Today Was a Good Day.

Well, things are looking up! I'm in the later stages of a different interview - for a cashier job at Fred Meyer (sort of Target-y store, for those of you who may not be familiar), our housing application is only waiting on one more approval, and we got our foodstamps today.

Newport is Different:
People have dirt and ferns in their front yards instead of yuccas and gravel. Every morning when I go outside for the first time, the ocean smell hits me. The houses are all shingles or wood sidiing, usually in two-tone blue or green or white. It's very artsy and eclectic here - we passed an apartment building (like the Aztec Motel on Central), with things nailed all over the outside, like plastic dinosaurs and garden decor. Lots of galleries, but they all have seascapes in them instead of desertscapes. There is a sign in the Burger King drive-through saying "Please Do Not Feed the Seagulls", and when you drive into the lower parts of town there are signs posted saying "Now Entering Tsunami Zone" with an iconographic picture of a wave. When we go to the pub by the bayfront, we can hear the seals barking all the way inside, and they have a crab-fishing section in Fred Meyer.

It's also the same, sometimes. We wandered down to the pub on Sat and it turned out they were having trivia night - one of our favorite things to do at O'Neill's Irish Pub in ABQ. Then our server saw our driver's licenses and said "Hey, I moved here from ABQ in the spring - I used to work at O'Neill's, do you know it?" I mean, wow! We've met someone from Roswell who had just moved to Portland and was here for the weekend, and almost everybody here has at least heard of ABQ.

Some of you have heard this already, but we made friends with the manager at (the best/fantastic) local coffee shop, and we are helping host a Halloween party there. We've been handing out flyers and inviting people, but it may end up just being us and a few choice friends. I'm pretty excited for Halloween.

Also, LEGO ROCK BAND!! Combining all the best aspects of the LEGO video games with the best of fake guitar playing - coming soon to a store near you! I hear LEGO David Bowie makes an appearance. I'm so excited that I am jumping around like one of those little yippy dogs.

I Just Want To Unpack My Stuff

Okay, status update:

No jobs yet. Alyssa had an interview, but didn't get the position. It would have been seasonal work ending after Christmas anyway. Still turning in applications and resumes every day.

No house yet. We almost got an apartment, but the guy rented to someone else (all for the better, actually). Tomorrow or the next day we'll hear back from the property management company about another apartment.

Twenty-five days since we left home, about 19 since we drove into Newport. We've done really well, we have a lot of new friends, I like the town. But I am soooo ready to unpack my stuff. I'm ready to cook on a stove and wear all of my clothes. As nice as it is to stay in a hotel - in our new place we'll probably be without cable or internet for a while, and we'll certainly be without maid service - I am ready for someplace to call home.

Anyways, we've got a busy Monday planned, since Sunday most things are closed. Off to sleep! More pictures soon!

Life's a Beach

The beach is incredibly wide here. When the tide is all the way out it takes forever to get all the way down to the water.

Even though the tide was receding, the have creep-up-farther- than-you-think waves. I got wet, but Boone cleverly jumped up on a rock.

Mostly the beach is sand, but this stretch of rocks has all kinds of neat little tide pools, full of crabs and anemones and mussels, and people walking dogs...

And nose-suckers!

Continuing Saga of Slightly Slow Mayhem

Oh it is nice here! I'll go ahead and get a bunch of pictures of town in the next few days, so I can give you guys a visual. We keep turning in applications and making calls every day - at this point we've applied all our first choice places and are working on our second tier jobs and anything new that comes up on Criaislist or in the paper for the day. I think it may takes us a bit to get jobs, but after that I think we'll be fine. Keeping the panic at bay :)

We got a new hotel room, slightly smaller and cheaper - and we looked at an awesome studio the other day which we shall hear back about on Wed or Thurs. It's frustrating to skip things like dinner or a movie when they would lift our spirits, and we've given in a few times, but I'm pretty set on getting into an apartment. :D

Jobbing only takes an hour or two a day, so we're having fun biking and beaching and coffee house-ing and gaming. I'm starting to miss everybody a lot, and my daydreams include everyone coming to visit and walking on this wide beach and in these fuzzy forests with me. (Start making your plans now!)

My wonderful friend in ABQ is now acting as my full time employer, so if we don't get this studio we're going to go back to the property mgmt company and just get a place. I feel like unpacking our stuff out of the cars finally and making a home would really energize and stabilize us.

As soon as I have an address, I'll post it here so you guys can send me stuff like cactus and gravel and green chile, to make my house a real home.

The One Week Mark.

Okay, so as of last night, we have been in Newport for exactly one week. That makes me feels a little better - of course we don't have jobs or a place to live yet, it's only been a week. Calm down, Lyssa.

We have been focusing on jobs and on making friends in town to help us with word-of-mouth job getting. On Sunday we played old fashioned paper and pencil D&D via webcam with our buddies in New Mexico and Arizona for a few hours - how technologically advanced and backwards at the same time! :P

We're calling around and checking prices for another week in a hotel, I think now that tourist season is over we can get a super excellent deal. We put in a bunch more applications yesterday, then went for a walk in the forest in the drizzly rain. There are ferns, and giant elephant ear things, and moss everywhere, like some kind of cold weather jungle. Some places the ground is covered in so much tree litter and crazy lichen it's like walking on a trampoline.

Having internet and mini-fridge makes the hotel almost like home. I love how close together everything is here, and how the fog rolls in sometimes and makes me think my glasses are dirty. I love the smell of the ocean and the lovely little public library. If I can just keep my panic under control for a little while, I think this will all work out wonderfully.

Keep crossing your fingers for me!

Newport, ho!

Our first day in town was a blast. We parked and rode our bikes all over the place – the bike shop, the co-op, the beach, the pub, the coffee shop, and then finished up by looking at the most adorable apartment I've seen in a while.

The bike shop isn't hiring, but they do group rides – mountain bikes Wednesdays and road bikes Saturdays – and we'll probably be buying bike parts eventually. The coffee shop isn't hiring, it's pretty much a one-guy operation, but way cheap and the dude who runs it is hilarious, so we'll be back. (He is the first person to inform us that if you wear a Hawaiian shirt to the pub on Tuesdays, you get free beer. Two other people mentioned it as well.)

I still need to talk to the co-op lady, but the co-op reminds me of The Marketplace when it was in its old building. Grind you own peanut butter, plywood shelves, local milk in returnable bottles. I also need to get an application for the pub, but the minute we walked in they started plying us with samples, so even though I only purchased one beer, I was three sheets to the wind my the time our food arrived.

The agreement I'd reached with the vacation rental lady was that she'd provide a week – a bedroom in either one of her multi-bedoom houses. The first house she had us in was okay, not posh or anything, and the house was full of annoying people - but the second house she triend to move us to was AWFUL. Uncovered lighting fixtures, no furniture, smelly. I mean, we're not picky, but the was going to be an uncomfortable place to sleep. We moved to the lovely Summerwind Budget Hotel, and I think we'll stay here for the week. The lady wasn't going to give me a refund, but I called in the cavalry (Mom), and she very cleverly negotiated me my money back.

We spent a lot of time yesterday looking at apartments only to be told that if we we're unemployed they wouldn't even process out applications. !!! Bummed out, we went to dinner with someone we met from Couchsurfing, and he introduced us to the owners of the restaurant who may have a position for at least one of us. And if they don't, I'm sure they will be good word of mouth-ers. So even though we've had some sucky stuff, we are greatly bouyed.

We rode bikes on the beach this morning, then collected applications from places that are open on Saturdays and are currently filling them out. We'll go meet the restaurant people at 4:00.

Thank you to everybody who is helping us finance this expedition – The other day as we were driving around, I got all teary-eyed I was so happy.

Love and Bunnies, All -

Alyssa

San Fran and Onward!

So after leaving L.A., Boone and I split up to make the most of our time. He went to Fresno to visit a friend, and I went to San Francisco to see Dana and Will (See you soon, Maya, sorry!). My first driving in San Francisco city proper ended up being at night, but the GPS navigation in my phone saved my butt. Turns out having a robot-lady telling you where to turn and calculating potential traffic in the way is actually QUITE helpful.

I love San Francisco. It's so pretty. Even the dumpsters and alleys seem well-put-together, like the ultimate in shabby chic. Breakfast with Dana and Will was lovely, and brought home to me how different it's going to be not seeing anyone I currently know on a regular basis.


We met up in Medford, OR, on Monday evening. Boone nearly ran out of gas and money, and also locked his keys and jacket in the car - but a kindly grocery store staff in Yreka helped with $10 and a wire flyswatter handle - crisis averted! Thank you kindly staff!

In Medford we stayed with some more of Boone's awesome friends. I've invited everyone we've talked to during the whole trip to come stay wih us once we get a place - I'd love to have visitors! Newport was a short day of driving from thee, about 6 hours. We have rented a week in vacation home (in nearby Lincoln City) to give us a home base while we look for jobs and homes, and we rolled in around 7pm, made dinner, and got right in bed.

This morning we are taking it slow, but then taking our bikes over to Newport and toodle around, perhaps apply for some jobs and see some apartments. Eeek!

It begins!

Pre-leaving:

Boone and I took turns having panic attacks while we packed. We started sorting and putting things in boxes two days before we left, and I ended up putting the last bits in the car about an hour before we left town. We left a bunch of storage boxes and a big mess, which our lovely Michele told us she would take care of for us. You can see in the picture of the car that both the back and front seats are full (on Boone's car as well), and we each have two bikes strapped to the back!

Leaving!:

Our first day of driving was pretty easy - we stopped in Gallup for lunch with our friend Melanie, and cut down through Payson to Phoenix. We stayed with Boone's good friend and her adorable family, and it was absolutely the best night's sleep I'd had in a week. The next morning, I was sore all over - I think the lumbar support I was using threw my back alignment off, so I chucked it into the back of the car and made do with sweaters and pillows, and by the end of the day I was back to normal.

The second day of driving ended up being a little long, but we didn't leave PHX until almost noon. We took I-10 west and ran into construction between Quartzite and Twenty-nine Palms somewhere, but we navigated the L.A. freeway system and finally arrived at my Grandma Pat's house around 9:30pm. She had ribs and coleslaw and ice cream waiting for us. Way to travel in style!

We are about to hit the road again - I feel well rested but I'm glad we got a case of red bull and a case of frappuchinos at Costco before we left, really saving my butt. More fun photos soon, internet is being more scarce than I had realized :P