The road to Marysville...........

Ok, let me catch you up on the last leg of our trip.....

the road to Marysville!

Driving from Spokane to Marysville only took us 4 hours and 45 minutes.

We started out on Hwy 90 west with blue skies and lots of wide open land.

Having heard so much about the gloom in the Seattle area, I was secretly wondering if this was the last time I was going to see blue skies for a while.

Here we are getting our first glimpse of the Cascade Mountains.

I was so nervous about going through the Snoqualamie Pass because there had been snow in the forcast and because I am a big Southern whimp!

Snow really freaks me out and I just assume that I'll slip right off the side of the mountain and if I survive the crash I will, of course, be quickly eaten by the big black bears that I hear live in the mountains around here. This irrationality without a doubt ties right into the fact that my life is heavily dotted with irony. I would never, and I repeat never drive on a twisted mountain road in any weather on my birthday. That would just be asking to be remembered with a little white cross and a floral wreath on the side of the highway right there beside that failed roadside barrier on the Snowqualamie Pass.

I have to do deep breathing and really psyche myself up just to remain sane while driving in the snow or through winding, cliff hanging mountain roads in any weather really. Just days before in South Dakota, I think, we were driving through some pretty nasty weather on the 212. The road was super curvy through some pretty steep hills and my windshield wipers just weren't keeping up with the sleet that was falling. I kept telling myself to just hang on until the next curve, then I could pull over and cry. Once through that curve, I'd tell myself that I could pull over and cry after the next curve..... I did that for miles until the weather broke and the land became flat again.

It's just a quirk of mine. My only one, I'm sure.

So, anyway, the closer those mountains got, the higher my blood pressure rose and the less jolly the atmosphere in my van!

And look here! What a treat.....snow clouds!!!

Here we are going up the Snoqualamie Pass.

I remember nothing.

I had to look at the photos that Michael took to get a feel for how truely beautiful it was. Too bad I was busy gripping my steering wheel so tightly that my fingers had to be removed from

it with plyers!

Through the loud whir of rushing blood in my head and the beat of my heart in my ears, I would occassionally hear one of my kids oooh and aaah over the huge mountains looming over us. Tempted to see them for myself, my eyes would dart right or left for exactly one-tenth of a second and then return to their position locked dead straight on so that I didn't accidentally drive us off of those magestic mountains!

And then the snow was replaced with green once again and I was able to exhale!

And look at what greeted us as we turned off of I-5 and onto our Marysville exit!!!!

A Rainbow!

We drove through about two miles of cow pastures and pig farms as we made our way along a winding road called "Sunnyside".

Minutes later we were climbing a big hill to our new home. The higher we got the greater the view. I kept hoping that we'd keep climbing so that we'd get a better and better view.

To my great pleasure, we have the best view in the neighborhood!!!

This is the view from our back deck.

I was describing the neighborhood to my brother and said that it's like everyone in Marysville wanted to live on the same piece of land, and so they do!

The homes here are definitely close together, but having lived in Navy housing for years, we are used to that.

In Rhode Island, we lived with lots of space around us and we really kinda missed the closeness of neighbors. Furthermore, we are not super fond of lawn mowing around here nor are we fond of prodding young boys to lawn mow, nor do we delight in the murmuring and complaining that goes along with deciding whose turn it is to mow the lawn.....and so we take great joy in our smallish yard. :)