We're here!! And we have internet!!

We’re finally fully installed in our new apartment in Alameda, California! It’s beautiful here and we’re excited to explore and get to know the area.
The drive was long, tiring, and mildly terrifying at times. Danny drove the whole thing due to the complications we encountered and the fact that I’ve never driven anything more challenging than the Yukon and a large truck with a car dragging behind I is a whole different thing. The wind coming across the desert almost blew us off the road, construction in the mountains had us squeezed between larger trucks and concrete barriers, and coming down the mountains had us fighting traffic and gravity! But it was all expertly navigated by Danny and I didn’t spend too much time biting my nails. It was all worth it once we got about an hour from the end and we saw all of the strawberry fields and green, rolling hills in Northern California. I can see why those cows on the commercials are happy!
We spent the night on the floor on our air mattress again. I had a hard time for a while, I was homesick for Utah and our first home, but we eventually got to sleep and crashed pretty hard. This morning we got up and had to figure out how to unpack our huge truck. There’s two ways into our apartment from parking lots: a long way and a short way. The short way, unfortunately, is blocked by construction work on the building next door (the complex is still being renovated). So Danny went down and negotiated with the site manager to let him pull the truck through it all and pull it right up to the door! After that it was a matter of 20 feet from the truck to the elevator and another 20 from the elevator to the apartment. Danny’s friend, Tim Chen, from last summer is here and he stuck around and helped us move everything! Between the three of us and occasional help from Neil Papa (Danny’s partner’s younger brother), we got the truck unloaded in less than two hours. We’ve started to unpack now (I’m realizing how frustrating it is to do all that work over the last few days and only have to undo it all again) and we’re about there! There isn’t as much storage as our place in Pleasant Grove, but we’ll make it work. There’s a lot more room, though, so our furniture isn’t smashed together anymore. We also have a lovely, large deck, which makes us sad we didn’t bring the grill, but they’ve got some here anyway. We’re excited to be here and make it our home for the next few months!