And so it begins...

The idea for the title of this blog came about when, during my drive from Texas to Vancouver, I was arriving into the small city in Washington state where I'd be spending my final night on the road and I realized that Vancouver really was halfway to Alaska for me. The reason for the blog is, as many people know, to chronicle my move into a new city where I have no place to live, no job and no friends from the state I was born in, grew up in, went to school in and where everything in between happened.

Although the title is "Halfway to Alaska," I won't actually be making it there. I do have plans to visit someday--I'd love to take a cruise up and drive back down the Alaskan Highway--but right now I am working on settling in to beautiful British Columbia and making a life for myself here.

Saturday morning at the bright cheery hour of 4 a.m., with my car completely packed, my mom and I took off from grand ol' Lubbock, heading north to Amarillo. I won't bore you with the details, but we spent a grand total of 40 minutes in Oklahoma and had lunch north of Denver... a very late lunch. We counted windmills, got stuck in one-lane-only construction lines and saw a whole bunch of nothing really in the process. Once we hit Wyoming, we decided to go see a dinosaur graveyard about 30 mins or more out of our way, and unfortunately the only thing we found was a long closed down house that once directed you to the dino pits, but we couldn't find any way of getting there. We arrived in Rawlins, Wyoming around 5, got some dinner at Taco John's and I was asleep around 7 p.m.

The next morning we didn't leave until about 5 a.m., driving through a sort of "no man's land" along the continental divide where water doesn't flow any direction and making it all the way to Utah in mid-morning. We stopped for lunch somewhere insignificant in Idaho--which actually was very reminiscent of Texas--making it to Oregon early enough to stop in Baker City at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center for about an hour and a half. The Center was fantastic, located up on a hill, and had actual parts of the Trail you could still see. From there we headed to Kennewick, Washington. We had difficulties finding the hotel and had a late dinner. The next day we didn't head out until about 7 a.m. since we wanted to miss the morning rush hour in Seattle. We stopped at the beautiful little mountain town of Hyak, had lunch in Everett and passed through Seattle and reached the border about 1 p.m. We were detained at the border for about 40 minutes while Border Patrol ran a background check on me and got my work permit in order and before we knew it we were off to Vancouver!

So here I am, sitting in my University of British Columbia hostel-dorm room wondering what I'm going to do for the next several months! First order of business is to find a place to live, so that is what I have been focusing on. I've already checked out a couple of places, one great and one not-so-great, and am looking at another one on Friday in the area I am really interested in living in. In the meantime, I'm hoping for the best!