Update: soybeans and corn fields

I realize that I'm going out of order here, but I wanted to update everyone on things.

We are settling into our place in Des Moines.  Finally acquiring some furniture.  It is weird how useful things like tables are.  We get our couch (from Craigslist shopping) tomorrow and we should be mostly set.  I love the area, yesterday we took a bike ride through a state park which is only a couple miles away. We also went to a winery in the country.  We drove through soybean and corn fields to the city of Winterset Iowa.  On our way out we stopped to check out a covered bridge.  By the way, these are THE covered bridges of Madison County.  Apparently the basis of a book and movie. The winery, Covered Bridges Winery, they had a live jazz/blues band and wine tasting.  It was a nice afternoon.

School officially starts tomorrow.  Last week was orientation, I met a few people out of my class of 224 students + more from other programs.  I'm ready to get into the swing of things.  I'm a bit nervous about the studying thing since I have been out of school for 5 years. 

We are still planning to finish blogging the end of the road trip.  We saw some great friends and had a wonderful time, but we just haven't had time to write about it. 

Our new home.

Our first night in Des Moines and there were thunderstorms continuously throughout the night.  We decided to camp at a State Park just 7 miles out of the city to save money.  So there we were hunkered down in our tent hoping that nothing would happen.  We are pretty experienced with camping in the rain, somehow every time we decide to camp, it pours on us.  So, we knew that the storms were coming when we arrived.  We worked efficiently to set up camp, make dinner, start the fire (Jarrett had quite the time starting it in a puddle but was successful), and organize the car.  Just in case, we put all boxes and items into the front seat of the car.  This cleared out the back in case we needed to sleep in the car.  Maybe we should have, but we stayed in our tent that night.

Empty!  This may not seem like much,
 but the Prius is normally packed tight.
(We are, after all, living out of it for
 2 months).

Our second night was almost more exciting, we had dinner and went to a movie in town.  Found a great gluten free restaurant, Tally’s.  They used the best pasta we have ever had.  It is an Italian brand, Schar gluten free penne pasta.  Jarrett had the mushroom pasta, rivaling our GF pasta place in Portland, and I had chicken and mashed potatoes.  Both were super yummy!  Then we saw a late showing of Super 8, a cheesy movie in the theatre, to ride out yet another thunderstorm.  At this point our evening almost got more exciting than night #1.  We drove back to our campground at 12:30AM only to discover that the gates closed at 10:30PM.  As we pulled into the drive to think about what we were going to do next, a cop drove up.  He asked if we were lost, we told him our predicament, and he moved on.  Looked like we were going to walk (only about ¼ of a mile) but in the dark and with no flashlights.  The flashlights were all in the tent!  So, Jarrett decided to try the gate, and it wasn’t locked even though a padlock was hanging from it.  Whew.  We opened the gate and drove in!  Crazy adventure adverted.

Jarrett's successful fire
(a puddle of water was at
 the bottom of the fire pit).

The focus of our time in Des Moines was apartment hunting.  We set up as many appointments a day as we could, and if we got stood up we checked out one of the complexes that allowed pets.  Our 3^rd day of appointments turned out to be the productive one.  Both places we looked at were super cute, decent price range and had different sets of perks.  We chose the less expensive place that was farther out of town.  Ironically, this place is just up the street from where we camped the first two nights.  I am looking forward to getting our things moved and setting up.  Of course, I have to wait until the last week of July for that… but that is coming very quickly.  We welcome anyone passing through Des Moines to visit us, we will have a 2nd bedroom and would love to see friends during the school year!

Me in a sculpture at a Des Moines park.

 Des Moines is smaller than we thought; it has lots of hills and lots of trees making it very pretty.  Many buildings are made of brick which adds to the charm.   The rivers were at capacity or slightly overflowing so some roads were closed.  Even with the closed roads we figured out the main ones to use to get around the city.  I have to say that the West side of Des Moines is much simpler than Portland to drive in J  The East side, where our hotel was the third and fourth nights, is composed of knots of freeways.  Each one connects large cities, Chicago, Kansas City, etc. and for some reason they all meet in Des Moines.  That is okay, we will be spending all of our time on the West Side between school and home.  

April Updates

Where to start? First, please notice my updated profile and blog description. Everything is and will continue to change very quickly these next few months. I have added a calendar app on the side so you can see where we are this summer!


Jarrett and I have officially put in our 1 month notices at work. Our last day will be May 6, 2011. It is kind of strange to have such a short time left here. It is also exciting to leave on good terms with such a wonderful adventure ahead of us! We are getting more and more busy as this trip gets closer. Spring brings everyone out of their hibernation. It also marks the beginning of gardening season (yes we are still planting a garden this year). That is another post, maybe I will leave it for Jarrett to write...We are also spending time with friends and getting our fill of our favorite restaurants. I am also winding down my volunteering with the Gluten Intolerance Group. The final event will be the Gluten Free Food Fair on May 7. Come down and visit us if you are around! The fair is at All Saints Catholic Church on 39th and Glisan. You can’t go wrong with the great vendors of gluten free goodies. I am so grateful for my experiences with GIG and work over the last few years. I can’t wait to share my knowledge of gluten-free and lab workings with my new cohort at DMU!

Another thing keeping Jarrett and I busy is packing. We will be travelling light to Des Moines, taking only what fits into our 2 cars. Luckily, we are taking some sentimental items to my parent’s house in Boise to store while in Iowa. My favorite recent purchase is a bike rack for my car. We will take as much of Portland with us to Iowa as we can. I have little piles all over the house, things for the road trip, things for Idaho and things for Iowa. (Yes, I know the names of the two states are very similar. I have been confusing myself of which “I” state the pair of shoes I’m holding are going). My current big project is to go paper-free. I am working on scanning all papers from my file cabinet into my computer. It is a larger project than I anticipated, but it feels so nice to be free of those messy boxes of paper!

With all these activities, the most important to me is to spend as much time with Portland friends as possible.  All of the projects will work themselves out (yay for procrastination), but friends are the important part of my life.  So, we will be planning several going away parties in May and July and are hoping to catch up individually with friends as well.  Please help us with these if you have any ideas, we are currently in the brainstorming stages.