Wednesday, March 20, 2024, was my last permanent day in my company’s primary office.
Thursday, March 21, 2024, was the last time I slept in the bed I’d slept in for the majority of my life.
Friday, March 22, 2024, was the last time I left the house I’d lived in for 32 years.
It’s been quite a tumultuous few months for me between losing my father to lung cancer in November, changing roles at work, dealing with my mother being in assisted living, and having the house I’d hoped was my forever home sold, necessitating a move by me.
I’d looked briefly around Metro Atlanta, and a former coworker from my old job had a very good idea, but after sleeping on it and getting some reassurance from another friend, I opted to move to Greater Seattle with this other friend and another of her friends.
I began the journey to my new home on March 22 around 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. I left my parents’ house in Lilburn, GA, to check into the Embassy Suites by Hilton Atlanta Galleria hotel. ATLGLES, as it is known on Hilton’s website, had been my primary hotel for Anime Weekend Atlanta since 2009, excepting 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2023, and I had grown understandably fond of it. When I was figuring out what dates to take off from work to perform the nearly week-long drive from Metro Atlanta to Greater Seattle, I decided that I should probably stay here the night before my actual departure date because of two factors: 1) it would put me about an hour or so closer to my destination, and 2) it would have a finite end time. I know if I would’ve left from the house directly I’d have made up some stupid excuse to wait until far later than was ideal.
Anyway, I had hoped to get back in Room 106, I believe, the room I had for AWA in 2019, but I ended up in Room 203: I don’t believe I’d ever stayed on the 2nd floor in prior years. When I ran by the front desk to get my drink tickets, which I ended up not using, I made sure to thank the staff for taking care of congoers so well over all the years, and that I had opted to stay here for my last night. After this, a friend of mine dropped by as we had planned to hang out one last time. We ran over to Round1 at Cumberland Mall for a little bit before wandering the mall itself for a short while before grabbing dinner at Longhorn at Akers Mill Square. Seems the visit to the Chipotle there during AWA was not my last visit to that shopping center.
After dinner, my friend dropped me off at the hotel, and I headed back to my room. I watched some stuff on YouTube before crashing around 11:00 PM local.
The next morning, my alarm went off at the normal time for a workday, so after snoozing it a few times, I rolled out of bed, caught up on emails and stuff, hopped in the shower, got dressed, and headed down to see what was available for breakfast. I ended up getting 3 turkey sausage patties and a potato squares. This with a couple of Cokes actually hit the spot. After breakfast, I headed up, brushed my teeth, then packed everything back up. I headed downstairs to get a luggage cart, loaded all my stuff on that, took it out to the car, ran back in to use the restroom in my room, then as I walked out to my car, hit the “Check out” button in the Hilton app. My final stay at what is my favorite Hilton property, at least at present, was over.
My next stop was the QuikTrip at Cumberland Boulevard and Spring Road to top the tank off before heading back down US 41 to make the left turn onto I-285 in front of the Cobb Galleria Centre that I’ve taken on many occasions in previous years. I was finishing a podcast episode I had started on the way over the previous day, and once it was finished, I swapped over to Spotify and started my playlist titled “Relocation Mood”. This is a 45-hour playlist curated by me with music of all sorts. The first track, in honor of Star Trek: First Contact, is Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride”. “Let’s rock and roll!” indeed.
Thus began the eight-and-a-half hour journey to St. Louis, MO, my symbolic “first stop” of the trip. I made two stops between Atlanta and St. Louis: the first was north of Nashville, TN, for me to use the restroom and get a couple of snacks to serve as my lunch, and another in Cadiz, KY, to fuel up for the rest of the way to St. Louis. This trip took me along the entire length of I-24.
I arrived in St. Louis around 3:40 Central, and I had not yet gotten word from the hotel that my room was ready, so I decided to attempt to find parking around the Gateway Arch: I was unsuccessful, so I opted to head towards my hotel for the night: I luckily received a notification as I was en route to the hotel this time, so I went right in. Room 203 at this one too. Hoping to make that the number on the next stays as well.
After I got everything into the room, I went back downstairs to inquire at the front desk if there was a non-rideshare way to get back downtown. They kind of hinted that a bus ran by the hotel, but I opted to head back upstairs and check further. It turns out there is a bus stop right by the hotel; however, it was picking up very soon after that and I had no time to figure out how to pay for fare or if it would work on the light rail as well. Ah well.
I saw Jimmy John’s was available for quick delivery, so an unwich and chips was dinner. Once I was done with dinner, I called for a Lyft back to the Arch. This driver was quite fun to chat with, so it made the drive go fast. At the Arch, I took a few pics and walked down to the river bank. As it was quite cold, I opted not to put my finger in it. Once I’d had my fill of it, I called for a return Lyft.
Back in the room, I booked my hotel for the next night in North Platte, NE, and headed to bed.
The next morning, I woke up and threw some clothes on and headed down for breakfast and had similar to the day prior. I packed everything back up and checked out, stopping for gas a couple of exits down the road before beginning the longer journey from St. Louis to North Platte.
This leg of journey was mostly uneventful as I crossed Missouri before heading north towards Iowa in Kansas City, MO. As I headed north the weather got rainy and the temperature began dropping, which lead me to check the weather in North Platte when I stopped for fuel just inside Iowa. To my horror, “blizzard warning” appeared on the weather app. Lovely, I might get stuck there.
I continued the journey there and arrived just before the stated time for the storm to arrive, so I inquired at the front desk of the hotel if it would be possible to extend the stay if need be. Luckily, they said it wouldn’t be a problem.
I ended up checking the Nebraska DOT’s site to see what was going on and discovered they have a prodigious number of snowplows. This was quite amusing to this girl from the South where a single flurry can potentially paralyze the entire region. I opted to just watch a few videos on YouTube and get to bed, hoping that nothing weird would happen.
I woke up the next morning to a winter wonderland, so when I headed down for breakfast asked if I could extend my stay: as expected, it was no problem. After breakfast I opted to just hunker down in my hotel room and keep myself entertained and keep an eye on Teams to see if I could be of any help to coworkers.
By the end of the day it appeared that NDOT’s crews had cleared at least part of Interstate 80, so I went to bed hoping that things would be good the next morning.
Morning came, and I was getting very mixed signals from NDOT, Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze. I decided to grab breakfast and ask at the front desk after: the front desk agent only had NDOT at her disposal, so I went back upstairs for a little bit to pack up and decide when to head out.
I headed out around 9:40 local, and the only bit that really gave me trouble was getting out of the hotel parking lot onto the main road. Once I was on there, it was a simple right turn onto the on-ramp, and back onto I-80 Westbound I went. I had fueled up before checking into the hotel, so I had enough in the tank to make it to Cheyenne, WY, before refueling.
The remainder of the trip in Nebraska was mostly snowy fields until I got into the panhandle proper: I got some rather amazing views that lead into even more in eastern Wyoming. I’d known that Wyoming has a lot of wind power, but to see the literal fields of windmills in person was rather awesome. Eventually, the terrain flattened out until I hit the Rockies. I was taken up to almost 8700′ elevation in blowing snow that wasn’t sticking to the road thankfully as I crossed over this. It was quite thrilling to be sure.
Eventually I ended up crossing into Utah, and I snaked around Salt Lake City’s north side to get to Ogden, where I had a hotel room reserved at a Home2 Suites by Hilton. Eventually I got clear of more snow, but I’d realized that I needed to replace my car’s windshield wiper blades before I began the next leg of the journey. I attempted to get some delivered to the hotel, but I was late on that. A quick check of a nearby AutoZone’s hours and stock of blades later, I knew where I needed to go before I headed towards Portland the next morning.
The next morning came, and after breakfast I headed back to the room to pack everything up and load it back into the car before heading to AutoZone. They had the right blades in stock, so after purchasing them, I took a few minutes to install them in the parking lot before heading back up the street a little to top the tank off before starting the longest leg of the trip: Ogden to Portland, OR.
I saw some truly amazing sites on this journey. Ogden up to Boise wasn’t super exciting once I got out of Utah: I made a couple of stops before Boise, which is where I made my first fuel stop of this trip. After that stop was into Oregon, and my word… seriously, book a flight to Boise, get a one-way rental, drive down I-84 to Portland, and fly back from Portland. I-84 through Oregon is absolutely gorgeous.
After the hours of truly amazing views, I made a pit stop to refuel as I would be a little too close for comfort once I got to Portland before finishing the drive along the Columbia Gorge. This leg of the journey made it entirely worth it.
Upon arriving at my hotel, a Hampton Inn in east Portland, I let the friend I was meeting there know I had arrived and what an approximate good meeting time would be. Once she arrived, we headed to a nearby bar for dinner and drinks. My typical Captain Morgan and tonic was sorely needed after this journey. After dinner we returned to my room and hung out for a little while before she headed home and I went to bed, ready for the final leg the next morning.
I slept quite well here, and after waking and showering headed downstairs for breakfast. It was decent enough as always. Hampton breakfast rarely disappoints. After breakfast I headed upstairs to catch up on email and messages before packing things back up. I grabbed a luggage cart from the lobby, moved everything into the car, returned the luggage cart, clicked “Check Out” in the Hilton app, and began the three hour journey up I-5 into Seattle.
I’d only been to the Greater Seattle area once before, on a business trip the last week of June in 2021, and rental cars weren’t available at SEA on that trip, so I hadn’t had a chance to explore the area. It was pretty uneventful until I passed through Olympia into Tacoma: my nemesis, traffic, had finally reared its ugly head for real. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised: Greater Seattle is one of the larger metro areas in the US after all.
I wound around Seattle itself, taking I-405 east of Lake Washington to Bellevue, where I will most likely be settling. It’s a different kind of Suburbia than what I grew up with back in Metro Atlanta.
When I arrived at the AirBnB I would be in for a few days, one of my new roommates greeted me with a hug. I moved what I could into the room, notified my management team that I had safely made it to my destination, and soon after we grabbed food with the other new roommate. Soon after returning to the room after eating, I laid down on the bed and took a nap for a while. It seems that the journey had finally taken its toll.
I woke up the next morning, Friday, March 29, and we ran out to run a few errands: mostly to get some foodstuffs and for me to get a toll pass and an ORCA card so I could make use of the toll roads around here as well as public transit “properly” vs. using the Transit Go! app I did back in 2021. We returned just before 4:00 PM, which is when my work shift will end every day as I was on call starting around that time.
Being on call for one’s first week in a new city is definitely not the ideal situation; however, as I am now three timezones behind the rest of my department, it makes things a bit easier to handle.
Now we are here the following Saturday, April 6. I’ve begun to settle in here: sure we don’t yet have a permanent spot, but at the very least I found out it’s easy enough to get a PO Box, and I can use the temporary address as proof of residence to get an updated driver’s license which will let me get new license plates next month before my existing plate from Georgia’s registration runs out.
I am very much looking forward to what the future holds for me in this new city. I’m sure however it goes it will be fun.