The Final Post: Leaving Melbourne, Driving Across the US

Well, this is it. Our last "On the Flip Side" post. Except for one box of books (which is probably on a boat now), all of our stuff has made it to Seattle, where we're starting to settle in. The whole moving experience made us feel incredibly lucky - lucky to have spent 2 years in Melbourne, lucky to know so many fantastic people (on both sides of the Pacific), and lucky to have landed in another beautiful city by the water.

In case you ever need to move from Melbourne to Seattle, we broke the process down into 6 easy steps:

Step 1: Crossing the Pacific

Cleaning out our apartment in St Kilda took some doing, but (with plenty of help!) we managed to find good homes for our furniture and housewares, and clean the place up. Here's Naomi eating a final meal on our last day there:

Our flight back went Melbourne -> Sydney (~1.5 hours), Sydney -> Dallas (~15 hours), and Dallas -> National Airport in DC (~... we stopped counting). Our connections were pretty tight, but we and our luggage made it, and stumbled through security at DC into the arms of Naomi's parents. On the way out of the airport, Naomi captured the mood:

Step 2: Drive from DC to New Mexico

We gave ourselves a week to re-adjust to (a) the time-change, (b) the season-change, (c) the side-of-the-road-change. After a couple days up in New York, we returned to Maryland to start packing everything up. The vast majority of our belongings had been sitting in the Spector family basement for the past couple years. We stuffed it all into a 10' U-Haul. Here we are, ready to roll:

Since we didn't know when the next time would be that we'd drive across the US, we decided to make some stops to see family and friends. That ended up taking our route south, through the Caronlinas, down to Atlanta, and over to New Mexico.

Our route to Atlanta took us through the eastern tip of Tennessee, where there were clear signs about which part of the world we were in:

Colin's mad scientist brother Peter (not really mad) put us up for a night in Atlanta. He also took us for a walk in his neighborhood...

...and to a first-rate breakfast place called The Flying Biscuit:

Our next stop was in Birmingham, Alabama, where our friends Josh and Stephanie (who also just moved back to the US from Melbourne) just arrived. Yet again, we were treated to a free tour. Here's the four of us on top of the ridge overlooking the city:

After 'Bama, our goal was to get to New Mexico as quickly as possible. That night, we stayed near the Mississippi border. Colin was impressed by one of the local driver's parking:

The next morning, we crossed the Mississippi River:

We made it to Oklahoma by early evening, where massive clouds were filling the skies. The area had been having a significant amount of rain (though there were no tornadoes as we went through).

After a night at a Super 8 in Elk City, Oklahoma (you wouldn't believe what the Holiday Inn Express was charging!), we continued west. Our goal was to cross the Texas Panhandle, and arrive at Colin's dad's place near Albuquerque by mid-afternoon.

Texas was looking green (botanically speaking):

Step 3: Enjoy the Southwest

New Mexico might be one of the poorest states in the US, but it has its charm:

Our first meal was at a historic diner. We went straight for the chile-sauce boat plates. Fantastic....

It took a few hours to cross eastern New Mexico, but soon we were in the sort of landscape that Colin grew up in:

Colin's dad Bob gave us a fantastic welcome. He's working on a long-term construction project, and after days of sitting in a truck, we were eager to get some physical activity. Here's Naomi and Bob hauling some dirt for adobe floors:

New Mexico doesn't mess around when it comes to sunsets or sunrises. Here's a sunrise, as seen from Bob's cabin:

After our (too short!) stay in New Mexico, we headed northwest. Even though we were eager to make it to Seattle, we decided to take a bit of time to see southern Utah. Our route took us through the southwestern corner of Colorado:

When we were in Atlanta, Peter helped us find a reasonably-priced motel in Moab, Utah. As we got close to Moab, the rocks started getting weird:

We took a detour down along the Colorado River near sunset:

And a quick walk:

After a good dinner at the Moab Brewery and a solid sleep, we drove up to Arches National Park. Our plan was to spend half a day there, and then spend the night somewhere north of Salt Lake City.

Arches was great. Colin got to wear his favorite hat...

Naomi found a friend...

and the arches themselves were pretty amazing:

Step 4: Drive from Southern Utah to Eugene, Oregon

We spent that night in Brigham City. Here's an LDS church near where we stayed, with some pretty sunset clouds forming. Salt Lake City itself was covered in a cloud of haze... partly, we learned, due to some wildfires burning nearby.

Our next day was pretty dull. Most of it was occupied with southern Idaho. Much of that looked like this:

Or this:

...except that, if you look closely at that last picture, you can see some of the wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail. That shook us out of our mindset for a moment - the toughest thing we've had to do is drive an air-conditioned truck on nicely-paved roads.

Another reminder of the Oregon Trail appeared, appropriately enough, as we entered Oregon.

Eastern Oregon is mostly sagebrush. It's pretty, in its way, and had hints of the mountains to come:

We eventually got to the mountains, and drove through Willamette National Forest. We stopped at the top of a pass that was covered by a lava flow. Here's Naomi holding a rock:

Then we zipped down the other side of the mountain. Suddenly, things were green again:

Step 5: Family in Oregon!

We spent the next two nights with Colin's mom, Mary, who just moved up to Eugene in May:

Eugene is also home to Colin's aunt Merrilee, uncle Bob, cousins Brooke and Ryoko... and the latest addition to the family, Kahdo. Here's Bob and Kahdo:

Step 6: Washington, at last

From Eugene, the drive to Seattle was about 5.5 hours. At this stage, that felt like nothing. We felt like this sign was personally addressing us:

We came into Seattle (perhaps foolishly) via I-5. Traffic wasn't too bad, but it did give us a chance to take in the skyline:

Colin's sister Liz lives in Seattle. Not only did she make us feel instantly welcome, lend us a car, give us a place to stay, and feed us, but she also took us around the city and on some field trips. One trip was out to the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula. Here's Liz with Naomi on top of one mountain:

And here's one of the locals, an Olympic Marmot:

We stayed with Liz for about 10 days, and have now moved into an apartment in the Fremont neighborhood. So far, we're loving it. Here's our living room, which only has a few boxes and scraps of cardboard left:

Seattle is treating us very well so far. We hope that friends from Melbourne and elsewhere will consider coming to visit! We promise we'll have the living room cleaned up by the time you get here.


And, that's the end of our Australian adventure. Thanks for following along with us!