I had two friends that were moving to Seattle, so on whim, I decided to join them. One is starting his PHD program and teaching at the University of Washington next week, the other is in the same unemployed English graduate boat as me.

There were plenty of things I forgot to do before I left, lots of people I didn’t see, many things I forgot to pack, but it had to happen. I love Fredericksburg, but I needed a change, a kick in the butt to get things going.

I made a 2012 Summer Mix (which is available to download) and got a AAA card. Then we drove 3,000 miles, making pit stops in Louisville, KY, Manhattan, KS, Boulder, CO, and Salt Lake City, UT along the way. We unsuccessfully saw the Natural Bridge in Virginia (no way is that worth $20 per person), we saw the Cahokia Mound and St. Louis Arch while sitting in traffic, and didn’t go inside the Chautauqua in Boulder, but did walk up to it, out of breath from the altitude. I didn’t take pictures of any of these things. Luckily, I did remember to take photographs of the following:

Last thing I remember before we left what I’m used to, a West Virginian Rest stop.

Lots of pictures of Colorado and Utah that are hard to tell which state you were in.

The Salt Flats were really fitting after Curiosity Landed.

After spending three days in Salt Lake City, we pushed on to Seattle. What really brought the trip to an end was walking up to Gas Works park at night.

Gas Works park night time view

(for the full photo set, head on over to flickr)

We finally got internet at the apartment (no thanks to Comcast), my belongings arrived via UPS (I now have more than one pair of pants) and I may finally start looking for a job. I moved to Seattle and now I have to change my timezone settings on all of the internet.