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So after over a week of packing, and a last minute packing frenzy last night until 4 am, our house is finally packed up and empty. My mom flew in from LA to help us pack some boxes while I was at work. We ended up renting one of those LARGE PODS instead of going the truck route. We filled it to the brim! It was like playing life sized Tetris trying to maneuver our crap without wasting any space – except in this game there are killer bees trying to (successfully) sting you while you pack.
Our ingenious plan is to live out of a suitcase for a few weeks until we find a place to call home and keep the Pod in storage in the mean time. Unfortunately we couldn’t fit everything into it so we had to ditch a few of our goods. One of those things was Jessica’s car. We figured it would be best to save the thousand bucks it would cost to ship the car and put that towards an ‘upgrade’ when we get back to LA. And, a few other beloved items met the fate of craigslist.
Hello family, friends, and wierdo strangers that stalk us in the night. This will be the first of many updates to our new blog. Expect to see beautiful photos and comments from our cross country drive across the US.
This will be my first time driving across the US and Jessica’s third. The plan (as of today) is to drive across the Northern States starting in Detroit and to cut through Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Mt Rushmore South Dakota, Yellowstone Wyoming, Montana, Coeur d’Alene Idaho, northern Washington to visit Jessica’s Great-Uncle Tommy, through the scenic Cascades in Northern Washington, Seattle to visit Jessica’s Grandparents,brother Matt, his wife Cathy, and their son Calvin. From there we’ll turn south to vistit my aunt Sandra and cousin Julian in Portland, Oregon and then to Eugene/Springfield, Oregon where we’ll meet up with Jessica’s parents Howard and Mary Jane. We’ll finally get to see all the hard work they’ve put into remodelling their beautiful home. After a short break there and a little technical support/house call, we’ll continue south to Burlingame, CA just outside of San Francisco where we’ll see Jessica’s brother Pete and his wife Stine. From there it’ll be a straight shot down I-5 to LA where we’ll end our trek at my mom’s house near Pasadena where we’ll set up our temporary residence. In total we’re estimating 3,900 miles – about 64 hours of total driving time plus a few breaks here and there, and any photo ops taken full advantage of.
It’s an ambitious trip, trust me we know, but if there ever was an opportunity to do this, it would be now. Hopefully we slow down long enough to enjoy the scenery. Stay tuned for more! 
