Wow, life has sure been busy ever since we left Utah, but, I am finally ready to sit down and catch everybody up on our big move! With the much appreciated help of George and Polly Panos we packed up the U-haul on Thursday, August 14th and said goodbye to Salt Lake City. We drove up to Oakley, UT (where George and Polly live), about 1 hour east of SLC, and spent our last night in UT with them. We grilled burgers and hot dogs for dinner, relaxed and watched Michael Phelps win another gold medal and eventually had to say "NO" to watching more Olympics. The next morning we woke up early and said a tearful goodbye to George and Polly. Of course we couldn't leave empty handed. Polly sent us on our way with home made coffee cake and dozens of Peter's favorite Greek cookies, "dog biscuits", don't ask. Thanks Polly! I think we're down to about 3 dozen cookies now!
Once we got on the road we were headed east as far as we could make it! I don't have much to say about the rest of Utah, except that we drove through some pretty red rock cliffs that made me think for a second that we had found a fast track to Moab (Southern UT)! Anyway, then into Wyoming. Oh Wyoming, well, again, not much to say! It was surprisingly cold, and there were wind farms everywhere!! If you want to see windmills as far as your eye can see, go to eastern Wyoming! We approached the heaviest wall of rain as soon as we hit the Nebraska border. I have not seen rain like this since Florida! The sky was black and the clouds were extremely low, so naturally we were hoping for a tornado, but no such luck! We called it a day in Sydney, NE. We arrived at our hotel in the pouring rain, ran inside, checked in, then the fire alarm went off. Well, this was great. Everyone starts filing outside under the smallest overhang, and a couple minutes later the police and fire departments arrive. I didn't want to wait around for this so we ran back to the car, dropped off our luggage and ran to Perkins for dinner, yes, still in the rain. With full stomachs we return to our hotel which is still standing and went to bed.
Day 2, 8/16/08. We left Sydney, NE and continue driving through to Newton, IA, a little town just east of Des Moines. This day was so boring I don't know what to say about it. We saw the "3 C's", corn, cows and construction. So much corn and so many cows.
Day 3, 8/17/08. On this day we drove from Newton, IA to Madison, WI. We decided to take this little detour to spend a night with Peter's friend from high school and college, Chris Dodgion. Chris graduated from the U of U's Med School and left SLC a year ago to start his surgical residency in Madison. We've missed having Chris in SLC so we wanted to swing by his place. He showed us around Madison a little. We met up with some of his friends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus at the terrace or union. This place was so cool! We got pitchers of beer on campus while overlooking a beautiful lake! Talk about picturesque. U of U friends, you understand how weird it was to get beer on campus!! Anyway, then we went to some restaurant to get fried cheese curds (mmm, cheese curds) and then to another place for dinner. All in all, very cool city.
Day 4, 8/18/08. We left Madison by 8am (you have to move your car to the other side of the street by 8am every Monday for street cleaning) and set our final destination for Lansing, MI. Along the way we drove through Chicago to meet up with Ryan Pelo, a friend of mine, for lunch. Ryan and I worked together last year at Life Centre Physical Therapy in UT. He ended up getting accepted to Northwestern for his DPT while I'm going to Northeastern for my DPT! We found his apt but had a hard time finding parking! Just like we expected, mainly street parking and of course we couldn't find any with a trailer!! So we turned a corner and came across a self pay parking lot that was pretty much empty. Jackpot! So we park, pay, and go grab lunch with Ryan. Well, we return to our car to find a ticket on it for taking up two spaces! It unfortunately did not occur to us that we had to pay for 2 spaces. So anyway we ended up just having to pay for the extra space vs paying the ticket price, so all was good! We said goodbye to Ryan and we were on our way! Driving out of Chicago was tricky though and it did take us longer than expected. Eventually we made our way into Lansing, MI around 7pm-ish that night, and all I can say about the drive was that is was very industrial and boring. So, we arrived at Dad and Emily's at around 7pm and Dad was working the closing shift at Home Depot. We quickly parked the car-trailer, unloaded our belongings and then Emily took us to Home Depot.
I felt like I was playing Mission Impossible while Emily was finding Dad and I was sneaking around the adjacent isle and then finally I saw him. Peter got out the camera while I made a dash for this isle display to hide behind but I blew my cover by scurrying to quickly or loudly. Dad saw me! It turned out to be a great surprise! Emily had been telling him that some of her friends that Dad only met once were coming into town, and Dad was getting really nervous and bummed that it wasn't any body in the family. But thanks to Emily and the rest of the Cummins family we kept a great secret and got Dad really good!
Day 5, 8/19/08. The next day Dad took us back to Home Depot to meet all his friends and co-workers, we drove around Lansing to see all the Cummins family history (homes, schools, etc) and then back to the house for a great barbeque party that Emily had planned for us! My Aunt Sharon (Mom's sister) and Uncle Dick drove down from Shepherd, MI to join us and it couldn't have been more fun! We got to spend time with family and meet Emily's family as well. I wish everybody could have stayed longer, but I know we will get a chance to see everyone again in the future.
Day 6, 8/20/08. This day was more of a relaxing day. We hung around at Dad's house and listened to him play the piano again! That brought back a lot of great childhood memories for me. Thanks Dad! We did go to visit Cummins and Moore family grave sites, and of course, watch more olympics. This time mainly the gymnastics!!
Day 7, 8/21/08. Well, now we were on the home stretch. No one left to visit and we were getting anxious to get off the road! So we said yet another goodbye to Dad and Emily and were on the road yet again. We drove from Lansing, MI to Cuba, NY, yes, Cuba. The drive didn't really get pretty until Pennsylvania and then even more so once we got into New York.
The one thing we'll remember from Pennsylvania is the construction! My goodness the construction! We we're backed up in one spot for about 1 hour sitting bumper to bumper and sometimes crawling! AGH! We just wanted to get to New York and it didn't help that I had had too much to drink just as we came to a dead stop! Oh well, I survived! One of the first towns we passed through as we crossed into New York was Chataqua. It was beautiful! The rolling hills (Peter doesn't like it when I say mountains!) were getting a little bigger and the town was along a large lake with most of the homes extending out onto the water with docks and some had stilts. Anyway, would love to visit there someday. So we spent the night at an Econo Lodge in Cuba, although no hispanic food for some reason, imagine that! So we settled for pizza.
Day 8, 8/22/08. We continued along the more southern route through New York and then into Massachusetts. The drive through New York was very pretty, continuous hills or mountains and very green. Aunt Sharon says that the east has a "quiet beauty" and I think she's right! Definitely not as dramatic as the west, but very peaceful and pretty. As we crossed into Massachusetts the beauty continued and we were getting more and more anxious to get home! We ended up stopping for one more night so that we could unload the trailer in the morning vs at night. So we stopped in a small town called Sturbridge, MA, about 45 min - 1 hour outside of Boston. It was a nice little town, but definitely touristy, so the only thing we could afford for dinner was more pizza! Yea, we were so bummed!
Day 9, 8/23/08. Final day!! We woke up with enthusiasm, well, maybe not that much, but anyway we continued the final leg of our drive. We drove on the Mass Pike through a town called Worcester, a place that my good friend Joe Schultz informed me is not pronounced as it is spelled but is pronounced as if it were spelled "Woosta"! I didn't believe him at first, but, Joe, you are right! Why they don't just spell it that way is beyond me!
So finally we drive up to our apartment building, decide to double park on the street (only street parking here) and start unloading!! 3 hours later we had unloaded the entire u-haul and wanted to get rid of the darn thing! So we found the u-haul place, not in the greatest neighborhood by the way, kind of scary! Then I think we went to Target and back home. We slept on the floor for the first 2 nights and we got a lot accomplished around the apartment. Then Monday, we bought a futon, well, since then we have not gotten as much done every day due to sleeping in and taking excessively long afternoon naps! Oh well, the apartment may not be completely finished but it's functional!
So now you know the story of our travels!
We had a great time, even though boring through some states, but the highlights of our trip were stopping and seeing some of you along the way! Dad, Emily, Chris and Ryan, thanks for your hospitality, for giving us a place to stay, for showing us around and for showing us a good time!
Please know that everyone is welcome to come out here and visit us! The more the merrier! Hopefully we'll see some of you soon!!
So on October 11, 2008, we decided to join 3 of Peter's classmates and go hiking in New Hampshire! We went to Mt. Monadnock and the drive was only about an 1 1/2, I think. It was during the peak of the fall colors and the weekend before midterms, so 2 good reasons to get out of the apt and the city! When we got there we realized that we were not the only people that had the idea to go hiking! 
The parking lot was full and I felt like we were at an amusement park! Anyway, it didn't take us long to notice the differences between Utah and New Hampshire. The ground was covered in tons of colored leaves, there was moss everywhere, the trees were different and well, the air was humid. It was very beautiful, especially when we made it to our first look out point and could look out across the rolling hills covered in reds and yellows. We were always surrounded by people, so that was a little weird, it would have been nice to have been more secluded and enjoy being away from people, but at least we were in nature. The hike to the top took us only about 1 1/2 - 2 hours, and was so much easier than anything I've done in the past! I think being at a lower elevation really helped
in Ketchum is just soooo amazing. There's no need for a car. We parked our car when we arrived, and didn't touch it again until we left. We just cruised around town on our bikes, with everyone in town waving and saying hi to Jeremy (I think he's popular in town). We spent our time mountain biking, hiking, watching fireworks, going to a street concert, playing croquet, and otherwise just chilling on Jeremy's porch while he played guitar and Trisha played a mandolin.
