The Journey Begins

It has been a while since my last post, and now it is time to catch you all up.  This will be the first in a series of posts called "The Journey" which will document not only our trip to Hawaii but our life here as well.  My husband and I took somewhere around 700 pictures on our trip across country from Virginia Beach to Hawaii, including photos of the sights and stops along the way, which I kept referring to as "documenting the journey" leading to what I am calling this series of posts.  All those pictures were taken on two cameras and my cell phone so a low battery would never mean missing a thing!  I will be picking some of the best as I share the experience of our journey.

Our last week in Virginia was a busy one.  It took a day and a half for our house to be packed up, and one more to load the truck.

Our last night (March 14th) we chose to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise because they don't have any on the island (though there is a restaurant of the same name it isn't affiliated with Jimmy Buffet chain) and I am a little obsessed with their pina coladas.

We went home to a house empty of everything except our cats and the luggage we were taking on our trip with us- only as much that would fit in the car.  Writing this now I wish I had taken pictures of the empty house, the pile of luggage. But here is the cat tube that the cats rode in while they were in the car, and were stuck in at the house while the movers were there and our last night in the house.

We slept on the floor without so much as a pillow or a blanket so we wouldn't have to pay for a hotel room for the night.  We found out after we got here that we could have been reimbursed for that expense, but having that money for the journey was more important.  Needless to say, we didn't sleep very well.

The next morning our landlord came by to do the walk through first thing in the morning and by 10 or 11 we packed the car and were off, saying goodbye to the house we called home for nearly 3 years, the longest I had lived in one place since moving out of my parents house.

The car was pretty packed.  I don't know that we really could have fit any more in there.  See right smack dab in the middle?  That's the cat tube!

After dropping by the cable company to return their equipment we were off on our adventure!  This was the exit that we lived off of, and was also the exit I lived off of the first year I lived in Virginia.

Caspian has some issues in the car.  While he did have a sedative to take, which kept him from hyperventilating the whole way, he was still talkative.  We had a very talkative kinda drunk kitty in the back of the car.  This photo I somehow managed to get by reaching the camera back and taking the picture blind, and somehow I got him in the frame and mid-meow.

Saying goodbye to South Hampton Roads, and the bridge tunnel that was the bane of my existence MANY MANY times...

It was opening day of Busch Gardens for season pass holders this day.  We had season passes and I was very sad we couldn't go, especially since we had some friends there.  I waved as we passed by.

And then it was goodbye Hampton Roads, hello rest stop for a bathroom break... and to clean out the pet tube as best as possible.  Shortly after getting on the highway one or more of the cats had a very smelly accident and unfortunately some got on ALL of them :/ 

Poor things didn't have much space back there, since the extra luggage really cut into their space :(  

Then we were back on the road and noticed this very, very clean looking truck.  Yes, I took a lot of random pictures.

Our country has some quite varied scenery which was really great to see along the way.  Here are some of the sights in western Virginia!

And then it was time to say goodbye to Virginia. 

And that is where I will leave off for today.  I hope you enjoyed reading about the first part of our journey!  I made a tab for the blog that will just have posts from documenting this journey including the move and then my experiences living in Hawaii.  Posts about anything not directly related to this journey (like the *final* blanket update!) will not show up on "The Journey" page just the home page.

~Katy