deep breath.

I just finished my first week of grad school and it was totally fine! 

Read that with a note of surprise in my tone. 

Because I have been FREAKING OUT. 

Like, walk past the restaurant you're about to enter to order food from three times before working up the nerve to go in and order because you're doubting every decision you've ever made and your ability to interact with people, that kind of anxiety.

But with the help of a few pep talks and some extreme sweating on the walk to my first class, I managed. I went in and sat down and listened and learned and suddenly all my anxiety seems a tad unfounded. 

It's going to be a ton, A TON, of work- but I'm actually kind of thrilled about it. 

Minus the recording audio and video of myself interviewing people and then having to play it back for the class and my professor to critique, because I really hate the sound of my own voice. 

But right now, I'm not going to fret about that. I made it through my first week of classes. 

Deep breath of relief. I've got work to do. 

 

the trek!

Ok, I SWEAR I’m going to get back into the swing of things now. Today I bring you a very abridged version of my journey westward! With pictures!

what i'm looking at. 

......and this would be more of the breakfast nook.

I’d just like to note before I get started that I am typed this in my breakfast book WHILE EATING breakfast, drinking tea, and listening to Fleetwood Mac on the record player…. So basically I’m killing it out here. Yesterday I got up, brushed my teeth, walked to a trail and climbed up the side of a mountain. It was awful! I’m terribly out of shape, but the view made it all worth it.- I definitely feel that I’ve moved to the most beautiful place in America. Plus- you’re going to be able to bounce a quarter off my ass before long from trekking all these giant hills! I can’t wait.

Ok back to the journey. 

we left last wednesday morning, my father and i. this is what we were working with for the next 2000 or so miles. at first driving this contraption was a bit...anxiety-ridden. but i eventually got the hang of it. kind of. 

the midwest is beautiful to drive through... but super boring. day one was 700 miles of mostly... this. we stopped in Sioux  Falls, SD the first night. 

on day two we started seeing more interesting and exotic (for me) stuff... like fields of sunflowers! the pictures not the best, but my dad tried, i was driving. this is also about the time we started listening to a book on tape. having someone else's voice have to be every single one of the characters in a novel must be challenging. it made some of the characters really hateable for me... probably my first and last books on tape experience. 

then we saw this shit and it was AWESOME. in the flesh!

we also went to Crazy Horse, which my dad was really intent on. it was actually really interesting and kind of depressing. not a whole lot of progress going on there in the last 30 or so years. 

we drove through deadwood after Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. As you can see from the SUV in the picture, it's not exactly a lawless wild west town anymore. sad times. 

this is where shit gets nuts. it's the end of day two, we're driving through South Dakota, almost to Wyoming and the sky starts to look preeeeeetty pissed off. 

we get across the state line and my dad and I are both like "Shits about to go down, storm style."

and it does.  serious, serious hail/thunder/weird storm. so we stop on the side of the road because we were convinced the hail was going to break the windshield. dead serious. i was laughing hysterically because that's what I do in high stress situations. 

see that hail? damn. anyway. AS SOON as the hail stopped, the sun came out like nothing happened. DOUBLE RAINBOW. it was really bizarre. 

the rest of day two was pretty uneventful. we got to Gillette, WY and called it a night. 

day three was a blur because i knew we were going to be in my new city by dinner time and I started getting really antsy and excited to get there. here we are approaching the first set of actually big, real MOUNTAINS.  i almost peed/crashed the truck taking this pic. 

and then we got here and got some local beers because this place is like Mecca for beer drinkers. My dad is the best. The end. 

safe and sound

I've been neglecting and I'm sorry, it's just that I've been moving my life to the mountains.


But guess what?


I made it!!!!


More to come soon.

my lovely little dining nook and kitchen.