It’s kind of wild to think that I’ve lived in Oregon now for just 2 years shy of 20. It literally seems like last week that Mario and I left our apartment in Orange County, CA is our green, Kia Sportage with our computers and our cat. The moving truck had just picked up all our boxes and was on its way and my parents offered to caravan up the I-5 with us for about 830 miles. We ended up getting caught in bad traffic and had made it less than half the way by midnight so we elected to stop at a hotel. I remember our poor cat was also car sick most of the way and the meds the vet had given us really didn’t do much of anything.
We were all utterly knackered by the time we got to the hotel. In the morning, after some quick breakfast, we traversed the rest of the journey and it was a much better 2nd half than first half. My mom made us all pull over at the Welcome to Oregon sign so she could get a photo.
I remember getting to the new house and unlocking the door for the first time, still a little in disbelief that we’d actually pulled this off–moved from the place we both knew as our lifelong home, to another state, and were now homeowners.
By the way, our cat was totally at home and comfortable from the minute we set her down!
Since the moving van would still take an estimated 5 days to get to us (turned out being 9), the house was pretty much empty. I had gone out and gotten some air mattresses. We went and bought a few chairs and Mario had to get a new TV straight away. I remember that day like it was yesterday. We went to Walmart since there really wasn’t a lot of other choices of places to get TVs in town. It was kind of a “welcome to rural Oregon” moment because while we were in the electronics department a guy walks up in old muddy boots, overalls and a straw hat. We guessed he was some sort of farmer, but he ended up buying a similar TV. We got the big thing home and it just fit in the space above the fireplace. Mario was very happy with that TV.
My folks stayed for a few days, then they started the trek back down to Southern California and left us both in our new, and still empty home. We both just thought it was so wild that the place was OURS. It seemed like forever until the moving truck actually showed up with our stuff (and charged us another $2k to boot … let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend that company!)
That was actually the part I liked best about the whole moving affair–unpacking the boxes and putting everything away. No idea, but I’ve always liked stuff like that as well as organizing closets, etc. Just seems like an almost therapeutic activity to me.
When we had all the stuff from our previous 700 square foot apartment put away, the house still looked empty! So off we went to Pier 1 Imports to get a couch, a dining table, and a few other things. We also ordered a couple desks from IKEA and set up our computers in the upstairs room, which would now be our official office.
And so began the Oregon era.
