First day on the road to California

Today Karl and I left Bloomington to begin our venture west to our new home in California. We stayed up very late last night cleaning our apartment from top to bottom, then woke up this morning and got an early start. By the time we had our move-out inspection, went to Penske to connect the car carrier to the moving truck, and left town, it was already 10:30 a.m. I was worried about how things would go with the 16-foot moving truck and the car carrier with our Prius on the back, but much to my delight Karl was like an old pro driving it and after a few miles he was feeling very comfortable.

We drove through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and half of Kansas today...and are currently at a Best Western in a place called Salina, Kansas. We tried to get a room at two different Holiday Inn Expresses but unfortunately they were all booked up (which led us to the question - who is staying at these places in the middle of nowhere on a Tuesday night???), but the Best Western had some rooms and free internet! :)

To keep ourselves occupied during the drive, we kept a running list of all of the different state license plates that we saw on other cars. We saw 32 different U.S. states today, as well as two license plates from Canada. We also started a little list of things that are "strictly Indiana" that we'll miss about our old home...some of them are things we'll really miss, and others (like the commercials on our list) are just silly things that we make comments about all the time. Here's what we have come up with so far:

-Chuck Lofton, the weather guy on NBC 13 (he gets very excited about the weather!)
-Sarah Fisher AAA Hoosier Insurance commercials and billboards. As Sarah says, "Insure with someone you trust." Well, I don't have AAA insurance, but having a Triple-A card had already saved me a bundle on this trip...I received discounts on both the moving truck and our hotel tonight!
-Cresent Donut - no, that's not a typo. That's really how it is spelled. This is a 24-hour donut place in Bloomington that we went to every other week or so...they have the best donut holes ever and with the prices they charge, I don't know how they stay in business...it's dirt cheap but soooo good.
-Anatolia - this is a Turkish restaurant that is right down the street from our old apartment. We became "regulars" there and got to know the owners pretty well. The food was outstanding and the people were great...this is probably a place I will miss the most.
-Scotty's 1/2 price wine Thursdays - My friend Erin and I got in the habit of going to Scotty's every Thursday night for a half-price bottle of Greg Norman Cabernet Sauvignon, and we usually got the exact same thing to eat: the Sweet Chicken Club Wrap. Yummmmm.
-Nick's - basically the only place we went if we actually "went out".
-Working out at the SRSC - more than the equipment, I think we decided what we will miss most is all of the other regulars that we nicknamed over the years...the Fit Club, Nellie Olsen, Class of 2005, Ponytail Twins, Jerry the Mouse, "Steve" times 3 (I thought everyone looked like their name should be Steve), Maestro, Diving Coach, Swimming Coach, Vicki, and Basketball Girl.
-Village Deli - luckily we squeezed in one last breakfast there with Karl's parents on Sunday!
-Bike ride to work - this is one of the things Karl will miss most - he videotaped his last ride to work and will probably upload it once we get settled in at our new place.
-92.3 WTTS - this is the absolute best radio station ever. It will be hard to find a replacement...
-Jiffy Treet - again, not a typo. That is how they spell "treat". This place had great ice cream and my favorite was a cyclone made with vanilla yogurt with oreos. I have been a frequent visitor of this place since I was an undergrad.
-Oliver Winery - how could we not miss this place? We both worked there and made many great friends there as well. Plus the wines are wonderful...we will especially miss the Chambourcin. Luckily we are bringing 6 bottles of it to California with us! :)
-Goldcasters ads on the radio - I know Brad Lawrence really wants to be my jeweler, but that'll be a tough task now that we'll be living over 3,000 miles away.
-All of the car ads on TV in the morning - Bird Ford ("Haven't you heard, Bird's the word!") and Ray Skillman ("Where we stock 'em deep and sell 'em cheap!") are the two most annoying commercials EVER. But I'm sure we'll miss them as we watch the Today Show every day.
-St. Thomas Lutheran Church - this is where we got married, and we loved attending the services on Sundays. It'll be tough to find a replacement, but we're going to try!

Okay, it's time for me to call it a night! Here are a few photos from our trip so far...

The inside of the Penske moving truck...all packed and ready to go!

This is at a gas station somewhere in Illinois. The car on the left gets over 50 miles per gallon...the car that Karl is pointing to gets about 9 mpg. So sad...


A view of downtown Kansas City. Karl and I thought it looked like a pretty neat city! Neither of us have ever been there before.

That's all for now! The plan for tomorrow is to make it to my mom's house in Colorado sometime in the late afternoon. More updates to come sometime this week.