Goin' to Arizona, but not with a banjo on my knee...

So...I'm thinking that maybe this will be a good way to keep in touch with all the people that I know who I live so far away from now. Hopefully it does indeed keep us connected. Much has happened since I saw many of you, and now is as good a time as any to tell the tale of our exciting adventure to our new home in Arizona.

On Monday, the day of the party, as many people know, Dave's car broke on the way to Sioux City. Which sucked enough on its own, but then we had to wait until Thursday for it to even be fixed. But this was not to be the end of our car troubles, as we would find out much, much later...

On Tuesday, we had a lot to do around town (without a car), so it was a good thing that my mom had stayed for another day. The moving company called to let us know that the movers would be there on Wednesday, sometime between 9 and 11 am. Which was fine, but then we had a lot to do at home, so we did not go to Sioux Falls as we had planned. My mom left and then furious packing and organizing ensued!

We went off to bed at 2 am, only to have our alarm go off at 7 am so that we could finish organizing before the movers showed up. So, we had packed most of our things, minus a small pile of random crap and the kitchen, which we had been assured the movers would take care of.

At 10:30, there was a knock at the door, and two men with a heavy (Russian? Ukrainian? Something Eastern European) accent and a truck started packing our things away. Imagine our surprise at 11 when he told us that they were to do no packing at all! Furious packing indeed! My mom had left numerous boxes with us, for which we are eternally grateful. We did not have any other packing materials, however, so the dishes and other kitchen goods got packed with plastic grocery bags between them (it was a good thing we had those, too!). By noon we had packed everything, and by 12:30 they had left with all our stuff! Not exactly how it was supposed to go, but there we were and here we are.

Dave's cousin Cheryl was generous enough to let us borrow her car for the day while she was at work, and to let us camp out in her living room overnight. At 10:30 am on Thursday, Dave's car was fixed and we were ready to leave Vermillion and everything we knew for the last time in a long time!

From here, the trip was quite uneventful, so we'll just skip to the exciting part.

Saturday morning, driving into Albuquerque, NM. In a construction zone, going about 45 mph down a steep grade. The brakes don't work! PANIC! Well, maybe not that much panic, but it was the scariest driving I've ever done. I somehow (magically) steer us onto an off ramp (uphill), and bring us to a halt in front of a gas station in Tijeras, NM. Amidst a torrent of cursing, crying, and shaking, we call the insurance company and get ourselves towed to the nearest Ford dealer in Albuquerque.

Now, it's never a good thing when the mechanic tells you that he wants to show you something on your car that's just broken. "Your frame is bent here (in front of the tire they had fixed earlier in the week), that's why you had problems a few days ago. The frame is also cracked and was rubbing on the brake line and cut it." Cut brake line! "You're lucky the wheel didn't just pop off and you rolled the car." Really?! "Um, rough estimate, $3000 to fix. But it's not really worth it." Seriously?!

Long story short, we drove off the lot at about 5 pm in a 2004 Chevy Malibu. Quite frankly, the weirdest damn day of my entire life.

But we made it to Flagstaff, just a few hours later than planned. And that means we still made it to Glendale on the 1st so that we could move into our apartment. Yay!

The movers showed up on Monday to drop off our stuff, only a bit of which was broken (due to marathon packing) and a few things missing (lamps? really?). But this we found out after they left, so there's nothing we can really do about it.

So all week we (really just me) have been slowly unpacking everything, enjoying the 42" TV, the A/C, dishwasher (!) and washer and dryer (!!), as well as the pool! It's really very nice here and you should all come visit.

We're both rather tan already, which I had rather expected. Last week there were a few days that it was 105, but really it is a dry heat. I know people joke about it, but it's true!

We went to the IKEA on Tuesday (yay!), and it was a blast even though I didn't get to buy as much stuff as I really wanted to. Seriously, the best store ever. EVER. We have plans to return

The job hunt is on, as we are quite poor and Dave doesn't get a loan check until September. So I'm hoping that Barnes & Noble will get back to me this week with a job offer, or I'm applying to the puppy store in the mall (which is literally down the street) and the booze store on the corner from our apartment complex. I'm desperate just for a job until I find an archaeology or lab job.

That's where we are now. I think maybe this is the longest blog post ever, so I'll wrap it up.

Quite an adventure, wouldn't you say?