THE TRIP (Part 4)

    Day eight dawned chilly and bright in Northern Arizona. There was a touch of frost on my car as I took Riley out for our usual pre-breakfast walk. Today we’d be driving north for the first time all trip and I was looking forward to seeing some new and surprisingly exciting places. The first of which was the Hoover Dam. And the surprising part was how unbelievably scared it made me.

THE TRIP (Part 3)

    From nearly the moment our trip began in Maine, my car had been making weird noises. It sounded like a rattling, as if something were loose, but would suddenly go just as quickly as it came. Jenn and I had been trying to diagnose it for days. It would happen occasionally when we were slowing down, or idling, but disappear once we got up to speed. It gradually got worse and worse. So once the oil light illuminated, moments before we were about to jump back on the 40 in Amarillo, I decided it was time for a pit stop to figure it out once and for all.

THE TRIP (Part 2)

    After two fairly short driving days of 300 and 360 miles respectively, it was now officially time to put some serious pavement behind us. We had 600 miles on day three’s itinerary, so we hit the road early. We made quick work of Pennsylvania, going the short way across, and likewise for Maryland and West Virginia. The same could not be said, however, for Virginia. As our intended course travelled the entire spine of the Appalachians, 320 miles southwest along Route 81. From Winchester, Virginia to Bristol, Tennessee. Pretty but long. And surprisingly full of traffic, for a Sunday.

THE TRIP (Part 1)

    Our cross-country trip started with a walk. Me with Riley and Jenn with her girls. Down to the corner to catch the school bus. We huddled in the cold and they each took turns hugging Riley and then hugging me. I had grown close to these three over the past few months and it was hard for me to say goodbye. We’d gone on adventures, taken fun hikes, played crazy games, and even had raucous dance parties at the drop of a hat. Although, if I’m being honest, when it was time to leave, they seemed much more broken up about seeing Riley off than saying goodbye to me. After a few more hugs for each of us they piled onto the bus and were on their way. And so were we.

THE SURPRISE

She’s coming!

    A few days before I was to begin a journey that would take me 3000 miles away from her, Jenn let me know she would be joining me. What started as an offhanded comment that she should “come along for the ride”, turned into the best news of my recent life. In typical Jenn fashion, she took my words to heart and made magic out of them. By asking her mom to watch the girls, and taking a leap of faith that 10 days in a cramped car with me and my stinky dog was exactly what she wanted, she instantly turned a depressing drive into the trip of a lifetime.

THE GOODBYE

    In the final few weeks before I was due to depart for Spokane I felt like a terminally ill patient, or a prisoner on death row. My fate was sealed, and it was inescapable. The gods had cast their die and I had no choice but to bend myself to their will. Leaving all my friends and family behind to drive west, alone, into the unknown. The shear weight of that burden left me feeling depressed and heartbroken. I was a dead man walking, and I’ve never felt so helpless.

THE HOUSE

    Now that I had packed up nearly all of my personal belongings, it was time to figure out where to ship them. So I booked a flight to Spokane for the second weekend in February to search for an apartment. I had chosen that weekend specifically because it was when Jenn was scheduled to be running the World Snowshoe Championships in Japan. And, since our time together was quickly dwindling, I took full advantage of the period she was already going to be away.