Sean and I are really enjoying our lives in WA and adjusting pretty well to the abundance that there is to do and enjoy here. The health conscious and recreationally active nature of Pacific NW citizens has given me plenty of opportunities to play sports and teach fitness classes while I’m job hunting.

I’ve been subbing a few classes since July for Get Fit Boot Camp Seattle and I’ve really been enjoying it despite the long early morning drive across Lake Washington. I’ve also started teaching at 24 Hour Fitness around the Eastside and it’s been great to shake off the cobwebs for some formats like cycling and strength and meet new people.

Sean has been moving full steam ahead with his job and is seeing new ventures and opportunities arise that are challenging and stimulating for him. He also got to take a fishing trip after work one day last week to Mirror Lake with some coworkers. No, he didn’t catch anything but he managed to avoid falling in (narrowly from my understanding) and had a great time. We’re gearing up for a visit from his parents next week and want to be good hosts (sorry Amber and George!) by learning more about our area. Fishing is definitely on the agenda!

We’ve been really lucky, blessed and fortunate with such a smooth transition despite the big changes in our lives, and are very thankful it has been relatively without hiccup. We hope all our friends and family are also doing well and look forward to hearing from you soon.

We’ve returned from our 2.5 week adventure in Europe. There were too many pictures to post here but we’ve got a Picasa Album of all the pictures (and I mean *ALL* the pictures). There were some pretty amazing things to see while we were there. I hope you too can enjoy the sites from our eyes.

And, I’m apologizing to Sean now for how many times I made him pose in these pictures.

Places we stopped:

• Prague, Czech Republic
  
• Plzen, Czech Republic
  
• Nurnberg, Germany
  
• Munich Germany
  
• Strasbourg, France
  
• Landstuhl, Germany
  
• Frankfurt, Germany
  
• Rhine River Valley, Germany
  

For those of you thinking, ‘Wow that sure is a long list for only 2.5 weeks’ you would be correct. This is our last trip in the AJ style of cram as much in as possible in, in a small amount of time. We hope our next trip will involve as much fun with a little less hustle…

More details about the trip can be seen in the pictures. The captions or tags will provide more detail about some of them and others you just have to guess or ask us about.

We’re coming on 4 weeks in our new town and new place. We’ve unpacked all the boxes, made our nest and now it’s time to dazzle you with reflections on our trip.

We couldn’t help but be amazed first and foremost by the distance we have now placed between us and our former home in Houston. 2800 miles is nothing to shake a stick at. While we didn’t take the shortest route, it was still a sizeable trip and makes every visit back all the more precious.

The other point of note is how much of the country there is between here and Houston and how many spectacular things we don’t even know about. And for however briefly, how nice it was to catch a glimpse of some of those things on this trip.

The biggest impressions left by our travels across the southwestern part of the US:

• How much national forest there is to enjoy and appreciate.
• Arizona is much more lush than you would think.
• Death Valley is AMAZING. The scope and awe cannot be accurately conveyed by our pictures or words.
• Tahoe is still one of the most beautiful places we’ve seen.
• Running out of gas, flat tires, and low clearances are no big deals.
• Good friends can make a long trip even better.
• Picking up and moving your entire life across country is eye opening. Everyone should give it a try.

That’s what you call people living on the east side of Lake Washington. It’s funny how I’m now living outside the loop. Because that’s what it feels like when people say it to me now. I understand! It’s a little bit of a hike to the wonders of Seattle proper, but for right now, I’m happy with my 7 minute bike ride to the heart of downtown Bellevue. We’re even closer by car to Sean’s office and there is a 24 Hour fitness directly across the street. Which we all know makes me very happy. While it’s a little suburban, it’s still a busy city that has all we need right now.

I have to go straight domestic on everyone and share my excitement at my first dining room set. No it’s not a pool table. But I can eat on it, and sit down without banging my knees!

I’m happily unpacking (I never thought I would say that) because it’s part of this whole new adventure. The weather showed a lot of how it can be in the Pacific northwest today also. There was a heavy rainstorm, followed by very gusty winds, then the sun came shining out, then it was cloudy and overcast. All in about 20 minutes. The cottonwood trees are making it snow (that’s what it looks like to me).

There are two whole rooms without any boxes in them anymore. I’m stoked. I can’t wait for some visitors!

We’ve made it! Rolling in at just before midnight on Saturday, Sean and I have arrived at our new home in Bellevue, Wa. With a good amount to unpack, we set up camp in the new house with some borrowed air mattresses (Thanks, Jim and Linda) and our sleeping bags. I had a little trouble sleeping with the excitement of a new chapter in our lives, but Sean was already at home and after captaining us for the long haul to get us from Eugene, OR to Bellevue, it was well deserved.

We’re going to take a little break from the blog but will be back soon to reflect on some of the things we saw along the way and to keep everyone updated on our next big adventure, getting to know Washington.

Here we are on the home stretch to Bellevue, WA We have approximately 684 miles to go, and we are definitely looking forward to being off the road. A lot has happened since our last post, so I will just jump into it…

We made it into Las Vegas after leaving Winslow, Arizona on Wednesday. On the route we got the opportunity to cross into Nevada over the Hoover Dam. The History Channel, movies, etc.. do not do the size and overall awe of the dam any justice. It was incredible.

 We also saw the new bridge they are building to eventually bypass the dam crossing, and the bridge is equally impressive. It looked like it was all concrete but had the same shape as many steel river crossing bridges like New River Bridge in West Virginia.

We then made our way into Vegas. It had been particularly windy so our day light view was somewhat obscured by all of the haze.

We met Chris and Angie my cousins, and had a nice relaxing evening. It was definitely not a side of Vegas that you would expect to see based on how it is often portrayed in movies. It was a lot of fun to take it easy and just catch up with Chris and Angie. We went to dinner, then visited a “locals” casino that wasn’t lacking any of the splendor that you see on the strip.

We prepared to leave Vegas on Thursday morning, making our way to Lake Tahoe, which is definitely a little slice of heaven on earth. Instead of making a bee-line for Tahoe, we decided to detour via Death Valley, and this was not a wasted trip. Death Valley was an incredible mix of landscapes and color. The one thing we realized is that you can have the biggest HD TV in the world, and still doesn’t compare to seeing the amazing rock formations and desert in person. One thing TV truly lacks is scale, because these mountains and shear drops on the side of the road are BIG.

After leaving Death Valley, we took the scenic route US 395 in California to Lake Tahoe. We had been on this road before, when we went to Yosemite National Park in 2008. We drove by Mono Lake again, a really cool alkali lake. Yosemite for all intents and purposes was closed. All of the roads into the park were closed due to snow.

Around 5:30pm, we made it to Incline Village on Lake Tahoe, where we took our vows in 2008. We stayed at the Inn at Incline, where a number of our guests stayed during the wedding. Also, Austin’s was open! Austin’s is a restaurant in Incline Village that we really like. We wanted to have the rehearsal dinner for the wedding there, but it wasn’t big enough to support our guest list. It was spectacular, as always, and despite our best efforts, we put a big hurt on ourselves with the amount of food we ate. If you are ever there, you have to order the Austin’s cheese fries. You won’t be disappointed.

The next morning we were greeted by a flat tire on the Altima. Thankfully we had planned to stay two nights anyway and could take our time getting it repaired. With the tire patched and aired up again, we headed to a favorite state park of ours, Spooner Lake. We finally got the opportunity to ride our bikes around this lake, which is just north east of Lake Tahoe on HWY 28. It was fun, despite most of the trails being closed due to snow. We still made our way around Spooner, and we found as a general rule, mountain bikes do not do real well on snow. We both took pretty good spills trying to live out any XGames dreams we had. It was blast despite the snow.

We left Spooner Lake a little wet and muddy, and headed to Sand Harbor to catch the lake up close. There we waited for Johannah and Vince, some friends from Houston who had moved to Davis, CA.

Together we took a nice driving tour around the entire lake and found dinner back at Austin’s.

Now we’re on the home stretch in to Bellevue. We originally had planned on dinner and a stay over in Portland, Or with some friends from Rice (Rebecca Sherman, Jeremy Gibson). However, the smell of our new home is in our noses and we might not be able to resist.

Here we are on the road to Flagstaff watching the terrain change yet again crossing Arizona. We left off with an update on our stop in El Paso and a plan to make our way to the Petrified Forests of northeastern Arizona. We were then supposed to head on to Meteor Crater in the same day. Unfortunately, we had to continue a time honored Beard tradition that involves winding and narrow switchbacks through mountains at 10 MPH adding miles and hours to our trips just for fun.

Our detour took us through the Apache Sitegreaves National Forest with some amazing views and steep grades along what used to be US 666 (but was mislabeled on our original map). We had a casualty along this leg of our trip, and for those of you faint of heart, we won’t be posting a picture of a critter that got caught in our grille.

We passed through several small towns along the way that were founded in the late 1800’s seemingly to support mining copper in the Pinaleno Mountains.

 This unintentional detour also taught us that Arizona had a much different landscape than just plain desert and saw several expanses of trees, brush, and wildlife that were reminiscent of more Alpine climes.

Once we finally made it to the Petrified Forest, we were a little road weary and really wanted to see some spectacular stuff. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize this forest wasn’t standing any more. But we saw some cool rocks.

After a brief bike ride along the national park road just to say we did it, we headed further west. Along the way in Holbrook, Az, we happened upon the town that had to have been the inspiration for the Disney movie Cars.

 As we thought more about it, the interstate definitely had its impact on Arizona. There were many towns we passed along that looked like they could have used more traffic.

For the night we planned to stay in Winslow, Az. That’s right THE Winslow, Az. Never heard of it? We were standing on a corner in Winslow, Az and stayed at the historic La Posada Hotel along Route 66.

This was a great hotel that had a genuine southwestern flair in art, furniture and great service. The hotel staff were all very nice and helpful and the hotel restaurant, the Turquoise Room had very tasty southwestern dishes. As we had to save Meteor Crater for the next morning, we settled in to La Posada for the night.

Hoping to find a local spot for breakfast before we hit the road, Sean and I walked around Route 66 close to the hotel. Unfortunately, besides the hotel and rail stop that was the inspiration for the hotel, the rest of the Winslow was virtually dead. The only commerce and activity was closer to I-40.

We headed west again to fulfill a childhood dream of Sean’s: see Meteor Crater in Happy Jack, Az. It was pretty impressive at nearly a mile wide and over 500 feet deep. We took a brief walking tour along the rim and learned a little about what dangers meteors hold for humankind (I’m waxing science fictitious here, I’m sure there is nothing to worry about :o)

One thing we learned about Arizona is that the state is low on funds and consequently has been closing state parks, rest areas and reducing public services. This didn’t impact us directly on our trip but was a grave reminder of the impact of the current state of the economy in the US and how it reaches far and wide.

From here we head to Las Vegas to visit Sean’s cousins Chris and Angie. And to visit the Sin City for the first time together. We’re looking forward to it as we both have stories that would raise some eyebrows from our times here independent of each other…

 

For the two weeks leading up to the arrival of the moving van, the house was full of boxes to get ready.

 

… and then they were gone…

 

And then we watched a prime example of how men were able to build pyramids without the help of aliens. If you look closely, you can see our dresser on the back on 1, that’s ONE man, coming from the third floor of our house.