So busy -- blarghhh.

Argh, I have been meaning to post something about my travels this summer, but before I could upload any pictures, I had to remove a bunch of photos from my drive to free up space. Now that I have the space, I found that I have left my little camera at home so maybe I can upload everything later.

As for getting settled back into Miami life, things are going well. Carlos and I have a nice apartment/condo thing that is really close to campus and is even furnished! We moved in a couple of days ago and are still unpacking things and moving things from location to location, but I really like the place. We are even in walking-distance to blockbuster, a drug store, and a bunch of random stores and restaurants. That is a real rarity for a city like Miami -- you can hardly walk anywhere!

I start teaching on Wednesday, but it shouldn't be that bad since both of my labs are on the same day. Wednesdays won't be much fun, but at least that frees up the rest of the week for writing!

OK, just thought I would write a little update to let everyone know what I have been up to. I am going to try hard to make time to post about Christmas vacation before January is done...aaaaaiiiieee -- it is almost February!

Back in Miami

Actually, I have been back since the afternoon of the 14th, but things have been hectic (as expected) -- I have found a place to live, but am currently living in the office until all the paperwork is done and everything is signed. Hopefully Carlos and I will move into our new place early next week!

I haven't had time to download and organize all the pictures that I took during my various trips this December and January, but I will get to it eventually and start posting about everything. Our road trip took a total of 9 driving days from Seattle to Miami and we traveled through a grand total of 11 states:

- Washington
- Oregon
- California
- Nevada
- Arizona
- New Mexico
- Texas
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Alabama
- Florida

We toured through some pretty country, but didn't really stop to enjoy most of it since we had to be back in Miami by the 15th. We also got really lucky weather-wise -- we returned to Miami JUST before the arctic storm front moved in that everyone is talking about. Most of the places we drove through would have been icy and treacherous had we left Las Vegas a day or two later than we actually did!

My blog was hibernating...

Wow, it has been quite a while since I've had the time to sit down on the internet and post something on my blog -- it has been a very busy and rather crazy past few weeks! As my last blog post noted, the holidays started off a little later than anticipated as Carlos and I were trapped in Las Vegas while on our way to my parents' house in Washington. After a pretty long setback (about 4 or so days) we finally made it to Redmond and the snowy and icy weather didn't really improve much for the whole (now truncated) time that we were there! I was pretty disappointed that I couldn't do the majority of the fun things in Washington that I had planned (among those visiting my high school friends and catching up with them), but I was able to spend time with my family and our new dog Remy (his full name is Remington and he is a German Short-haired Pointer like Sierra).

Mom, dad, Carlos, and I all piled into my little Honda right after New Years to drive down to Las Vegas and spend a belated Christmas with my sister. The drive involved a few adventures in a mountain pass, but eventually we arrived safe and relatively unscathed! Las Vegas was fun and felt a little like a second home since I was there less than a week before. We wandered around the strip, I beat the house (yea, I was ahead $1.25!), and we stuffed ourselves silly at a buffet. I have a bunch of pictures that I will post a little later showing some highlights of the trip.

After spending a few days with Shannon, Carlos and I hit the road -- Miami or bust! Right now I am typing this in a Best Western in Sealy, Texas and we've been on the road for 3 days so far with another 3 or so on the horizon. So far, the driving isn't too bad and we have seen some nice desert and the Hoover Dam -- I will post some pictures from the road trip so far too.

OK, I need to get some rest before our drive tomorrow -- hopefully we can make it all the way to Mobile, Alabama. Stay tuned for some retroactive blog posts on my adventures from this Christmas and New Years!