Can't you see the island?

Can't you see the island?

Sunday, August 30, 2015

3200+ Miles Later...

I'm here I'm here! Well, actually, I've been here (Arizona) for 3 weeks now. It's crazy to think that a month ago I was getting ready to leave for this amazing new adventure.

Work started 2 weeks ago and so far I've been in orientation and training. I won't be learning about my actual role until the end of September, until then I will be earning my Series 7 and 63 Licenses. So basically, I will be studying and panicking for the next month. But once I get through the exams I will start learning how to do my job!

But really, what everyone is curious about (or what I want to talk about ;) ) is how moving across country went. It's long, I just really liked my trip.

Just a short negative update, moving companies are awful and mine is a bit of a headache. They picked my stuff up 2 days late and I still haven't received on this end (that would be 30 days later). But the last day of pick-up dramatics my friend Amanda (the goddess that she is) waited 8 hours at my old apartment for them to arrive. Thanks to her amazing sacrifice Dad and I were able to start our drive one day late instead of 2! I'm so lucky in my friends, and Amanda is one amazing chica.

Amanda the lifesaver

The road trip was amazing. My dad flew into Boston to drive across country with me and it was one of the best trips I've ever taken. I'm so lucky Dad was willing to drive with me. Originally our trip was supposed to start with a drive to the Canada side of Niagara Falls, due to an unforeseen delay by the moving company we started out a day later than we planned, so we had to take Canada off of our trip list. The first day Dad and I drove from Boston to Buffalo to Chicago to Peru, Illinois where we stopped for the night. It was a long day driving about 17 hours but we drove through MA, NY, PA, OH, IN and IL what a start!

On our second day our goal was to get to Rapid City, South Dakota and we did it! It was a beautiful drive, and in SD we actually got to drive on an interstate with a speed limit of 80! I didn't even know those existed! We also got to drive through IL, IA, NE (because we took a detour to do so), and SD. Side note, as I'm sure most of you know I'm very focused on how many states I have been to, before this road trip I had 8 states I needed to visit, on this day I saw 3 of them (IA, NE, and SD).. When we started driving into Rapid City Dad and I realized something else, we were driving into the Monday of Sturgis Bike Week. It was insane! I've never seen so many Harleys in my life.

NE, we were supposed to be able to see the Mississippi River
 but the trees had grown too much

Speed limit sign in SD, because I wanted photographic evidence

On our third day Dad and I started out by going to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse both beautiful sights in a beautiful place. Then we took back roads from Crazy Horse to Cheyenne, it was crazy we barely saw anyone and it was just plains as far as you could see, as we got closer to Cheyenne we started to see the Rocky Mountains in the distance, which of course was gorgeous. We drove through Denver and made it to a small town in the Rockies for the night, it was called Dillon. So all in all we drove through a little of SD, WY, and CO and I am officially down to 4 states I need to visit!!! ID, MT, ND, and HI, I think making it a goal to see all of them by the time I'm 30 is completely doable!

Mount Rushmore!
I think this is where a selfie stick comes in handy?

Crazy Horse memorial

Reservoir in Dillon, CO

One more picture of the Rockies!

The night of day 3 Dad and I realized a miscalculation. It was Tuesday and we had until Friday to get to Phoenix...and somehow we were both thinking that we would do the rest of the drive in a day and a half and that would mean Friday. And knowing how hot it was going to be we weren't in a hurry to make that last 2 hours of the drive to get into the Valley, so we didn't want to come early...all of which meant we puttered around in Colorado on the 4th day and spent the night in Durango after driving back roads and visiting Vail for a short stroll.

Vail at the foot of one of the runs

 On day 4 we drove down to Flagstaff and went to Mission Impossible nothing extremely exciting but it was a fun day. And finally on day 5 we got up and headed into the Valley. And we land ourselves here, 3 weeks later training and residing in the Valley of the Sun. I'm living with friends from college and taking my time finding an apartment. I'm hoping to either be in Tempe or near work in Scottsdale, I guess we will see what I find. All I know for sure is that this is a grand adventure and I'm so glad I'm back West!

Laters with love,

Chloe


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