The Great Salt Lake and then Idaho

Our drive today was only 5.5 hours, so in the morning we spent some time downtown SLC where we saw a bunch of Mormon architecture and explored a cool indoor/outdoor mall that had a creek running through it. On our way out of SLC we stopped by Antelope Island, a national park, which is more like a peninsula that juts out into the Great Salt Lake.

Our drive from there to Boise was about five hours, but felt more like 10, because the A/C in our car stopped working. It's not that hot in Idaho, staying between 65 and 70, but the sun really heats up the inside of the car. Plus, the sun sets in the direction we're driving, so it makes it hotter.

We arrived in Boise around 7, got some dinner, and are at our hotel planning for tomorrow's drive and then our final day of driving (Monday) and first night in our new apartment.

BTW, most of Idaho looks like this:

Tomorrow we plan to drive to Yakima, WA in the morning, which is about a 6 hour drive. It's supposed to be hot tomorrow, so if we go there in the morning, we can avoid passing out from the heat inside our car! From Yakima, it's a 2.5 hour drive to our apartment. 

Denver to Salt Lake City

Today (Friday, May 10th) we drove from Denver to Salt Lake City. The remaining drive through Colorado was very pretty, with the mountains always to the left of us. Our drive through Wyoming was also nice, with rolling hills and billowy clouds in the bright blue sky. As we approached Utah, the mountains came back into view. The first mountain pass we drove through, the pines were covered in snow. 

I mentioned it felt like Christmas, so we turned on some MWS Christmastime, the only Christmas music we had access to from my phone. The winter scenery only lasted for about 20 minutes, but it was beautiful.

When we neared Salt Lake City, the sky was blue and temps had risen quite a bit. We were driving through one of the ravines, pulled off at a rest stop where we saw hundreds of ground squirrels. It seems they were used to humans and would run right up to you to see if you had food, before turning around and running into their little holes in the ground.

We arrived in SLC in the evening around 8. We checked into our hotel, picked up some fruit from a nearby grocery store and ate at our hotel. I didn't have a chance to update the blog, not just because it was late, but our hotel only allowed free wifi for one device at a time. We also needed time to make some Seattle arrangements, such as schedule movers, order our apartment wifi, and check on our uhaul shipping container.

Some more from the day:

Amarillo to Denver

We left Amarillo at 8am this morning, our remaining time in Texas was travelling through no-mans land of rolling pastures. We didn't pass through a single town for a good 45 minutes. Then we hit the New Mexico boarder and continued on until Colorado. Our first sight of the mountain range was great and it was around that time when the snow started falling. We drove through snow most of the way to Colorado Springs. It was off and on again, but it made it feel like winter.

It's been cold on our journey ever since we passed through the storms from yesterday. We hit the coldest temps in Colorado Springs. We arrived in CO Springs around 2 in the afternoon. We went downtown for lunch and then head over to Garden of the Gods. It was too cold and wet to go walking, so we just drove through. Where we exited the park, we saw signs for Manitou Springs. We drove to the downtown area, parked, and walked for a while, going in and out of shops to warm up. If it hadn't been so cold, we might have spent more time there.

Originally we had planned to spend the rest of the day in Colorado Springs and stay overnight there, but the weather was just too terrible. So we headed to Denver where we currently are, just north of downtown. We had ramen for dinner and then dessert at a place called Meet Fresh.

Our layover plan for the remainder of our trip has changed, since we went just a bit further than we were originally planning to. We might go all the way to Salt Lake City tomorrow, so that we can spend extra time there on Friday before we head any further. This way, we'll spend tomorrow driving through the rest of the cold weather.

Here's some photos from todays trip.

Texas in a Day

Today we drove from Galveston to Amarillo. Along the way we passed through Houston, Arlington (directly between Dallas and Fort Worth), and Wichita Falls. Driving along Highway 287, I never realized how close we were to Oklahoma. Our original plan was to stop in Childress, TX, but that changed when we thought we'd like to have a little extra time in Colorado Springs. So we'll depart tomorrow morning at 8am and head to Colorado Springs with enough time left in the day to explore a little bit.

The portion of the drive from Houston to Arlington was slow due to some heavy rain. After the rain, the blue sky came out and Kaho was able to take these really nice photos from the car.

After arriving to the hotel, I realized that is probably Oklahoma on the horizon in these photos.

Most of the day was overcast and it was closer to sundown that the sky was really clear. Driving directly west meant the sun in our hours for a while.

It was a fairly uneventful day, but we saw two nice cats at a rest stop.

Will update again tomorrow evening after we explore a bit in Colorado Springs.
Peace.
Jeremy

The Road to Seattle

A road trip from Austin to Seattle starts from.... Galveston?

Since Kaho has never been to Houston or Galveston, we decided to leave a day early for our trip to Seattle so that we could see just a bit more of Texas before we depart. 

On May 6th, the last day of my full time contract with UT, we moved out of our apartment and headed to Houston. We arrived in Houston at midnight, were asleep by 1am, and up by 7 for Kaho's 9am hair appointment. After the hair appointment we browsed the Japanese supermarket next to the hair salon. Then we headed to Galveston. It rained for a good portion of our drive to the island. The kind of heavy rain that brings traffic on the freeway to a slow crawl. But we werent in a rush. We arrived to the island at 1:45. Since we couldnt check into our hotel until 3, we went over to Moody Gardens and toured the rain forest pyramid. That was my second time there, the first being with Grace in 2016 (or was it 2017?). We then drove over to Seawall down to the hotel, which is almost directly across from Pleasure Pier. Our room has a view of the Gulf, which is nice, but could be better if it wasn't so overcast and windy. The waves are big and the sand is wet, so we skipped going down to the beach. But if the weather is good tomorrow, we might walk across the street to the shore in the morning before we check out. 

We'll plan our route a little bit more before we go to bed. We are feeling sleep deprived because of all the last minute arrangements of getting out of our lease (through bringing in a subleasor), cleaning, packing, completing my UT contact, and preparing for our new life in Seattle.

Feeling tired, but very grateful.

Blessings to you.

Jeremy

Don't Give Up

Last year I had only 11 posts on this blog compared to 2013's 22 posts. I think part of the reason for that was the idea I would only be in Korea for one year. Now Korea has become my home and because I have settled in so much here, I don't think about updating my goings on.

Everyone has a reason for keeping a blog. Mine is personal to me. It acts like a journal. There are people who read, but it's been a great resource for me to look back and see some of the challenges I've faced and hopes that I've had.

So much time has passed since I changed careers. While I have loved much of this new career, I can't wait to start something new. It's the time before then that's most difficult. So many uncertainties. As I begin the countdown, I look back on the previous year (as I did in a post from Jan 2014 about 2013) and consider what if anything has changed and what if anything was accomplished.

I saw the completion of my first novel (or what I thought was completed at the time, more to come on this later).

I mailed my manuscript to roughly forty literary agents and publishing houses the majority of whom rejected me (the rest did not reply).

I rediscovered my love of reading. I read more books than I can recount in my head, usually reading three books at once, each of a different genre. This led to the fascinating discovery of books I had never before heard of. It also propelled my own writing.

I did 101 consecutive pushups, 15 consec pullups, ten one handed pushups on each arm, a pistol squat with my left leg (and since those early days of squat training I have destroyed my knees, let this be an everlasting lesson to me for not knowing what I was getting myself into with these intense calisthenic exercises).

The only fitness goal I set that I did not reach was a handstand. I blame the weather. I was training outside until the weather became too cold to continue. But, I know, I know. This is just an excuse. I plan to do one by the end of this year as I, hopefully, will learn in the backwoods of Georgia.

Speaking of Georgia, I cannot believe the places I am going this year. I don't think about it because it seems so far from now, but really, in just six months I'll be starting a journey that will take me to many places I've never been before. SO EXCITE. Yes, excite.

I realized more about what I am capable of accomplishing and what I was born to do.
This might be the biggest accomplishment of the year. Any little bit of further understanding on this front is huge. Everyone has a purpose in life and a reason for their existence but few take the time to sit down and understand what it might be. Not what it is, but what it might be. I strongly believe it takes a long time to understand what it is and many people don't even get close to the "what it might be" area.

Take a little time out of each day to think about what your destiny is.

Launch

It's a very dark and rainy afternoon. I'm alone in my office on the completely empty fourth floor of my school. I know there are others in the building because there are cars in the lot. Every now and then I hear some distant thunder. I sit and stare out the windows occasionally. I'm still in a slight fog. A result of the nap I just woke up from a few minutes ago.

I spent the morning researching books. Since the spring semester ended, all I've been doing is research. Researching schools, degrees, books, franchises, and how to do this and how to do that. Sometimes its fun other times its a little boring, but it all seems necessary enough for me to keep at it. The fall semester starts in two days and I want to launch into it. I don't want to roll over in a sleepy fog (similar to the haze I'm currently in) into it. I want to LAUNCH into it.

I'm on a mission.

I've hit and gone past the middle mark of my stint in Korea. It's home stretch. It's finish the mission. Part of that mission is to study up on business and entrepreneurship. Something I've always been interested in. Something I realized my love for when I read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

So I found a handful of books I'll get from Amazon Kindle and Gmarket and get to studying. I'm always reading at least one book. At the moment it's two. But I've a feeling it'll be more than that once the books start arriving and I really delve in.

I've got a lot to learn but I'm really motivated. I don't feel excitement for classes resuming. I feel excitement for what's beyond the classes. For what happens when there are no more classes to teach. But I'm called to live for God today, so I need to stay in the moment (while still planning for a future).

So my prayer is that I wont miss out on what God is doing around me today. All while keeping the vision and preparing to launch into what's next.