Allergies

I am nearly unpacked and getting settled in my new place with John. The only bad thing is that there is something in our bedroom I am allergic to.No idea what it is either. Allergies are nothing new to me, since I am allergic to well over 25 different things. Unfortunatly they seem to be getting worse as I get older.
We figure its not anything from my old place, since I have never had any troubles before. We thought it was the bed, since it mostly kicks in a night when we go to bed. So we have been sleeping on the futon in the other room. We cleaned the mattress and bought a mattress bag for the bed in hopes that it would help. It didn't. We then took the bed out of the room, put the futon in the room, and still no luck - I again turned into a weazing, congested, asthmatic lump. So now it appears it is not the bed. Not sure what our next step will be. I guess we will take everything out of the room and see if it still happens. It sucks when your lungs/body has to be your lab for this type of experiment. I am exausted from moving, and still not back to full strength, after the bout with strep, and so the lack of sleep from getting sick every night is not helping any. Keep your fingers crossed for me and if you have any advice or suggestions PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE feel free to share them! I am sick of being sick!

I made it!

I am now in Colorado! For good!

This past weekend(ish) Kelty and I moved back to Colorado. I left Rock Island on Thursday, and not a moment to soon it sounds like, since they closed portions of I-80 in Iowa the next day! I stopped at two different gas stations between Rock Island and Iowa City (in Iowa) and none had gas. At first I thought they were just out of gas, which freaked me out a bit, but the power outrages were related to the flood. All across eastern and central Iowa I saw swollen streams and flooded fields. One area I passed had water less than a foot from the interstate and I realized if the river went up another foot or two it would be bad news for the interstate. Glad I left on Thursday and not Friday! I saw alot of debris (trees, propane tanks, trash, ect...) washed up against the interstate bridges and that was a bit unnerving! I did make it to Kearney, Nebraska that evening though, was was able to make pretty good time.

The next day I headed to Denver and made it there by 3. I even had time to go get a new drivers license (which was good since I got pulled over in Nebraska for "failure to signal" (BS) and luckily did not get a ticket for having an expired license). Then I drove to Parker where our wedding is going to be and met two of my bridesmaids for the food tasting for the reception. It was amazing food and the chief treated us amazingly, it was such a treat! I hope I actually get to eat some of the food the day of the wedding!

Saturday I was lucky enough to have out friend Pete help me load my u-haul, since John had other commitments that morning in Grand Junction. We easily got that loaded and then I had the rest of the day to relax with Pete and his family and meet their new baby! It was a nice relaxing afternoon. John came over with the field coordinator for the quarry this year, who was nice enough to drive my Blazer back to Grand Junction so I could drive the u-haul and John could take Kelty.

Sunday we had our engagment photo session, which was fun. We went to settlers park in Boulder and climbed on the flatirons (Pennsylvanian Fountian Formation) for a few hours. Then John and I took some time to walk around the Pearl Street Mall and had a nice 'lunch' at the Cheesecake Factory. It is really nice to be back together. I had pushed out of my mind how much I missed him so I could get through the last two months. I am glad we do not have to do that any more! We then went and picked up Kelty and headed over the mountains. We made pretty good time and got home last night in time for Kelty and Duma to get reacquainted and realize that they still hate each other.

The u-haul has now been unpacked, and the great merger of our things has begun. The cable guy is here to turn on my internet. Hopefully this weekend we will have a garage sale and everything will go back to normal.

STATS
Total gas purchased: $272.42
Total gallons filled: 67.25
Total miles driven: 1172
Most expensive gas purchased: $4.29 in western Colorado (Palisade) - runner up: $4.21 in eastern Colorado (Crook)
Most gallons filled:13.568
ABF U-Pack cost from Rock Island to Denver: $691
U-haul cost from Denver to Grand Junction: $209
Total cost of u-haul gas: $71.59 (18.360 gallons)

Another move: half way there

In case you didn't know already, I am moving (yes, again - #26? Its starting to get fuzzy). Today I was very luck to have several of our geology students from Augustana, plus Allison and Patrick, come over for various amounts of time to help with the loading up. Since, between John and I, we will have alot of things when I get to Colorado, we decided to have a huge garage sale and try to get rid of a bunch of stuff. So I loaded as much of that up as I could as well. U-haul is WAY to expensive of an option right now ($1200 before gas!), so I went with a ReloCube from ABF u-pack that was 8X6X7 (this alternative was $700, they drive and pay for the gas, and it can be stored for a month).

When we first pulled up I was like "no way is all of this stuff going to fit in there." But after 2 hours of the worlds largest tetris game made of boxes we were some how able to get it all in there. Thank goodness for the students who stuck around to help with that part! I would not have been able to do any of this today without their help for sure! Everything but 3 dinning room chairs, an old desk and my bed fit, which is fine, since the latter two were in the garage sale pile anyway. And they found a new home with one of the students anyway, so I didn't have to figure out how to get rid of them, which is an added bonus. The chairs are going to be crammed into the Blazer with the rest of the more important things I own. I will be Colorado bound June 12 after work is over that day. The badlands trip is also quickly approaching, so I will be in northwestern Nebraska doing field work the week and half prior to that. Things are moving quickly and I am sure these next 85 days are going to whiz past!!