chicpea studio: the trip to seattle

even before we officially began dating JD and i had talked about moving to seattle.

he had visited seattle once before when staying with his uncle in portland and really made a connection to the city. i too had visited portland once before; during a road trip with a girl friend. after graduating we got in her little red jetta and drove 10,000 miles in 5 weeks. on of our stops during that drive was seattle and i fell in love immediately.

the plan was always JD, his friend from WV, and I would make our way out here after he had graduated from school and eventually get an apartment together, so we could share the costs of living. things started to change with this plan not long after it was made. JD and I started dating and the friend from WV chose to stay in WV.

even though we were dating we had decided to keep our relationship a secret. it seems a strange decision now, looking back on it. but at the time we were in the same program, we had the same professors, his x-girlfriend was in the program, we had the same circle of friends...and we didn't want to deal with any drama that might surround us coming out as a couple. so the first few months we would arrive at parties a few minutes apart or leave the bar idependently only to meet up around the corner. i must say it was fun being the only ones in on our secret and it only added to the new romance.

we had talked and decided that we would still try and make a go at moving out to seattle. i was set to graduate in december and JD wasn't going to graduate until may but we figured 6 months was no big deal. i was going to make the move upon graduation and he would follow a few months later. in October of that first year we made a secret trip out to seattle together; he was gathering information on his thesis and i was interviewing for jobs.

this collage i put together so that we would always remember our first trip to seattle together

that week was amazing. we explored the city learing the neighborhoods and the lay of the land while really learning a lot about each other. we returned to school and within a month the secret was out and the drama began. this part i am going to skip over because the whole situation was childish... as december approached i decided that i would wait till JD graduated in may to make the move out to seattle with him.

we left in early june with no jobs, no place to live, and a meager $1,500.00. we packed all of our belongings (most of them being books) and shipped them off. then we got in our saab with our camping gear and headed off.

we drove from PA to WA over the course of a week and a half, camping each night and stopping to see the sites as we made our way across the USA.

here we are at Blue Earth

hiking in the badlands

setting up for the night - an everyday routine

watching the bison roam

making it to the columbia... ahh WA

proof that we made it.

once we got to Seattle the hunt for an apartment began. we finally after a week and a half rented a hotel room so that we could get properly showered and have a nights rest in a bed. we also needed the internet to look for a place to live. a friend's aunt was kind enough to let us crash in her house for a few days while we looked for living accommodations cause driving out of the city to camp every night had it's drawbacks (ahhem... smelling of camp fire).

after a few days we found it... our new apartment.

the courtyard of our apartment.

it was wonderful... we signed the papers we were excited.... the draw back; we couldn't move in for another 2 weeks. so back to the tent we went.

by this time we had a pretty good repertoire of campfire cooking. quesadillas, spaghetti, baked potatoes... i love camping but by this time was so tired of living out of a tent.

one month of tent living was more than enough for me. we tried to fill our days with small exploratory trips around the area so that we were making the most of the free time we had.