I'm writing this now from San Francisco, sitting on an air mattress in my new apartment, with the dog curled in a packing blanket that I also used as a comforter last night. We've spent the past four days traveling across the country to arrive in our new home. Some highlights from our trip:

• Our route took us through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. This totaled 2,358 miles over 35 hours of driving time.
• The cats were supposed to be constrained by a pet barrier to the back few feet of the minivan we rented to make this journey. They figured out how to climb over it within minutes, and spent the remainder of the trip free-ranging throughout the van, in particular enjoying cuddling in Walter's bed. You can see the barrier standing uselessly in the background of the photo...

• We stopped in Des Moines, IA on the first night to see my grandmother (and accept her generous hospitality, having invited me, Mike, Lynn, the cats, and the dog to stay with her). I hadn't seen her in years, and it was wonderful to catch up.
• There are Whole Foods stores approximately every 9 hours along I-80. Lynn did a pretty incredible job finding places for us to eat along the way that would accommodate our various needs for tasty vegetarian and gluten-free food.
• We had one pretty remarkable Google snafu that led us to an interesting off-roading experience in the minivan. We ultimately found the relaxing State Recreation Area we'd been looking for (about 12 miles up the highway), but only after about 40 minutes of harrowing round-trip craziness and then an easy jaunt down the interstate. We actually passed several ATVs, who looked at us with a level of incredulity I had not previously experienced.