When I think of Illinois, I think of...oil?

Today was a rather interesting day. We left Knoxville with the intention of driving 2 hours to Nashville and staying the night. Before we had finished breakfast, this plan had changed- leaving us staying in Palucah, KY- home of the fabulous quilting museum. So, we began our trek to Nashville to get in touch with our nonexistent country music sides. Kevin was really looking forward to seeing the full scale model of the Parthenon that was built for the World's Fair. Unfortunately, it was closed. We walked around and took some pictures of the outside but it just wasn't the same. After a very short discussion....very short....we decided to just go ahead and drive the other 5 hours to St. Louis which is more our kind of town.

Along the way we passed many a corn field. Halfway through Illinois we also saw several small oil derricks. Here we are in the middle of an oil crisis and Illinois is pumping the black gold? Go Figure. We made it to St. Louis in time to catch most of the Cardinals games. We then tried to go to a place called Bailey's Chocolate Bar but since it was late and it was more than a mile away from any metro stop we decided against it. Tomorrow we will most likely head to all the touristy thing in St. Louis and then to another Cardinals game. I have a job interview at 3:45 so that should be interesting how it plays into our day. Hopefully, I am at least feeling better. (And hopefully this stomach thing is retaliation for eating a Hardee's burger earlier in the day.)

I have posted the pictures from Charleston and Tennessee. Enjoy! And leave comments so Dr. HokieKev and I know who is reading!!!


PS- I forgot to mention the Fried Green Tomatoes from Knoxville. They were pretty good- surprisingly!

States visited: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri
Work Zones traveled through: 15
Cheapest gas seen: $3.81 in Georgia
Baseball Games attended: 1
Next Stop: Staying in St. Louis

Verizon Broadband Access and Hotel Indecision

After our stops in Charleston and Knoxville (a change from the original stop of Atlanta) we have no other plans until we get to Lawrence, Kansas on Thursday. So this lead several temporary changes in our schedule and much indecision on my part. Our goal for the day was a short 2 hour drive to Nashville to check out the full scale model of the Parthenon. Unfortunately for us, the Nashville Parthenon is closed on Sunday AND MONDAY. Because of this disappointment and my general dislike of all things country music, we decided to ditch Nashville for our next stop, PADUCAH, KENTUCKY (I know... exciting huh... I mean they do have a quilting museum.)

After much deliberation (+/- 5 minutes) we decided that going for St. Louis today would be much more exciting. While Paducah does have the quilting museum... St. Louis has much more to do... baseball, the arch, a zoo, and a museum of transportation. Hopefully we can get to St. Louis for the game tonight... we shall see.

Signing off from just north of Paducah, KY.

Good Ole Rocky Top...

Yesterday, we made the 6 hour trek from Charleston to Knoxville. The drive was nice- kind of reminded both of us of driving out to Blacksburg- lots of mountains and 18 wheelers. The drive was pretty uneventful. We stopped at one town in South Carolina, that looked like it had JUST been hit by a tornado, which was a bit interesting. The gas station was also the post office and it looked like the only other store around was the trailer outside the gas station selling jerseys and other Nascar memorabilia. We put 2 gallons in and left.

Fast forward to Knoxville. After navigating the broken interstate and several closed surface roads, we made our was to visit Lisa, Tom, Gwyneth, and Owen. We hadn't seen Tom and Lisa in almost four years and we had never met the kids. We had a great time going out to dinner and catching up. Owen slept pretty much the whole time- he is 3 months old so what can you expect. Gwyneth, who is two and a half, let her artistic side show while coloring a placemat and "making dinner" which basically involved putting ketchup on her chicken fingers and stirring it all around. After dinner, we all went back to their house and played with the kids for a while before Owen finally decided he was bored and went to sleep! Gwynnie and Kevin did a puzzle for a while and there was no way she was going to sleep anytime soon.

Overall, we had a great night and need to make a point not to wait four years before visiting with each other. Hopefully, Gwyneth went to bed soon after we left as mom and dad looked tired and she had previously been running around declaring "Gwynnie is nuts!"

Once again, I will post some pictures of Charleston and Knoxville soon.

States visited: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee
Work Zones traveled through: 10
Cheapest gas seen: $3.81 in Georgia
Next Stop: Nashville, TN to get in touch with our country music side

Cannonballs and Confederates

It is funny how the first place we ate when we moved to Gainesville was the last place we ate before we left! After a lovely breakfast, we hit the road around 11:00. Perfect timing for my 11:00 car nap. I sleep in cars- whether I am tired or not. If the drive is more that an hour, I am out like the fat kid in dodgeball. I also managed to get something on my lovely khaki skirt 5 minutes into our voyage, go figure on that one. So me asleep and Dr. HokieKev driving is how we began the first leg or our trip.

I woke up somewhere around Jacksonville, just in time to snap a picture of the WELCOME TO GEORGIA sign as we were passing. I then proceeded to read (skim) the entire Frommers US. Good Times! Fast forward a few hours and we arrived in Charleston. Charleston is your pretty standard antebellum town- well, maybe one of two pretty standard antebellum towns (Savannah, GA being the other) with big houses and lots of Confederate memorabilia. We hit up a couple parks, took some pictures of some dead guys and cannons, looked at some cool old houses that were WAY expensive, hit up the slave market (which has been turned into a flea markety place but with nicer stuff), and ended our jaunt at a Haagen-Dazs for a Mint Chip Dazzler. I swear Dr. HokieKev can sniff them out from a mile away.

The city is pretty cool but it is REALLY humid here. One of the parks we went to had several fountains full of frolicking children. HokieKev would not let me play in the fountain, something about getting the camera wet. This evening we met Kevin's boss for a seafood dinner in an old naval building on the water. I believe it was called Fleet Street. The food was pretty good and the breeze from the water cut right through the humidity which was a nice change of pace from our earlier walk.

I will post some pictures tomorrow since I left the camera in the car. Until then, I leave you with these facts.

States visited: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina
Work Zones traveled through: At least 4- this statistic will be skewed, I sleep in cars!
Cheapest gas seen: $3.81
Next Stop: Knoxville, TN to visit the Lisa, Tom, Gwyneth, and Owen 0=)

Um...why does my water taste like Tide?

The majority of our day was spent doing nothing, with nothing, on nothing while the movers packed our lives into a truck. And for the record, a truck that was almost too small to hold all of our junk. Had the movers actually packed EVERYTHING, it wouldn't have fit. But lucky for them they forgot a few things that are now shoved in my trunk disrupting the delicate balance that was our suitcases. I had such a great plan too- everything was placed in a way that was easily accessible and Dr. HokieKev's suitcase was ready to be opened in the car for random outfit grabbing instead of lugging the thing into each hotel should he want it that way. But I guess they say, even the best laid plans-, for a reason. I don't know the rest of this saying but I would imagine it would go along the lines of -get screwed by movers. Who knows?!?

Poor HokieKev almost jumped out of his skin with nothing to do all morning- no tv, no internet, no couch. All he had was brickbreak on his phone and a desk chair. I went on a quest across town to Cox cable to disconnect our services which the guy had no problem telling me I was not allowed to do. By this point I was also really hungry and all cableboy was doing was making me angry. Apparently since I was not on the account, they are afraid I was trying to sabotage Kevin by....OMG...disconnecting his cable!!! Seriously, what would he do without 4 MTVs none of which that actually play music. I think we were all a little happier when I returned from my quest with Panera- even though my frozen lemonade was a little less than frozen..

Once the movers were done, I headed off to get my nails done and procure some sort of external hard drive at Best Buy. Then I met the landlady to go over "damages" and basically tell her that she could schedule whatever cleaning services she needed too and deduct it from out deposit and that we just wanted to get out of there. A few bags of trash later and I was off to the gym. Exciting I know!

You see, the gym on Friday's is like entering the 8th level of hell. It is not very busy which means the floor instructors get bored and seek blood. I will not be able to move tomorrow but I guess that is ok since I will be spending most of the day in the car. So anyway, my lovely Nalgen bottle got packed so I had to settle for some regular old bottled water. Halfway through my workout, I went for some water and got a lovely whiff of Tide. Having not actually ingesting Tide, I imagine this is what it would taste like. Maybe it was just the smell but it was pretty gross. The lesson here is, never store your extra bottled water in the same cabinet as your laundry detergent. Luckily, this will no longer be a problem as our new apocalypto pantry is waiting for us in Utah.

Next Stop: Charleston, SC and yes, we know it is not on the way.

Who knew packing involved babysitting?

The movers came today. Most everything is in boxes now- it finally looks like we are moving tomorrow! And while I am SO glad I didn't have to pack all of our junk, I was surprised to learn that hiring movers involves babysitting. The head mover brought his 6 year old grandson to work today. Something I think is pretty common as the kid told me he goes to work almost everyday. I think this is pretty sad as he should have been playing rather than roaming around my house messing with stuff. Luckily, I found Kevin's long lost PSP and set the kid up with a video game. This got me a new BFF- the kid would not leave my side almost all day and whenever I tried to get up he would pull me down and literally try to sit in my lap. Talk about not knowing what personal space is. I like kids and all- but this was ridiculous- seriously up in my grill and I hadn't known him for more that an hour. Sheesh! So anyway, the kid is sort of playing the video games- he didn't really know what he was doing, and he couldn't read the directions- but was more than happy to think he was scoring touchdown after touchdown when it was really the computer. Ten minutes into playing, this is how the conversation went:

Me: So, are you getting better?
Kid: Yeah, I like this thing.
Me: Cool.
Kid: So, can I have it?
Me: I don't think so.
Kid: Why not?
Me: Because Dr. HokieKev will miss it.
Kid:Why?
Me:Because he got it for his birthday and really really likes it.
Kid: Why?
Me: Because he thinks the games are cool.
Kid: Why?
Me: Because the Sony people make the games so people will think they are cool.
Kid: Why?
Me: Because thats the way the universe wants it.

The kid didn't question the universe but we did have this same conversation about seven more times throughout the day. The movers are coming back tomorrow and hopefully bringing enough boxes to pack the several drawers full of things they "forgot" to pack today. Maybe they will also bring some sort of magic machine that has the ability to suck a billion packing peanuts off a garage floor. Seriously- who thought of packing peanuts? Bubble wrap is does the same thing and is SO much easier to pick up off the garage floor.

(And for those of you wondering- yes, I do refer to Kevin as Dr. Hokiekev in real life conversations!)

Underwear, Spacebags, and Rhode Island

The next time we move...hopefully in the VERY far off future...I am selling all our clothes and starting over. You see, a few days ago, I decided that I had a problem with skezzy mover men rifling through my underwear. Well, one thing turned into another and sooner or later all of Dr. HokieKev and my clothes ended up in spacebags. It really seemed like a good idea at the time until I realized that together we have enough clothes to outfit a small country- or at least the state of Rhode Island. By this afternoon all of my spacebags had, well, unspaced themselves. Apparently, they neglect to tell you that the seals on the bags only last through one cross country move. Oh well!

Hopefully, I can busy myself enough so that I do not follow the movers around watching their every move and labeling boxes behind them. Because if I was the movers and some chick did that to me I would get annoyed and break her stuff. We also have a TV cratemaker man and a carshipper guy making an appearance. I will be excited when Saturday is here and we finally leave because I am sick of Floridian ants and I am ready to have my own house that I can do whatever I want with. If you haven't seen the new house- or the mountains that come with it- check it out below.


So now I am sick packing the things, instead I am involuntarily sitting her listening to The Two Coreys on A&E feeling my brain cells die by the minute... does someone want to enlighten me as two why two washed up former Brat Packers are in family therapy together?

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Kevin reporting -

I write today with a bit of nostalgia in my mind and a bit of excitement and fear for our journey to Utah. After a year and a half stay at UF and settling into a nice house close to family we are off on a journey that will undoubted change our lives. The responsibility that I have been skirting for a long time can no longer be skirted. I am no longer a student or a post doc, temporary locations have been replaced by a purchased house and one of the most challenging full time jobs one can have (at least for 6 years).

The motto of an nontenured professor used to be "publish or perish", now that motto has been added to by "bring in money or perish" and "get good teaching evaluations or perish" and "publish in the right places or perish". With all that pressure in a month I have to say that I am quite anxious. If I can navigate the tenure process life don't get less busy but it does get less stressful. The prize at the end of the road is worth the journey... that's why we make it.

With this in mind Ann and I set off on the first leg of our journey that will take us to Charleston, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Cheyenne, Ogden, and then to Logan.