I promised more... here it is:

First off, it was a Cessna Cardinal (four-seater) and I didn't have much to do with the actual flying of the plane. Kristen's step-dad owns one and he took me up for a day of galavanting around the Pacific Northwest. We stayed up above the clouds at 7,000 to 9,500 feet most of the time. Magnificent view. Saw the tops of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. Quite exhilirating to fly with so little metal between you and the plummet to a certain death.

We just moved up here (to Aurora, OR... population 600 or so) from Scottsdale, AZ to live with Kristen's family (for free). Things didn't work out so well in Scottsdale, where we had arrived just this January from LA. After a two year stint in Los Angeles, trying to start a career in film production, we decided we no longer had a strong enough interest in "the industry" (and the never-ending grind) to keep living in a mediocre apartment with a loud neighbor and lots of smog. So, we jumped at the chance to move to Scottsdale to work in an entirely different industry for much more money. We lived high on the hog for a good 5 months, then the company took a turn for the worse, along with our paychecks. Since we had been using our earnings to pay off our sizable personal debts and to put away money for Europe, we had very little usable capital. Suddenly, Scottsdale became too expensive. We had to do something drastic.

Within three weeks of making the decision, we had sold most of our belongings, packed everything we wanted to keep, loaded it on a truck, and hauled our asses to Oregon. If that's not a fast move, I don't know what is. By the way, we were dealing with so many more issues throughout this experience, but I don't even want to go into them. I also learned this: NEVER GO THROUGH THE PROCESS OF MOVING WHEN IT IS 110 F IN THE DESERT!

So, now we're up in Oregon. The weather is great. Our bulky items are in storage. We're reasonably settled. All we have to do now is find new jobs. I'd like to do something outdoors like painting houses or landscaping.

Well, you're caught up to the present, dear Blogspot. Later, we'll talk about all the fun reasons why we're moving to Europe in the first place, although I'm sure you're forming your own conclusions about that already. I'm willing to bet you aren't too far off the mark.

--RP--