Go West, Young Man...Far West: Day 1

Three weeks ago today, Roxi was offered a teaching position at Hawai'i Pacific University in Honolulu. Of course we were excited but there were so many things to plan for: Roxi is required to be there by August 27, we had to figure out what to do with everything in our apartment and we had to figure out where we would live on Oahu.  The prospect was exciting but extremely overwhelming to say the least.

This didn't exactly come out of the blue.  Roxi and I have been scheming on how to get to Hawai'i for a while now but didn't expect it to happen so soon.  We spent our honeymoon on the island of Oahu three and half years ago and of course we loved it; it is paradise after all!  As long as we've been together, Roxi and I have never really agreed on where we would to settle down.  I don't care for extremely cold winters and after years of life in south Louisiana, Roxi is tired of the endless summer heat and humidity.  I would prefer a Stateside life while Roxi has dreamed of living abroad.  Six or eight months ago, we discussed the possibility of Hawai'i.  It seems that the islands offer everything that we want: a moderate climate and an idyllic setting that is part of the United States but feels foreign thanks to the cultural differences and the fact that is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It is a daunting task to try to make such a major move given several months notice but it is even more extreme when you have about twenty-eight days. This process has been stressful but it has also been extremely liberating.  When we moved to The Netherlands a few years ago, we stored our things in a POD and arranged for them to meet us in Memphis when we returned to the States.  When we opened the POD and saw our things after nine months overseas, we couldn't believe that we had actually paid to store so much junk.  We decided that we would not repeat our past mistake this time.  It made more sense to sell everything and only take with us what we truly need.

The process of letting go has been a very rewarding and freeing experience for both Roxi and I.  We have come to realize that so much of what we have are just things, many of which we don't use often enough to keep.  What's more, nearly everything is replaceable if we want it again.  Of course there are a few items that have sentimental value and those will be saved and graciously stored by our parents, but everything else is just stuff.  I've always tried to be a practical person but now, if there isn't a frequent and practical use for an item, I will not be buying it.

After three weeks of planning and several moving sales, yesterday we loaded up our remaining things along with our cat Jupiter, and left Memphis, our home for the last two years.  Although we have gotten rid of nearly everything, we are taking a car to Hawai'i because it will be a useful thing to have plus it is a convertible and what better place to have one than a tropical island?  Very practical if you ask me!  We are shipping our car from Long Beach, CA but to get there, we are taking a trip through Louisiana and Texas to see our families.  The full trip will take us 2250 miles but we are fortunate to have friends and family along the way who we will also be able to visit.

Sadly our cat Jupiter will not be able to travel with us to Hawai'i.  Hawai'i is rabies free and there is a strict protocol for any pets entering the state.  After proving that the pet is rabies free by blood test, there is a 120-day quarantine period that can occur either Stateside or in a facility in Honolulu.  Neither option is great but it is better for Jupiter to stay with family for four months than to stay locked up on the island in quarantine.  As of today, Jupiter passed her blood test and the clock has started so she will be able to join us in four months.  It will be hard on us and her but it is in everyone's best interest this way.

We left Memphis at around 4:30 pm yesterday afternoon, several hours later than expected, but we made good time and managed to arrive at Roxi's parents' house a little after midnight.  It was a long day of packing and driving but it was nice to get the trip started and finish the first stage of the process.  We will be spending the next two days here in Lafayette getting Jupiter acclimated to her home for the next four months.  Stay tuned for daily updates as we make this trip and begin a new life in the 50th state.

Day 1: Memphis, TN to Lafayette, LA, 443 miles

MSA Open Mic Night at Ubee's

I played three songs at the Memphis Songwriters Association open mic night at Ubee's on Tuesday night.



You can find out more about my music at  http://www.last.fm/music/Wes+Raine.

What a Month!

It's been thirty days since my last post and forty since I vowed to blog more often. Unfortunately life got in the way since the beginning of November. In the middle of October, Roxi's grandmother Nina was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer which prompted us to take a spur-of-the-moment flight to Lafayette to visit her over Halloween weekend. It was a good trip and although she was tired and in some pain, she seemed to be in good spirits.

Upon returning to Memphis, I continued doing odd jobs while looking for a full-time position and Roxi stayed very busy with her work at the university. By the end of the week, we received the sad news that Nina had passed away. We spent the next week mourning and preparing for another trip to Lafayette for Nina's memorial service. To complicate things, two days after the memorial, we had plans for a trip to Shanghai where Roxi was scheduled to present a paper at an academic conference. Needless to say we had an emotionally and physically exhausting weekend in Lafayette and a mere twelve hours back in Memphis before a twenty-hour trip to Asia.

After spending a week in Shanghai (more on that later), we took the grueling time-zone discombobulating trip home to Memphis in time for Thanksgiving. We spent a day trying to get re-acclimated to Central Time but that didn't work out so well. We managed to wake up early enough to go to a Thanksgiving buffet with our friends Amelia and Susana, international students in Roxi's lab who have been visiting from Spain and Chile respectively. That night I watched the Aggies play a very inspired game against arch-rival Texas only to fall short in the end. Roxi and I spent the rest of the week trying to get back to normal, but we're honestly still a little out of whack from all of the traveling.

Now I'm simply amazed that it is already December and 2010 is just around the corner! Where, oh where does the time go?!?

A Day in the Park

I've been a little delinquent in posting lately, but it's mostly been due to Roxi and I being very busy getting settled into our new place in Memphis. Our POD arrived a little over a week ago and although we were able to unload almost everything in about four hours, unpacking the boxes and finding places for everything took (and is still taking!) a lot longer.


Our first look in the POD after eight months in storage.


What is all this crap and why did we put it in storage?!?


Half of the POD was unloaded in about 45 minutes!


Only a few hours after the POD arrived, it was almost completely empty...then the unpacking fun started!

We've spent most our evenings over the past week unpacking box after box of stuff. I was happy to let go of a lot of useless things that I have been moving around with for the past few years. We have a nice apartment in a great location, but it's a little smaller than we were planning on so it is really forcing us to be selective in what we keep...and I love it! I've been looking for an excuse to jettison some of my things for many years, I just needed a push to get me started.

After spending most of this past Saturday unpacking the last of our boxes, we spent much of Sunday relaxing. It was a beautiful day in Memphis yesterday so we took the short walk to Overton Park to explore.


The Levitt Shell where Elvis Presley played his first paying gig.


The Brooks Museum

It seems to be a nice park and I plan to walk some of the nature trails as the weather continues to cool this fall. All in all, things are working out nicely for us so far in Memphis. We couldn't be happier about the part of town we're in and Roxi can't stop telling me how much she loves her job. We love Memphis!

Memphian

Roxi and I made our trip up from Lafayette last Thursday and now we are settling into life in Memphis. We live in a really cool part of Midtown within walking distance of several bars and restaurants. We grew so accustomed to walking everywhere in the Enschede, it's nice be be able to carry on in that tradition and never have to worry about parking or drinking too much to drive! Our storage POD is moving a little slower and is scheduled to arrive on Friday. Thankfully, Roxi's parents loaned us their air mattress and between the two of us, we have enough clothes to get by until everything else arrives later this week. All-in-all, it's been a pretty smooth transition. Roxi has started work this week leaving me to concentrate on errands around the new place and getting a job of my own. Wish me luck!

Memphis Bound

A few weeks ago, Roxi received word that she was being offered a post-doctoral research position at the University of Memphis. At the time, we really weren't sure what we were going to do with ourselves as we were essentially homeless after our return from the Netherlands. We had been staying with Roxi's parents for a couple of weeks and we were thinking that we might try to find a place to live in Lafayette and sort of return to our pre-Holland lives.

Since receiving the invitation, life has moved very quickly. We originally thought that if Roxi was offered the position, she would not be starting until sometime in late October/early November. We soon learned that she would actually be starting in mid-September. Our transition time was suddenly shortened by months and we began to move quickly. So quickly, that I don't have time to keep up with my blog! It's been a couple weekends now, so I feel like I should write about our trip to Memphis before we actually move there tomorrow!

Roxi's employer invited us to travel to Memphis a couple weekends ago so that she could meet her new colleagues and so that we could scout out the city for a place to live. We started our journey early on a Saturday morning making the seven hour drive from Lafayette to Memphis. After making a few stops, we arrived at around five o'clock in the afternoon and headed to historic Beale Street. Although Roxi had never visited before, I had a fuzzy memory of the city from a trip I made about fifteen years ago. It was mostly as I remembered it, but much better now that I am of age to partake in the nightlife.


After seven hours in the car, Tennessee welcomed us.


You know you're in Memphis when...

After surveying the length of Beale street, we chose to have some beers and a burger at Alfred's. We couldn't have chosen a better place to experience Elvis nostalgia! We saw a great Elvis impersonator, complete with sequined jumpsuit, put on a wonderful show of the King's hits. After that we walked the street for a little while and witnessed what might be the best one-man band that I've ever seen. We ended the night with a few drinks at the Flying Saucer, one of my favorite bars from my time in Nashville that I was glad to see in Memphis.


Beale Street: A shorter, wider and cleaner version of Bourbon Street.


The King.


Richard Johnston: The best one man band I've ever heard.


Richard Johnston operates the bass drum with his right foot and a snare, tom and hi-hat with his left foot.


Richard Johnston's homemade guitar/bass with a low E bass string and B and high E guitar strings so that he can play them simultaneously.

We started Sunday with a visit to a local church before spending the afternoon with a realtor teaching us about the different neighborhoods of Memphis. We didn't get to see inside many properties on Sunday, but we certainly learned the layout of the city. Roxi went to some work meetings on Monday before we picked up where we had left off with the realtor on Sunday. We got to see inside a number of rental properties and settled on two: one was a little far from campus but in the midst of downtown life while the other was a great house not too far from campus but very far from any downtown activity.

After Roxi had another work meeting on Tuesday, we continued our housing search on our own with a tour of a very nice apartment complex and then a drive around neighborhoods close to campus looking for rental properties. While we were waiting to hear back from the realtor handling our two favorite properties from Monday, we stumbled upon a decent place very near campus. When we met with the realtor handling that property, she took us to another that turned out to be the place we chose. It is centrally located to both campus and downtown plus it's in a cool neighborhood!

Roxi's really excited about her new job and we're both looking forward to life in Memphis. Now we just need to make the drive back up there tomorrow and unload our POD when it arrives late next week. After we do that and I find myself a job, we'll be all set!

Grand Isle

Roxi and I spent the weekend in Grand Isle, LA for a large birthday party for a good friend of ours. We were only planning to stay through Sunday night but were having so much fun, we had to stay an extra night. We spent Friday night hanging out with our friend Ryan at his parents' camp (what we Louisianians call a weekend getaway such as a beach house or hunting lodge). It was a really nice place that they just finished building in January.


"The Mellu 2": Ryan's parents' camp on Grand Isle.


View from camp


Hanging at the camp with Captain Ryan.

On Saturday, after a little rain in the afternoon, we hit the beach with some new arrivals to go crabing. We had a lot of fun out in the surf but it must have been mating season because at least half the crabs were pregnant females which have to be released. In the end, we collectively caught a couple of dozen crabs. That alone would not have been enough to feed all the party guests, thankfully food was in no short supply for the whole weekend as we had some amazing cooks who seemed to revel in making massive quantities of delicious stuff!


Preparing the crab traps and drop lines.


Emily and Roxi taking the drop lines into the surf.


Not a bad catch!


Crab boil!

We stayed up pretty late Saturday drinking beer, hanging out and even playing a little guitar, something I haven't done since we went to the Netherlands. It was nice to place again especially with some old friends. We got up Sunday thinking that we would be heading home later that afternoon so we took a drive around the island just to show our friend Charles around. Back at the camp, our new friend John was planning on moving his boat from one side of the island to the other and offered to give us a ride. So we took a really pleasant boat trip from the east side of the island over to Caminada Pass on the west side where we hung out on a beach for a little while before getting dropped off at the marina.


Taking the boat out of the marina on the east side of Grand Isle.


Fifi Island on the north side of Grand Isle.


Love forever!


Hanging out on a beach in Caminada Pass.


Sunset at Bridge Side Marina on the west side of Grand Isle.

While we were on the boat, Roxi and I decided that we should probably stay one more night because we were having such a great time and we didn't have any jobs to get back to...

Back at the camp and Roxi decided to check her email. To her surprise, she received a message informing her that she had been chosen for a post-doc at the University of Memphis! We were so excited it was as if we were meant to stay to celebrate the news! After a few drinks and another fantastic dinner, John took Roxi, Charles and I to a dock on the east side of the island for some night fishing. We had a lot of fun and caught several catfish but threw them back as none of us really wanted to clean them.


A good catch!


Another good one!


Charles caught some fish too, but we didn't get chance to get a photo.

Back at the camp, we cleaned up and had a few more drinks before calling it a night. Monday we got up really early and made the drive back to Lafayette.

We had a great time and really got a nice big dose of Louisiana this weekend. It really served as a good welcome home from Europe and in a way it will become the beginning of our goodbye to Louisiana. Roxi talked to her post-doc adviser today and it looks like we will be moving to Memphis in September. We're planning a trip there late next week to scout out the city and see if we can find me a job and a place for us to live. I'm so proud of Roxi's accomplishments up to this point and am so glad she has gotten this opportunity to do something she is really interested in. More exciting times are in our future!