an update on relocation

Now that we've been home for a week and sick for the entire duration, our ten days of traveling seem like ages ago.

Overall, I'd say it was a good trip. The weather mostly cooperated. We got rain and wind but usually at appropriate times. We truck camped in the forest at the base of Mt. Baker several nights and found a hotel a couple of nights.

The forests there are really lovely. Very green and lush, moss and ferns everywhere and WET! Tiika didn't quite understand the whole "we have to wipe off your feet before your joining us on the sleeping bags" in the truck idea. She picked up pretty quickly though. She's a great traveler.

We didn't take a single picture. I brought the camera, it was charged, it simply never made it out of its bag. We were too busy trying to "feel" the places we were traveling through.

Our first day in Bellingham we met up with my friend Joanne who gave us an enthusiastic start to our exploration. She assured us that all the best places to live and recreate around town were within 25 minutes. (We wondered if she had talked to Mandy J or was related to her in any way...) We also enjoyed a cup of tea while getting the tour of her beautiful place. Thank you Joanne!

Then we were on our own for a day or so. We explored some neighborhoods that are near access for taking Tiika into the woods. Of course, we had to find the local bookstore and ended up spending a few hours perusing books, new and old, and even buying a few. I also had a couple of good lattes though we never made it to the coffee shop I was most intrigued by, I think it was called the Black Spot or something like that.

On Tuesday we met up with friends Sue and George at their lovely home just outside of town. They took us to lunch and gave us further pointers on neighborhoods and access points. Sue also told me how to get to Stampadoodle, a most amazing store for stamping supplies and handcrafted papers. I was so overwhelmed I left without buying a thing. Thank you Sue and George.

We ended up at the library to do a bit of research on housing prices for the neighborhoods of greatest interest. A bit steep but perhaps doable with first time home buyer assistance.

Of course, this led to speculation about jobs. I still think I can find something in a similar field or at least similar skill set as I have now. Rob is unsure exactly what he will be doing but thinks he could find something in the area. The median income in Bellingham is higher than that of Missoula so that is also encouraging. According to our sources though, jobs can be hard to come by.

Bottom Line: Bellingham is still on the list. (Distance in time from Portland area is close to 6 hours.)

We left Bellingham on Wednesday and headed south toward Seattle. We went on secondary roads to travel through the smaller communities of Duvall and Carnation. The result is that they are no longer on the list but it was an interesting way to spend the afternoon. We overnighted in Everett. (Yes, that meant we backtracked north.)

We arrived in Seattle Thursday afternoon to pick Teal up from work as well as some delicious Thai food for dinner. Gretchen joined us for refreshment and catching up before Teal got off work. We had a nice evening with Teal, Mike and Gretchen eating and talking.

Teal had Friday off so we got to hang out with her for the day. She took us to a nice little beach where Tiika could play. Actually, we played on the grass since the area was too rocky and weather too cool for Tiika to play in the water. Teal took funny videos on her phone of Tiika running back and forth. It was then time to meet Gretchen for her break, do some grocery shopping for dinner and go home. Mike and I cooked a delicious Mexican style meal for us all that evening. We even found out Mike makes a mean margarita!

The next morning we took Mike and Teal out for coffee at Vivace (a favorite of mine and only a block away from Teal and Mikes!) before heading to North Bend to meet my friend Elisabeth for lunch. There is a nice Mongolian Grill place at the outlet mall where we met her. She gave us an overview of her experience of North Bend and the surrounding area including some neighborhoods we should check out.

Rob really, really likes this area. It is surrounded by mountains, with it's own peak in fact, Mt. Si. Access is pretty straightforward from just about anywhere. It's an interesting option even though it doesn't have some of the features we think are important such as the cultural opportunities we currently enjoy being in a college town. This could be changing and if we expanded our thinking to include Issaquah for those kinds of activities, it gets better.

As for jobs, Rob is still in the same position as Bellingham. My horizon expands to Seattle as an option, especially if I could negotiate some tele-communiting. It is about a 35-45 minute drive to the city from North Bend, depending on where you are headed. Housing seems to be a bit more expensive but if I had a city job, hopefully my income would offset that.

Bottom Line: North Bend is #1 on the list. (Distance in time from Portland area is about 4 hours.)

That's the roundup of our trip to the great Pacific Northwest. Email or comment if you have questions or words of wisdom to add. We are now in the process of making a list of all the things that we need to do in order to make this happen. It's pretty overwhelming when I think about it too much.