The roadtrip itself was long and uneventful, until the last day. Our driving goals ended up being pretty lofty, as we only made it to Moriarity, New Mexico the first day, and Joplin, Missouri, the second day. I do love the drive though. Some might think it's boring, and it would be more fun to take some time and see all the crazy stops along the way, but as Steve said, the best part is just seeing the scenery change from one state/location/region to another...very true! (On a random side note, Moriarity, NM was definitely an interesting place, not so sure I'd ever want to go back there. It just seemed so rundown. Bon Jovi actually has a song called Runaway in which the lyrics are supposedly about a girl working the streets in a rundown town. Anyway, that song immediately came to mind when we got there). On our last day, we were about 143 miles (or 2.5 hours, according to our GPS) from Chicago when we broke down in McLean, Illinois. Some 5 hours later, we were on our way again thanks to an awesome auto repair shop that had my broken left rear wheel bearing fixed in "no time"...and we made it the rest of the way safely, if not behind schedule.
The first week in Chicago was a whirlwind of meeting family and friends for meals and goodtimes and several amazing Chicago restaurants (I'm still trying to decide if living in a city with such great food is a good thing or a bad thing), unpacking my room and getting it set up and personalized (which included numerous trips to Walmart and Target), a trip up to Northwestern to get my "Wildcard" taken care of (it was almost surreal, coming from a school like CSUF, to think that I'm going to a school like this now...and can I just say, that my commute up to Evanston on Lake Shore Drive is GORGEOUS!!!!) and so on and so forth. Safe to say I am just now able to relax after going so fast for that first week. To be honest, it felt like more of a vacation than a move.
So far, this second week, I have dropped my mom off (so that she could make her way back to California) at the airport, worked from home, cleaned house for the first time and cooked my first meal (Hamburger Soup, yum), grew a pair and left my number for a cute guy downtown, signed up for a gym membership and spent tons of time with my godson. I think I'm settling in nicely. It really feels like home! And, I'm looking forward to the months to come...starting school, finding a soccer league to play in, meeting people my own age, going to see my favorites teams play...at their home stadiums :-)
As far as the weather goes...it's been up and down. Last weekend it was in the 80's, this weekend it's going to be in the 40's with lots of rain, wind and possible snow flurries. Crazy, huh?
