Transitions

A fool proof recipe for going completely mental is the following : do a 500 mile, 2,000 mile and 1,000 mile move all within three years of each other. All to cities where you don't know anyone. Basically, completely start over on a yearly basis. It's guaranteed to turn you loopy.

This is our new back yard {literally... we live a stone's throw away}, which lies on the complete edge of Denver's western suburbs. It's quite different than the frog-filled, rain-soaked, greenery that used to greet us each day in Portland.

I must confess that we've been in Colorado for three weeks now and I've been a bit reluctant to blog about anything. This probably has something to do with the loopy mentioned above - and the fact that Denver and I aren't quite friendly yet {Did you know the closest Trader Joe's to my house is in Santa Fe, New Mexico?!? The horror!}. Had we moved here straight from sprawl-happy Tennessee I think our transition might be a bit easier, but we didn't. Instead we did a ten month layover in Portland, a wonderfully designed city where the far reaches of suburbia are only five minutes away from downtown, the air is thick with oxygen, and when it snows nine inches in October {which it doesn't}, everyone isn't driving to work on snow-covered roads while passing school buses carrying bundled up kids on their way to class {On a side note, Mark and I are thinking of conducting a study on the correlation between urban sprawl and reckless driving - my old lady driving style doesn't quite fit-in here, probably because I'm the only person on the road not texting while I drive}.

But on the plus side, we have absolutely no shortage of mountains...

or blue skies...

unless it's snowing, which it seems to do once a week, dumping six to nine inches. But then the blue sky returns and everything evaporates within 48 hours. It's really bizarre.

So more to come on Denver in the future, hopefully something about how they finally opened a Trader Joe's and Bank of America {which should more accurately be known as "Bank of a lot of America, but not all"}, how my dear friend Francina and her family decided to move here {which they won't, especially since there is no Trader Joe's and she hates snow, but I can wish can't I}, and about how we found Mark a perfect bicycle for free whose pedal doesn't randomly fall off in the midst of a nice, long ride... Oh, and about my lovely job {which really is lovely}. So stay tuned.

But in the meantime, here are a few overdue pictures from our drive from Portland to Denver. We had to make it quite speedy so there wasn't much time for stopping or detouring very far off the interstate.

Standing in Idaho, looking across the Snake River back into Oregon {Interestingly, the sun came out as soon as we crossed the state line}. Goodbye Oregon.

The City of the Rocks in southern Idaho. I came here during my geology field camp in 2003 and thought my rock-happy husband might enjoy it this time around. The road in was blocked by cows, being steered by several real live cowboys. Always a thrill.

We also stopped at this little market for snacks during field camp, although I don't remember it having such a delightful name. I recognized it as soon as we walked in - almost nine years later and they hadn't changed a thing.

The Great Salt Lake, which I like to call The Great Stinky Lake. Mark skipped stones, I marveled at the millions of brine flies, and then we continued along our way.

And Wyoming's state capital in Cheyenne. Just another capital for our book {Much to Mark's disappointment, we never made it to Oregon's capital building in Salem, which is only 45 minutes from Portland. Someone once told me Salem was the "armpit of Oregon" - this fun fact apparently prevented me from ever making that trip a priority}

And Dad, remember when we were talking about whose drive was more boring - yours through South Carolina/Georgia or ours across Wyoming? Well, this is Idaho. But if you strip away the mountains and quaint little fence, it looked like this for most of our drive. Pretty at first. Mind numbing after twelve hours.