L'aventure américaine

We are on our way! I believe that updates will be spotty due to lack of Internet access and phone service, but we are in a Starbucks just south of Salt Lake and taking care of those pesky Internet things. We packed the truck and left on Monday morning, breathing a sigh of relief as we drove away from Phoenix and all of its responsibilities. We made it to Farmington, NM that evening for dinner with Aunt Pruda. Luciano also had us over for brownies and coffee: delicious! We stopped in Durango the next morning to meet CJ Long, the newest Trujillo baby and Shirena made us green chili for breakfast (isn't she amazing?). And then we headed to Utah! We stopped at Arches National Park and hiked to Delicate Arch, which was so beautiful. And then we headed north, stopping for the night in Ashley National Forest for our first night's sleep in the truck. Comfortable and warm! Although there was frost on the window when we woke up and we'll have to acclimate to the cold! We sh...

So, I am about to unplug and pack my wireless router, so I'm using the last bit of my high speed internet.  It is is a welcome break amidst the chaos that has been the last two weeks.  To sum up: pack, work, clean.  That's it. However, there was a brief break for the annular eclipse, which was showcased in the west last Sunday.  Sterling had mentioned it and I agreed that I wanted to see it, as we all reminisced watching the last one during an impromptu recess in elementary or junior high school.  I looked up how to make a projector box while I was at work and sent the link to Sterling.  It told us to use a long box and if we didn't have a long enough one, then tape two shoeboxes together.  Sterling said he would see what he could do. So, I was lucky enough to escape work early and Sterling said that he was ready for me at his house up the street.  I climbed the ladder to the roof and was greeted with the most enormous projector box along wit...

So, life has settled back into the mundane routine lately.  Work and home and groceries and so on.  That is, if you included putting a roof on a new house as quickly as you can and packing up boxes with labels such as, "Books for Baltimore!" and "Books to open in our new mansion in Detroit!"  But, we're toodling along at a breakneck pace. And in the midst of this Phoenix chapter closing, I am trying to downsize my things.  Which has been an adventure.  A Craigslist Adventure: It started off so well initially.  I decided that Odie's treadmill did not need to move to Baltimore with us.  Thus, with our quickly imposed delivery fee, Sterling and I were able to make $145 one day after the posting.   Wonderful! I thought.   This will be lucrative and fast!  And then things slowed down...  Way down. I have since had one scammer and 3 pornography sites be interested in my vacuum and lamps (vacuum, really?  How cliche.) I have ...

And so the final leg our journey commenced with just Sterling and I cruising along in the Opal.  As previously stated, we headed to Luxembourg first for two reasons: 1) I couldn't seem to navigate to Strasbourg and 2) We thought Luxembourg might be as cool as Liechtenstein.  So, we arrived in Luxembourg City and although hungry, we were happy! Luxembourg was just a little bit of a bust though.  It was Sunday, so everything was closed except the extremely expensive restaurants that were open due to a marathon in the city.  We did get to walk quite a bit though, enjoy some views and saw some Luxembourgian hookers near where we parked (still better than Pisa...  nothing was stolen!), so it was all in all, a satisfying trip. But, we headed to France and decided to stop in Verdun, since the name sounded vaguely familiar.  (It was a big battlefield during World War I and is famous for the amount of devastation that occurred during the time.)  It was ...

On our last day in Germany, we decided that we wanted a third car for our adventure.  That is, the grinding brakes of our 2nd Panda decided this for us, so Sterling and I headed to the Stuttgart airport to pick up Opal (Opal Corsa, that is).  Sterling realized as we arrived that the Stuttgart airport had tree-structures that he had designed in college, without knowing that Stuttgart already had them in place.  Quite exciting to see them!   We then set out to find some sort of elevator/ferris wheel in Stuttgart and meet the rest of the Jochim's.  No go on the elevator/ferris wheel (closes on weekends), but we had to head back to Esslingen anyway to get ready for Daniel's birthday bash. And it was a good one!  Daniel ate his risotto and loved his presents.  I erred a bit when deciding to open presents before cake, and Daniel had quite the meltdown during his birthday song when I took him away from all of his exciting gifts for cake. ...

Sterling and I have safely arrived in Detroit and are waiting for our flight to Phoenix. In other words, one 8.5 hour flight done, one 4.5 hour flight to go. We enjoyed our stay after Germany. We left early Sunday morning after a great birthday bash on Saturday night. Then we headed to Luxembourg to warm up my French before stopping in lovely Verdun for the night. We walked around the city a bit (saw a star fort!) before leaving for Fontainebleau, home of nearly all the French royalty pre-Louis XIV and post-Louis XVI. It was beautiful. We slept in a modern hotel, closer to Paris last night and headed to the airport this morning. Four movies later, we arrived here in Detroit! But, I can see that we're starting to board... Until the next time... Or until I have a new computer!

I've been basking in the European Jochim presence these past couple of days and for those of your that follow Daniel and Josephine on the Cute-o-meter, the numbers have only gone up. Thursday we all went to the zoo, which was quite fun. Daniel saw elephants and giraffes and bears and monkeys (Josephine saw about half of that, since she dozed through the first half of the zoo). It was a delightful time by all, but I would say that we were all having meltdowns by the end. Sterling returned Thursday night and joined us in our Esslingen activities yesterday. We wandered around town and went up to the castle that overlooks the town. We also had lunch in a Biergarten, which was kind of a point and shoot selection until the waiter realized that we didn't speak German. (He said that Charles and Elisabetta's German had been so perfect that he didn't realize we were foreign.) Then it was easier to order. I, for example, got "Mouth Pockets differently" and Charle...