles, knees lost in a sea of fleahy thigh fat, too short shorts... XXL T-shirt snugly hugging a spherical sagging bugunt - that's a word I just made up to encompass bust, gut, and you know what... In one hand, a gallon-sized travel mug. Giant 80's style glasses, mullet. I could barely look away! Oh how I cursed myself for not bringing my camera! Not that I could've been discrete - but oh! It was hideous!!!
One final note, there is an adorable little coffee house near the Super 8. It is literally a little house!!!

Part 2: to South Bend, Indiana (Monday, Aug. 8)

After breakfast, we meandered our way through construction and detours to the Rainbow Bridge so that I could get my TN Visa and we could get en route through the grand ol' U.S. of A. Let me just say that I was distinctly recalling the million foot high sign descriptions of Liam's from our rowing excursion to Orlando a few years back... Why are those billboards so darn huge anyway? And why are all the signs for every amenity on such tall poles?
We hit up the worst rain/hail storm during the drive by Cleveland too - oh wow! I had to pull over for a while due to not being able to see anything at all.
Anyway, the customs guy was awesome, and the whole procedure went quite smoothly, he looked over my stuff, asked how I found out about the job, told me that I'll love it there, that it's a geologist's paradise, what I should do when crossing the border in the future (i.e. xmas). That if I want to renew my Visa, I should just pretend like I've never had one before, told me how to go about bringing my car across... etc. etc. I was not expecting such treatment, that's for sure! Let alone advice and tips and tricks!!! Kiki was amazingly well behaved on the trip - on the road for close to 9hrs, and virtually no meows, mostly just quiet sleeping! No accidents!!!

The trip: Part 1: to Dawn's parents' B&B (Sunday, Aug. 7)

Well Kiki was right at home at our first stop - Ridley Gate Manor. He had a kitty's dream garden of wonders to roam, with delicious pots of catnip to munch... He was also spoiled rotten with treats, love, pets, and attention from Peter, Sean and Jen Kellett - lucky Kiki! Befor departure we were of course treated to the most luxurious of breakfasts: eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast, coffee, fruit, yogurt, muffins, fresh tomatoes and basil and all good things! It was a firm beginning to the day. Mmmmmm!