RIP Van Pool

I don't like driving in Atlanta. There are far too many insane drivers here who drive 90 MPH (no lie!), weave in and out, and tailgate at that speed. There's the opposite side of the spectrum, too. Like this morning, the guy I came up on who was doing maybe 45 MPH on the freeway. Gah!

The first year after I moved here, I would drive to work with a death grip on the steering wheel. I hated it and I was ready to move back to Minnesota. And then I found the van pool.

To say I loved my van pool would be understating it. I would sleep on my way in to work in the morning and sometimes I slept on the way home, too. Other times, I'd text friends, do quick emails, play games, read, or any number of other things.

It wasn't perfect. There was one guy who was always late going home in the afternoons and I was already staying a little late. It also wasn't the greatest if I had errands I needed to run after work. A lot of times, I would end up backtracking or trying to drive to work myself to make the stops on my way home. Even this, though, was workable once I discovered my credit union had mobile deposit.

And then the unthinkable happened. My van pool died. There is a villain!

The company that leased the van to us (yes, we paid to lease the van and for gas) was bought by Enterprise Rental Cars. They insisted that everyone was going to get a new van, one that would lease for a hell of a lot more money than what we were currently paying. Our van pool leader managed to hold them off for a few months, but at the end of November, we had no options--we had to take the new van or drop out.

Sadly, there was no choice except drop out because the monthly fee nearly doubled! Yes, that's right--Enterprise jacked up the rates so high, the monthly fee would have been almost double the previous month's fee. I do not have fond feelings toward Enterprise.

So I've been driving to and from work on my own since my van pool died. I hate it. I miss sleeping, I miss not having to be the one behind the wheel, and I miss our guaranteed parking spot very close to the entrance. I'm really hoping that some other company will come in and start a van pool business that leases vans at a reasonable rate. Or that the state subsidizes the van so that it's affordable. Something so I can ride and not drive.

RIP van pool. You had your annoying things, but overall, you were awesome.

The Snowmageddon That Wasn't

The weather service predicted snow for Atlanta last Friday. I don't know if you all remember the last time it snowed in Georgia, but people were trapped on the roads for 24 hours and longer. It made the national news. I think it was December 2014.

I didn't have the problems getting home in the last snowfall, but it did take me 3.5 hours. That would be an hour longer than my worst ever snow commute in Minnesota. That includes snowfalls of two feet, not the meager 2.5 inches that fell in Atlanta, but as I'm continually reminded, the south isn't used to snow like the north is and doesn't have the equipment to remove it.

So with 2-4 inches of snow in the forecast for Friday into Saturday, I was naturally concerned. This is almost double what fell during Snowmageddon 2014.

It started raining early in the day right on schedule according the the weather people. The temperature hovered in the mid thirties. We watched and waited. And waited. And waited, but finally it was late enough to go to bed.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I expected to see a blanket of white covering the ground. I opened the blinds to brown. Brown leaves, brown grass, brown pine needles.

The snow forecast had apparently been changed to ice, although I missed that little announcement. There wasn't much ice either that I could see. That was a huge relief, but when I think of the time we spent getting ready and worrying about the weather, it's a little frustrating too. Still, I'll always take them being wrong this way than to have them be wrong the other way and have surprise snow.

Old People Radio

When I was in growing up, the only radio station my parents ever listened to was a news/weather/talk show kind of format station. Not political talk. The talk show stuff was cooking or entertaining or household hints kind of things. In fact, I didn't know there was such a thing as FM radio OR music on the radio until (I think) fourth grade when someone in my class asked me what radio station I listened to. I thought there was only one, so I gave them that answer. And got laughed at.

Everyone listens to this top 40 station, I was told. And of course, I immediately found it and started listening to it myself.

When I was a little older, I called my parents' station of choice "old people radio" and didn't understand why they liked to listen to it.

Guess what? I still don't understand why anyone likes the format and it's on steroids in Atlanta. Not only is the station all yakking, it's obnoxiously loud yakking, especially in the morning. I hate talking in the morning. I hate loud in the morning. They do both. And I'm not sure if this is the right term or not, but the station over-modulates their voices making it even worse. There are no words for how much I hate this station. Loathe is too mild a term.

Sadly, because of my van pool, I'm subjected to this hideousness pretty much every weekday morning. I plug a headset into my phone and listen to instrumental music to block it out. Because of how obnoxious it is, I had to go with drumming music which is a little more robust than I'd like at that time of day, but there's nothing milder that will cover up the station from hell.

Even today, I still think of this type of station as being for old people and I'm not quite sure why anyone driving my van pool wants to listen to it. When I drive my car to work (which seldom happens), I don't have the radio on at all in the morning, and when I drive home in the afternoon, I put on music I can sing along with to make the ride shorter. Much, much better than blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

PS: Radio in Atlanta is bad! Even a couple of Atlanta natives who I work with think it's lousy. I didn't believe I'd find worse radio down here than what I had in Minneapolis, but I was wrong. It's at least 100x worse down here. IMO, of course.

I Want the Power

I'm writing this blog farther in advance than I usually do because Atlanta is under an Ice Storm Warning and I might not have power later. They way they're talking on the news, I might not have power for days. Gah!

This is so not cool. I can put up with being iced in a for a few days, but it's the loss of electricity that strikes fear in my heart. You see, I've been through an extended electrical outage once before and I quickly discovered that it's a good thing I was born when I was because I would have made a terrible pioneer.

It was a May thunderstorm in Minnesota that took the power down for five days. Losing power in winter when it's cold is a whole new kind of hell. No electricity means no heat.

No electricity means no coffee. It means no television. No computer or internet! It means only reading until the sunlight dims, and with a storm, it will be largely dim. And music only lasts until the iPod battery dies. It makes for a long stretch of nothing to do.

Maybe I'll get lucky and my suburb won't get as much ice as they're predicting. I've got my fingers crossed.

Ice Ice Baby

As I'm writing this, Atlanta is under threat of an ice storm. This has me anxious--really anxious. I'm from Minnesota; we hardly ever get ice. It's pretty much only snow with a few exceptions now and then. I don't know how to deal with an ice storm.

It's been predicted that power will go down. For a long time. Losing power in winter? I can count on one hand the number of times that's happened when I lived in Minnesota and then, it was usually a matter of hours, not days. How the hell do you cope without heat for days on end? Even if it warms up to the 50s after a couple of days, that's still two or three days of cold temperatures.

They're saying to ensure you have enough water. I'm guessing that's for people with wells because city water still works without electricity. They're saying trees and branches can come down. I'm looking at the trees that surround my house with trepidation.

The ice isn't due in until Tuesday late in the afternoon into Wednesday, so there's a little time, but it's still nerve wracking. I'd rather deal with 31 inches of snow in Minneapolis than half an inch of ice in Atlanta.

I don't even want to think about the drive home after the commute that I went through 2 weeks ago. And I wasn't even one of the people stuck on the freeway for 12 hours plus.

Two Inches of Snow Freezes Atlanta

On Tuesday, Atlanta got snow. According to the news, about 2.5 inches. This was my first snowstorm since moving here and I'd been warned--repeatedly--that it would shut the city down. I wasn't able to comprehend that.

Up until recently, I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Two inches would be called a nuisance snowfall and maybe slow the commute up some, but not much more than that. How bad could 2 inches of slushy snow be here?

I soon found out.

It began snowing before noon and people started leaving work. I ride a van pool, so we couldn't leave until everyone was allowed to go. That was at 2pm. By then, the two freeways we needed to take home were gridlocked with multiple reports of accidents. The primary backup route was also reported to be a parking lot, so we tried a different alternative.

It took forever to reach it because of the cars backed up and it didn't improve once we were on it. There was a guy walking on the sidewalk who kept up with us!

We inched along this two-lane road until we stopped moving completely. After some speculation that an accident had the road closed, we turned around and tried a different alternate.

This road also crept along at a snail's pace, and when we reached the start of a hill, the police were there, turning everyone around.

We headed for our third route. This one actually was moving and after 3.5 hours, I made it home, up the steep hill I call a driveway, and turned off the car. It was a huge relief, especially since I saw how icy the roads were already.

My parents were visiting and I was met at the door with the announcement that there was homemade chicken soup with homemade noodles. Definitely perfect after the hellish commute.

After dinner, I turned on the television and found there were people who were still stuck on the freeways for six hours! Six! Wednesday morning there were still cars stuck on the freeways around Atlanta and the temperatures weren't going to go above freezing for the day.

Reports from coworkers on their commutes started coming in. Some got home faster than my time, but one guy left at 12:30 in the afternoon and didn't get home until 2am. Another guy was stuck in traffic still at 9pm.

You can see pictures and tweets from people trapped on the freeways at The Daily Beast.

I can't wrap my mind around this set of circumstances. Two inches shutting down a major US city. I know Atlanta doesn't have the equipment down here. (I saw one snowplow in my 3.5 hours on the road and in Minneapolis, they're out on the freeways in force.) I saw how quickly the roads were icing up during my commute. But seriously, people stranded on the roads almost 24 hours later?

Totally incomprehensible to me. I guess you can take the girl out of Minnesota, but you can't take Minnesota out of the girl.

House Hunting Part Four

I left off on Tuesday with making an offer on the house I really liked. Now the story continues.

I put in the offer with a noon Monday deadline for getting back to us. My Realtor said she expected to hear something that day, though, and I went home to wait. I stayed off the phone and did some online browsing for things I'd need to buy for the house. If I got it.

And I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, at about 9:45 I decided it was probably time to wrap things up and go to bed. I wasn't going to hear anything tonight. Five minutes later the phone rang. The sellers had made a counteroffer.

They'd come back with a dollar figure that was higher than we'd expected, but still lower than the asking price. After some discussion, I slept on it and ultimately decided I wanted the house. Besides we had an appraisal as part of the contract. If the house didn't come in at what I was paying, everything reopened for negotiation.

So I said yes and initialed and signed a bazillion papers. Okay, maybe not a bazillion. They're saving that for the closing.

It made it official, though, I was under contract to buy a house in Georgia!

House Hunting Part Three

When I ended Part Two, I was fleeing in panic before committing myself to buying the house I thought I wanted.

Only I kept thinking about House 5--the one that had everything I wanted except a basement. It was lower priced than the builder's home by a big enough dollar figure that I could actually change the few things I wasn't crazy about and those items were few and far between. I even liked the colors the walls were painted.

I asked my agent if we could go back to House 5 and take another look. She set up an appointment for Sunday at 11am.

I went home, loaded all my pictures on the computer, and started thinking hard about what was really important to me. Did I want that basement enough to live in a cramped house with flooring and fixtures I wouldn't like and couldn't afford to replace for years?

House 5 wasn't brand new, but it was only five years old and had only had one owner. They'd taken good care of the house.

Other pluses were the lot was setup in a way that gave maximum privacy. There were houses behind it, but I could only see the roofs from the back patio. There were houses on either side of this house, but you couldn't really see any neighbors from the backyard either. And not only was it private, but it was quiet and serene. It would be a great place to recharge at the end of the day.

But no basement. All the boxes and books and dishes that I have stored in my Minnesota basement would have to fit--somehow--into the bedrooms or closets in the house. Some stuff I could get rid of, but a lot of it...well, not really.

The question then became did I want a basement so much that I would go with a house that didn't measure up to a house that had everything else I wanted?

I decided I wanted the house that had all the cool living space. I called my parents, figuring they'd talk me into the basement, but to my surprise, they didn't.

And when I went to bed that Saturday night, I knew that unless my second look at House 5 was a complete disaster, that was the house I'd be making an offer on. That was meant to be my house.

It shocked me. I always pictured my house with a basement. I also was surprised that there were things I liked about this house better than my house in Minnesota. That feels so disloyal, but then I remind myself that there are things in my MN home that I like better than House 5, too. I guess it evens out in the long run.

My second look at the house didn't change my mind. Sure there are some things I want to change--some of the light fixtures aren't to my taste, but then my style is modern/contemporary and most people prefer more traditional lighting. And I would like to screen in the patio to keep the bugs away. But ultimately, the house is move-in ready and I don't actually have to do anything to live there happily.

When we went back to my agent's office to put in my offer on the house, I didn't panic. I was a little nervous, but mostly calm and that's how I know I made the right choice for me.

Of course, then the nerves changed from making the right house decision to would the sellers accept my offer?

To Be Continued.

House Hunting Part Two

House hunting on Saturday didn't get off to the greatest of starts. My agent was a bit late because she'd gotten a phone call from another agent. The first house on our list of appointments already had five offers on it and she basically told my agent not to bother. This house had gone on sale like 2 days earlier.

House 1 off the list, sight unseen.

House 2 didn't get off to a good start either. We arrived to find: The owners still home, another set of house buyers looking during our time (they'd had an appointment for later in the day and just showed up), and repairmen there doing...something.

Everyone cleared out a few minutes after we got there, though, and we started to look around. It was a nice, two-story house with a lot of windows and light. Corner lot, but it was on a small, cul-de-sac street so it wouldn't be an unbearable amount of traffic. Fantastic landscaping and I liked the light fixtures they'd chosen.

But the master bathroom was small and so was the kitchen. The other rooms were upstairs, including a bonus room that was being used as a man cave. I liked it enough to keep it on the list, but I was kind of meh about it.

House 3 was a new house in a subdivision that had been started maybe 5 or 6 years ago? Maybe a little longer. We never got out of the car. My agent took one look at it's location (it was a on a corner lot) and said I'd have car lights from every direction because of how the roads were situated with the lot. I agreed with her.

House 4 was another new house in the same subdivision. Again, we never got out of the car. My agent took one look at the power lines going through the area behind the back yard and said I'd never be able to sell the place with that there. I thought health hazard and no, I didn't want to live behind the big, ginormous power line towers.

House 5 was at the top of a hill. A fairly steep hill. When my agent brought her car to a stop, I told her to put on the parking brake. I was afraid her car would roll down the hill if she didn't. To drive into that garage, you wouldn't be able to slow down much until you'd leveled off the car.

This house was a one story--ranch--with hardwood floors in the entry and kitchen, upgraded carpeting and padding in the rest of the house, a kitchen with plenty of storage room and a good sized pantry, granite counter tops, and big rooms. It was awesome. It even had an in-ground sprinkler system.

But no basement. I really wanted a basement.

House 6 was 3000 square feet, all brick, but built in 1989. We showed up to discover the reason it had so much square footage was that the owners had enclosed the garage and made it a room. Sort of. It wasn't a very pretty or useful room, so I don't know why they gave up the garage, but they had.

We needed to enter through the back door because there was a problem with the front one. The backyard was beautiful. Very private and large, especially for the area we were looking in.

As soon as we walked in, I decided it had to have been owned by an elderly lady. All the walls were stark white except for the borders around the walls near the ceiling. The kitchen had peach counter tops, ancient appliances, and the linoleum needed to be replaced. It was big, it had a built-in oven (which I love), but holy cow.

The rest of the tour didn't get any better. All the rooms were big and the bones of the house were good, but it would take another $50,000 dollars to fix everything that needed fixing, update all the old stuff, return the garage to being a garage and host of other issues.

Even if this house hadn't been priced slightly over the top of my budget, I wasn't willing to tackle a fixer-upper. Especially one this intensive. I crossed it off the list.

House 7 was the house I'd looked at on Wednesday, the one under construction and at the very top of my price range. Okay, beyond the very top of my budget, but my offer was going to be my max amount. We talked to the agent and I decided this was the house, so why not go ahead and put in an offer?

But as I started asking questions and realized I would have to take vinyl flooring and builder-grade carpet, that I would be allowed hardly any choice in anything at all, I panicked.

I said, "I have to think about this." And we left.

To Be Continued.

House Hunting Part One

With a closing date set for my home in Minnesota, it was time to go house hunting in Georgia. Being the obsessive/compulsive person that I am, I'd begun watching houses online about a year ago and that picked up in earnest a few months ago. I knew what area I wanted to live in and I knew what things were important to me in a house.

TBH, I didn't expect to find anything for a long, long time. You see, I really, really loved my house in Minnesota. I'd picked out the plans, I had it built, I chose everything from floor to ceiling, and it was a totally awesome home.

Last Wednesday, my agent and I looked at a house under construction. It was above my price range, but it had a basement and would be a brand new house. Two pluses for me.

When I got there and saw the lot, my heart sank. The road sat high and the house sat really low. All I could see was rain hitting the ground and streaming for the house.

We went in and walked around inside. It was a nice floor plan and had a lot of similarities to my house up north, but it was cramped. I swear it had to have less square footage because so much of the total was in the bonus room over the garage, not in the rooms on the main level.

Still, it wasn't too bad and it had a basement. We went down to look at it and there, against the front wall, was water. In fact, the red Georgia clay stained the entire length of one of the basement walls.

My agent called the builders agents and got some more information. The basement had been poured a long time before the walls and roof went up and that was probably where the water had come from. Also, the steep lot we saw wasn't what the final version would look like. There was a lot more grading to be done.

This left it on the list of possibilities. If the builder was willing to take less than what he was asking for. I didn't, however, want to commit to the first house I saw, so my agent and I made a date for Saturday.

To Be Continued.

One Year

A year ago on January 2nd I arrived in Atlanta from Minneapolis. This, of course, was cause for reflection.

It doesn't seem as if it that much time has passed. My perception is that it was much shorter than this. I also feel as if I haven't accomplished much since my arrival, although it did take me quite a while to acclimate.

The time difference was one of my biggest hurdles. You wouldn't think an hour is that much, and for daylight savings time it isn't. I adjust to that in about 2 weeks. The time zone change, though, was bigger for me.

For example, the east coast baseball games start at 6pm in the central time zone and I could watch a full game and be in bed by 9:30. Here? Push everything an hour forward, but my alarm was still set for 4am. There's a big difference between 6.5 hours of sleep and 5.5. I finally did adjust, but it took about 9 months. For real.

Driving here was another adjustment, and while I've gotten used to it, I find it extremely stressful. In fact, it's my least favorite part about the city. I can't believe how fast people drive here, and let's face it, most of them aren't good enough to do it--hence my death grip on the steering wheel.

After my near-death experience with the semi-trailer, I realized I was never going to be relaxed about driving here and it was ruining my quality of life. Since I had to do something, I joined the van pool. That also started January 2nd and I love it! I get to work relaxed. Heck, last Friday I even rode in with my eyes closed for most of the trip. Totally awesome.

I still don't like the bugs, but in the last couple of months, there hasn't been many in the condo at all. Thank the lord! It really helped that someone moved in the upstairs unit. I've stopped flinching now when I think something is moving.

The weather is totally awesome! I don't mind the 95 and humid--at least I haven't so far. Maybe once I've been here for a while, I will, but for now I'm still used to Minnesota's short summers and to me 95 and humid means no snow. Last winter here I only wore my winter jacket about 6 or 7 times. This year I haven't worn it at all yet.

Overall, I don't know. Minnesota is still home and I miss the northern bugs. They're small. On the other hand, when I went home for Christmas, I realized I was so done with cold and snow.

It's Not the Heat

This is another blog topic suggestion. If you have something you'd like me to blog about, please let me know.

I've been living in Atlanta for seven months now. The question I've been getting a lot lately is how I'm dealing with the heat. The heat isn't really a big deal. Believe it or not, Minnesota gets just as hot and nearly as humid in the summer. The only differences are 1) Summer is much shorter in Minneapolis and 2) We get breaks in the humidity.

In Minneapolis, we might have a week or even two of high heat/high humidity, but then the dew point will plummet from high 60s or low 70s to the 50s. It only lasts for a couple of days before the dew point climbs again, but the break is nice. There hasn't been any break in Atlanta, but with air conditioning, it's really not that big a deal.

What's a big deal for me is the bugs.

I've had three palmetto bugs in the house now and they freak me out every time. They're the most enormous bug I've ever seen and they've actually managed to make centipedes seem preferable--at least in comparison.

The other thing I'm having trouble with is the time zone change. Still. I'm not tired when I should go to bed and can't wake up when I'm supposed to get up. I've been told by people who've switched time zones that it can take a year to acclimate. I personally think GA should just go to central time. ;-) I believe this is a major factor in my difficulty in writing. I'm in a perpetual state of exhaustion.

But other than those two things (and traffic/commute time) overall, I like it fine down here. I for darn sure prefer the winters here to the ones in MN and not having to wear a heavy jacket very often? Complete awesomeness.

First Days - Atlanta

I have a couple of first day stories from Atlanta.

First day in the condo. It was chaos. Pandemonium. Comcast came out to install my cable. This was the day my new mattress was being delivered. And the guy who was going to replace the window called and wanted to come out, too.

We had one lawn chair at this point. No other furniture of any sort. I was up and down off the floor multiple times, including lying on my stomach next to the Comcast tech as we tried to get my internet hookup to work. Late that night, after sitting on the floor chatting with friends and watching MLB Network, I tried to get up and felt my knee pop. The pain was excruciating for days afterward.

Not a great beginning in my new city.

First day at work. It was chaos. Luckily, I'd made a trial run to the office the day before and knew GPS was correctly guiding me in. What I didn't know was that I'd arrive amid a mechanic shift change which meant hundreds and hundreds of people coming in to the Tech Ops area. I sat in line, waiting to turn in to the building.

I'm just grateful that I was down in December for a meeting and learned where my department was located. I even managed to find it again without getting lost. None of my boxes had made it from Minneapolis even though I'd had them ready to go ten days early. It's tough to work without your stuff.

But people in my department came by to say hello and I even got a couple of welcome hugs. My boss came by to make sure I had everything I needed and my boss's boss stopped by to thank me for relocating. Later that week, we were treated to a welcome to Atlanta lunch.

This was a great beginning to my new job location.

The Big Move

I made it to Atlanta, Georgia. I've been here two weeks now--one getting setup and one where I actually went to work at my day job.

Things still feel pretty unreal, you know? Like I'm on some kind of extended vacation. My parents are still down here and that adds to the vacation feel. I'm not sure how long it's going to take before it sinks in that this is more than an extended stay in the south. Maybe once my parents have returned to Minnesota and I'm here alone for a while.

I can say I definitely like the weather here better than Minneapolis, although it's been kind of bipolar. One day the high will be in the 60s, the next it's in the 40s. I did wear short sleeves to work four out of five days last week. Short sleeves. In JANUARY! Wild!

The one thing I dislike--okay more than dislike, hate--is the driving. OMG, it's like commuting through the middle of the Indianapolis 500! People, I have out of state plates, I'm driving in the right hand lane (a lane I rarely, if ever, used in Minneapolis), give me a break and stop tailgating me. I don't know where I'm going even with GPS. To add to my fun, the commute is about double what I had in Minneapolis. Totally not cool.

On the plus side, most of the people I've talked to have been very nice. We'll disregard the two mechanics I talked to in the elevator at work who pretended I didn't exist. They're probably not from around here anyway, right?

In other words, like anywhere you live, there are pluses and minuses in Atlanta. I'll probably have more to say later, but so far, so good.

Missed It

Because of my move from Minneapolis to Atlanta, I haven't been able to write for the last couple of months. There's just been too much to do and I didn't get it all done before I had to leave. At first, it was nice to have the time off from writing since I rarely take a break, but now I'm straining at the tether. I want to write. I want to take time to think about my stories and work out details. Want, but can't.

The week before I left Minnesota, I opened a file and made an attempt to work, but my thoughts were too scattered and I couldn't focus enough to get words down. This isn't unexpected because I dealt with it the same thing the other few times I've tried to write while I have been deep in relocation mode. It was disappointing, though.

Now the question is how long will it take to get settled enough in Atlanta to have time again? Not just time to write, but time to deal with all the email and other details that I've let slide because I had other, more critical issues on the To Do List. Those decks need to be cleared, too.

What's really making me crazy is that my characters aren't talking to me. None of them. I'm used to running scenes to fall asleep. I'm used to running scenes when I get bored. This quiet is weird.

I know it's stress. My mind is whirling with details and even if I try to concentrate, it doesn't take long before my thoughts return to what I need to do or what I should be doing. I'm looking forward to calmness, to being able to hear the voices again. I want to spend time with my characters, no matter how frustrating they can be. I wonder how long it will take for my mind to settle in? Today will be my second day reporting to my job in my new home city. It can't be too much longer now. I hope.

Atlanta Or Bust

If everything went as planned, I should be in Atlanta, Georgia as you're reading this. I'm writing this post 6 days ahead of my move and I'm torn between panic and excitement. Mostly panic.

I'm trying to look on the bright side about moving. The weather should be much, much better in Atlanta than it is in Minneapolis. I'm tired of the cold and snow. I'm tired of wearing hats and scarves and mittens and heavy winter jackets and boots. Although, wow, I saw the cutest pair of winter boots online last night and nearly ordered them--until I remembered that I won't need them in my new home.

The other plus is that Atlanta is headquarters for my airline, so the odds of having to move again are incredibly low. Also, being our major hub, it will be more convenient for traveling. More non-stop destinations there.

Right now, though, I'm frantic about how much I have left to do and how little time I have to do it in. I'm worried about finding my way around a new city when I still get lost in the city in which I grew up. And I'm especially worried about leaving my parents alone in Minnesota. If they need me, it will take hours to fly home.

Future blog posts will no doubt talk about my adventures in Atlanta. I'm sure I'll be doing lots of things y'all can laugh about.

The Atlanta Trip

I was down in Atlanta last week to look for somewhere to live. Despite working for an airline, we drove down because Thanksgiving had the flights packed. Over the course of the week, there were lots of events that I thought would make entertaining blog posts. Unfortunately, I forgot most of them by the time I got home.

There are some things, though, that are stuck in my mind:

It gets dark early now. We were in Illinois and there were no lights on the sides of the freeway. It was drizzling. I was going 70, which was the speed limit. I got passed. Constantly. By cars doing 80-85 mph. There was one guy driving so fast, he had to doing 90. In the dark. So FYI, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Michigan drivers go far too fast. I wasn't even a little surprised when we came across an accident in the center median involving 4 vehicles.

And in the dark, somewhere in Illinois, I had to slam on the brakes. I was lucky no one was tailgating me at that time. As I zipped down the freeway, my headlights picked up an animal in the middle of the two lanes. I don't know if it was a dog or a coyote, but I nearly hit it. That was major scary.

My impressions of Atlanta. I liked it. They drive like maniacs there, too. Seriously. I didn't think it was possible to get a more stressful commute than I have in Minneapolis. I was wrong. I might have to check into a van pool to get to and from work. Although if I had a clue where I was going, it might not have been so bad.

The weather was great! Okay, so the people in Atlanta were complaining about how cold it was, but I'd been wearing my winter jacket and hat in Minneapolis. In ATL, I was wearing my spring jacket and I was comfortable. I actually hated the idea of going home because I didn't want to go back to the cold (and it snowed the day after I got home). The weather in MN got even worse since then. On Tuesday, it was 15 degrees in MN at 5am. It was 62 in ATL. I'm thinking Mother Nature is trying to make me eager to move.

The trip home also had a few moments. Like the rest area we stopped at in northern Georgia where I almost got a cat. The two workers who clean up around the place found an abandoned house cat who was as friendly and sweet as could be. First thing in the door, they asked me if I wanted a cat. I thought about it while I washed my hands and thought, well, why not? Then I found out the cat was pregnant and I was like I can't deal with that on top of all else I have.

After dark, again in Illinois, I caught movement in the corner of my headlights. A deer was on the edge of right-hand lane. All I could do was think: Please, don't let her run out in front of me. Luckily, she didn't, but that was enough to encourage me to stop for the night. In the hotel room, the radar showed freezing rain ahead of us so stopping was definitely the right choice.

The next day, in Wisconsin, we stop for gas. My dad notices my tailpipe is broken. We stop at a Ford dealership at the next exit and they took it off. The mechanics were awesome! They didn't even charge us for doing that, but the rest of the trip home was a little on the loud side. ;-)

And of course, we hit Minneapolis in rush hour. But it was good to be home. When I saw the snow coming down on Saturday, I reconsidered that statement.