The Twilight Zone

When I started planning our road trip north I decided I couldn't pass up a trip to Forks, WA. I'm a big Twilight fan and I just couldn't resist passing through the town where it all started. My husband indulged me and agreed to an overnight in The Twilight Zone.

My first thought upon entering this sleepy little town was how pretty it was. Forks is a tiny little hamlet on the Olympic Peninsula in Northwest Washington State. It's very isolated and pretty much comes up out of nowhere on the 101. My second thought was that it's literally been taken over. Every single establishment in town has some sort of homage to Twilight. While you may think that's a bit of overkill, it's actually pretty smart. The people of Forks have figured out what's keeping them on the map right now and they're capitalizing in the biggest way. They've whole-heartedly embraced their transformation into American Pop Culture and they're having a great time. The people of Forks are friendly and outgoing and love to talk to the tourists. From the Twilight inspired menu at The Lodge Restaurant to the Twilight gear and souvenirs available in every store, to the vintage "Bella" trucks on every corner, Forks is every Twilighter's dream.



If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Forks, it's worth a stop. Even if you're not a Twilight fan, you'll enjoy the friendly people and the quaint little slice of the Pacific Northwest.

Going, Going, Going...

I was really hoping to be able to blog more on this trip, but so far I've either had no time or no internet. I finally have a little of both so I thought I'd post an update.

We are still alive!

We left Fort Irwin and drove to Lemoore, California to visit with Chris' grandma and some aunts and uncles for a few days. While we were there we got a remote start system installed in the car. It's great, except for one thing - it included a car alarm that for some reason I keep setting off. It is really fun to scare people with it though. I started it in the check-out line at Walmart today only to come out to the parking lot to find some dude staring at my car like it was possessed. Good times.

After Lemoore we drove up to Sacramento to see Chris' brother. We also took the boys to the California Railroad Museum and had a good time walking around Old Sacramento. A day there and then we headed up to Crescent City to my inlaw's, which is where we are currently. We all went bowling today and Jack managed to score a 91. How is it possible that my 2 year-old beat my best score? We are having a good time with the family and Aiden is getting so worn out every day playing with his cousins that he just collapses in the bed each night without telling anyone and I have to go search him out!

I've also discovered that Dramamine is wonderful and I will never be without it again. It manages to keep both my little travelers from getting sick. It knocks Jack out for several hours, but of course Aiden is immune to all sleep-inducing drugs and I've gotten a combined 30 minutes out of him the whole trip.

Anyway...a few more trip details to iron out and then we'll be on our way again on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll get a chance to blog more and keep you all updated on our progress!

Friends in All Places

It's our last night here at Fort Irwin, and I'm feeling sentimental. As excited as I am about hitting the road tomorrow to head out on our latest and greatest adventure, I'm also sad. I have loved my time here in So Cal, and there is a lot that I will miss. The great weather, the shopping, Disneyland...but most especially I'll miss the wonderful friends I've made here. I love moving to new places and experiencing new things every few years, but it's bittersweet at times.

The absolute BEST thing about Army life - in my opinion - is that we end up with friends all over the place. I feel like I'm part of a special sisterhood, and I've been lucky enough to have met some truly special women. To all of my Fort Irwin Sisters-in-Arms, I'll miss all of you and I hope we can meet again somewhere!

Okay, enough with the sappy Hallmark stuff. Time to get this party started! I'll try to update as much as I can from the road, but I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have once we get on the ferry. I can't imagine there being a lot of wifi along the Alcan Highway. Anyway, I hope you'll all follow along with me here and on Facebook - it's sure to be a heck of an adventure. After all, where we go - craziness follows!

Alaska or bust!!

Glad That's Over!

We are still alive!! I've been wanting to update for a few days, but I've been without internet until last night. I've been surviving by checking my Facebook on my phone, but that's it. Talk about withdrawal! Anyway, the movers have come and gone, and all of our "stuff" is on it's way to Alaska. Aiden was super-thrilled to meet the real "Imagination Movers" (if you don't have little kids who watch Disney Channel just disregard that), and it actually went very smoothly. They were allotted three days for the pack and load, but only ended up needing a day and a half, so that was nice to have it finished up quickly. The first morning they came I opened up the door to four familiar faces - the same crew of guys who came to pack us up were the guys who moved us in two years ago! Fort Irwin is a small world...:-)

Anyway, since Wednesday night we've been on air mattresses in the living room of our empty house, basically camping with a bathroom. It wasn't so bad, but I'm very happy to finally be in the hotel! We are here 'til Thursday or Friday and then we take off on our journey north. And for the record, we are STILL waiting for passports, which they are insisting will be here in time. Uh huh, sure. They also can't figure out how to pay for our ferry passage, which is causing me a bit of a headache, since it doesn't strike me as that hard to figure out. Just give me another bottle of wine, it's all good.

It struck me that I'm going to be living out of a suitcase for the next month and a half. What fun. Although there is one advantage to not having any of my stuff. No coffee pot means that my daily Starbucks habit is now perfectly justified.

Tonight I'm having one last girl's night with my friends. Mary Kay facials, drinks and girl talk. Sounds like exactly what I need. Followed by more cleaning as I'm frantically trying to get the house spotless in order to pass our housing inspection on Wednesday. It's so much easier to get stuff accomplished when the boys are sleeping, even if that means I'm scrubbing the fridge at midnight. At least I don't have to stop every 10 seconds. I'll be really glad to leave the cleaning to someone else for a while!

Somebody Hook Up a Caffeine Drip

I am soooo going to need it. We spent all day at Disneyland yesterday (we left at 6:30 and got home at midnight), and I'm paying for it now. I'm more exhausted than my kids, I mean it's not like *I* get to ride around in a stroller all day. So I got to bed at 1 AM and then had to haul my butt out of bed again at 7 this morning. We have one set of movers coming today, but I don't know what time they're going to be here. You know if I assume they'll be here later in the morning, they'll show up at the crack of dawn. It's 8:30 now and they're still not here. Grrr....

This afternoon we have our housing pre-inspection. I hope they don't care if my house isn't completely picked up. I'm too tired to follow my kids around all day making sure they don't make a mess...

Then...we get to spend all weekend getting ready for the BIG movers, which will be here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week. Sometime on Saturday I have to pick up some stuff in Victorville, which is 90 miles each way. Then we're trick-or-treating on Friday, cleaning ALL next weekend to get ready for our final housing inspection. Somewhere in there I have to do all my laundry (I hear the laundromat calling my name), pack, get the oil changed, hopefully pick up our passports, move my family into a hotel....and sleep.

Starbucks will be getting a lot of my money in the next couple of weeks.

Can I Take a Breath, Please??

Somebody hit Fast-Forward and forgot to tell me.

We went to our transportation briefing on Friday, and booked all of our moving appointments. We've got three separate shipments to get ready for: A safe-keeping shipment that we are using to ship Chris' project 1946 Jeep Willys to his parent's house in Northern California. A non-temporary storage shipment for my piano and all of our "stuff" that I can't bring myself to get rid of yet, but I don't think I'll be needing in Alaska. Stuff like the box of baby clothes I can't part with yet. Chris actually marked the plastic bin they are stored in with "Throw this stuff away and you die, Chris". He's a good man. :-) THEN we have our main household goods shipment for the rest of our stuff. That's everything that will go to Alaska with us. The Jeep is going this Friday, the storage shipment next Tuesday, and HHG on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

PLUS we are going to Disneyland on Thursday. Couldn't leave Southern California without saying goodbye to my old pal Mickey. Somewhere in there we have to have a pre-inspection from housing, and then a final out of housing the beginning of November.

Oh yeah, and I have to pack.

Expect the Unexpected

Nothing in the Army ever goes according to plan. It's Uncle Sam's Law. Nothing is for sure until after it's happened. I should have known better than to assume that just because they told us we'd have a report date of no later than January 10th, doesn't mean that's actually the case. Once again the proverbial monkey wrench has been thrown, and we found out yesterday that our report date has been changed to November 10th. Yep, you read that right - November 10th. As in, less than a month from now.

Time to freak out? I'd love to, but I don't have time. They're working with us as much as they can and *say* they can extend our report date to November 30th, but that's the best they can do at this point. So now we're in a hurry to get our stuff packed up, clear post and figure out how the heck we're going to get up there. If we get our passports back in time, I think we're going to drive. If not, we're going to fly.

So yeah, I don't know what's going on now as far as our leave and Thanksgiving is concerned. We may be driving the Alaska Highway instead of eating turkey. At least it will be a Thanksgiving to remember!

Here's to the US Army, where life is never dull!!