Leaving California and Colorado.
It's not really possible to summarize all that happened between June 18th and June 29th...in that time I graduated from Stanford, we packed all our belongings into a 15-foot rental van, drove from California to Colorado, unpacked, watched Dave's sister get married, said goodbye to our Colorado family and friends, and left for Germany.
We're lucky that we sold our largest furniture items on Craig's List before we left California, because as it is our things barely fit into the moving truck. Thanks to my dad's Tetris-master abilities, we were able to fill every available crevice of the van with our junk, only leaving a few things that absolutely would not fit (patio chairs, my desk chair, the lime tree). These leftovers found new homes with our friends and neighbors at the last minute.
The drive to Colorado took two days, with dad at the helm of the Budget Rent-a-Truck all the way. Here's how dad describes the journey:
"The I-80, more northernly, choice is great. This is one of the classic "road trip" routes in the western US. It winds around these monolithic isolated mountain ranges, each of which is a separate ecological zone. If you were a toad, living at 9000 feet on one of these ranges, there is no way you would ever travel to the next range. The ranges are all parallel and just sit there like giant battle ships. It takes a good hour to drive around each one of them.
"...Once past Reno you have Elko, about half way across the state, and Wendover, which is a gambling
destination for Salt Lake City...Once past Wendover you're into the salt flats...easily one of the most amazing places on Earth. Make sure that you stop at the viewing platform not too far from Wendover. Notice how the wooden fence posts that sit in 6 inches of brine water have exploded at the top as they absorb the salt. It's easy to see why Briham Young stopped at the wester edge of the Utah mountains and didn't try to cross the dessert. You'd be hard pressed to find a bug out there...
"Mountains west of Salt Lake are interesting. It's a mirror image of the topography around Denver, only the really high mountains are *very* close in. The ski areas are only 20 min from the center of town. The high mountain valleys are very peaceful and agricultural. You'll drive right past the exit to Park City, which is also close to the western edge of US 40. I suppose a person could follow that through NW Colorado, Winter Park, and over Berthoud Pass. If you stay on 80 you'll end up in Wyoming...easily the most boring part of the trip. You cross the continental divide twice, since there is a isolated region with no outlet to either coast in the middle of the state. I'm surprised it isn't associated with a brine lake or something like that."
So the drive is beautiful and interesting until you get into Wyoming, when you realize why everyone from that state is kind of a Colorado groupie (how could you not be, with the Rockies looming to the south along the whole I-80 drive thorugh Wyoming?). Dave's and my favorite sign, by far, was the advertisement for Lovelock, Nevada - "Where your love remains locked."
Once we got into Denver, Dave's parents and Aunt, Uncle, and cousin helped us unload the van, and then Dave and I painstakingly stacked all the boxes into his parents' basement. It's amazing how much stuff the two of us have accumulated over the 11 years we've been out of high school - and even more incredible that we had to reduce all that stuff into a few suitcases to bring to Germany.
Saturday, June 24th was Michelle's wedding, and a great opportunity to see all of Dave's family before we left town. Michelle was a beautiful bride (of course), and Dave's proud parents danced a killer foxtrot at the reception.
Even though Dave and I have both been out of Colorado for several years now, the final days filled with goodbyes were particularly emotional. I found myself tearing up at the smallest things. It was actually just as hard to leave Colorado this time as it was four years ago when I went out to California. Dave and I were glad to spend so much time with our families that last week, especially with our grandparents who we know won't be able to make it out to see us while we're here.
On June 29th we took a JetBlue flight to JFK and spent the night at the Doubletree in Jamaica, NY. The next morning we watched the first half of the Germany-Argentina World Cup Quarterfinal before heading to the airport with our suitcases - four check-in bags, each weighing EXACTLY 22 kg, two roll-aboards of unknown weight, and our two laptop bags. It was simultaneously a lot of stuff, but at the same time hardly anything considering how we'll be in Germany for over a year. Our LTU flight was only 6.5 hours to Dusseldorf, where we ran into one of the other Humboldt fellows and headed for the train station. FIFA stuff was everywhere, including signs with arrows indicating which line we should take to the matches at Gelsenkirchen or Koln. There was a gaggle of rowdy England fans heading to the afternoon's match.
When the train came, we hurriedly tossed all our bags and Jessica's into the alcove at the end of one of the cars. We stacked the suitcases as best we could but still blocked one of the doors, but people didn't really seem to mind to much. The stretch between Koln and Bonn was the most crowded, as the alcove filled up with us, our bags, two families with baby carriages, and a group of three teenagers carrying a crate of beer. When we reached Bonn we pulled the suitcases out as fast as we could, and then got taxis to the Acora Hotel. Our room is VERY small, but fits us and the things in our suitcases comfortably. The apartment opens onto a small yard with a tree, so we foresee grilling brats out there in our future. We napped for a couple of hours before going into town to watch England lose to Portugal in a shootout, and then returned home and fell asleep.
Today (Sunday) we're in an internet cafe (Cafe Einstein) near the University, catching up on email and the blog. I predict we'll be spending a lot of time here in the next two months - how can you beat great coffee and high-speed internet access?
posted by Erin at 1:52 PM
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