And they drove and drove and drove........

The decision..........The journey began when I turned in my resignation at Apple Computer. This wasn't very easy for me since I had spent many years working and building friedships at Apple. It was also scary to leave the state you lived in your whole life. But after we finaly decided the whirl wind began........ We selected realtors, put our house on the market, painted the outside of our house, scheduled movers,gave away all my fish, quit my job at thehobby store, and got piglet her rabies shots.

The Movers.......This was a very strange experience for me. I had never hired anyone to move me before. These guys were amazing they come into your house and box up absolulty everything. If you leave a pen on the counter they wrap it in a peice of paper and but it in a box. They had underestimated the packratting abbility of the Shiers. They were there until 11pm friday night.

We aranged to fly Amy Zack and Jake up to Washington. This was easier than driving but it may have taken a couple of years off of Amy's life travling with a 2 and 4 year old. Speedy, Piglet and myself took the more conventional apprach and started driving North at 7:30pm on Friday Aug.22. I only made it driving until about 11pm before I was sleeping at the wheel. I had been finishing with our moving and cleaning of the house all that day and I was pretty tired. Piglet and I decided to take a power nap in a Best Western Parking lot. I would not reccomend sleeping in a VW Jetta. It is not the ultimate sleeping machine. After a few hour nap I was ready to start diving again. I made it to the Oregon border just around sunrise. I think it was about 5am. Piglet and I were getting along fine. I was a littel worried about her be cause she doesn't ride in the car much but she was great. Piglet and I did some major bonding on this trip. We kept pushing North and We made the Washington border around noon. The sign said 100 miles to Olympia. I was in the home strech. Our next stop whould be the kennal where Piglet would spend the next week of her life. After Piglet was droped off to make some new friends. I headed straight for Skiview Lake.....our future home....my dreanm since college. Skiview lake is a was the Vision of fellow Water Ski fanatic Gary Seely. Gary dug the 2500ft x 300ft hole and filled it with water and made this 80 acres of Tumwater property a skiers paradise. No one was expecting me but I drove down to the dock to see who was there. I had not showered in two days and had just spent 18 hours in a car with a dog and a turtle, Speedy. When I got there I was greeted by Paul Gutierrez. I had met him breifly at the end of June when I was up interviewing with Intel. The first thing Paul asked me was "Did you bring your ski"". You bet I did, I was dreaming of skiining the whole time I was driving up. Paul, his wife Kathi, and their two kids Paige and Chad were all there. After we skiied they invited me to have dinner and spend the night at their house so I wouldn't have to burn one of my nights in the Holiday Inn. It was great. I spent the night and we skiied again the next day. Amy and the kids were do in on Sunday and our cars were getting dropped off by Randy (the mover) at 3pm at the Holiday Inn. Amy was gong to show up around 4pm. Everything was working out perfect. The next five days were spent living in the Holiday Inn with two kids and looking for a house to rent. We rented a in Tumwater for $800/ month. One of its finer points is that it is 3miles from Skiview lake.

Back Homeor Email us at [email protected]

�