Road Trip

Day 5: Keystone, South Dakota. We spent night 4 about 2 miles from Mount Rushmore. We drove up to the monument about 8 pm. After wandering the presidential trail, we waited and watched the slow illumination of the carvings as the sun set in the background. It was gorgeous! Today we are heading to Crazy Horse and through the Badlands, hoping to make it to Sioux Falls. I am excited for Wisconsin because it will be our first Cracker Barrel, Texas Roadhouse AND Trader Joe’s. It is about time for a Trader Joe’s because I’m running low on cereal. I’m sure we passed a TJs during the first leg of our trip, but I didn’t need one then. Here is a quick rundown of our trip so far:

Day 1: Left Vancouver, WA at 8:15 am. We skipped the life-size replica of Stonehenge so we weren’t too late for lunch with our friends in Walla Walla. I drove S through my old college town/campus and then we had a great lunch of shabu shabu with friends before heading East. We took Highway 12 all the way to Missoula, MT. It was a really long day of driving, but it was absolutely spectacular! It was the Nez Perce, Clearwater and Lolo National Forests. The tiny twisty road wove its way through Idaho. The best thing about this leg was the availability of pullouts with outhouses along the way. We got into Missoula pretty late and caught dinner in the hotel 10 minutes before closing.

Eastern Washington Windmills

National Forest

Murdered bugs of Idaho (sounded like rain on the windshield)

Day 2: Left Missoula, MT. Heading south, we made it to Yellowstone around 3 pm. This time of year they had plenty of rooms available and we had our pick of rooms. We chose a 2-queen cabin with a private bathroom. (Yes, you still have to make that decision here.) Yellowstone was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to. After unloading, we went to Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley for wildlife viewing. We saw elk, bears, bison (LOTS of bison), moose and many others. S and I saw a half-tan half-black colored bear and S decided that it was a grizzly, but I showed its picture to a bear aficionado who dubbed it a “cinnamon bear,” much to S’s chagrin. So as it stands, we did not see any grizzly bears, despite the warning signs everywhere.

E posing while overlooking Mammoth Hot Springs

S in front of an orange hot spring

Why did the bison cross the street?

Day 3: Left Mammoth Hot Springs, WY. Continuing south, we stopped at many of the sights on our way to Old Faithful. Unfortunately, Old Faithful was pretty anti-climatic. They said 1:31 pm +/- 10 minutes. I was out there by 1:21. There were a few puny squirts and at about 1:53 it finally had its “big” blast, which wasn’t that big. S tells me that in its old age it is becoming less predictable and has less water because the water table is lower. Some of the roads we were driving on had just opened for the season the same day, but we didn’t face any problems. I think we had the best two days of weather and sightseeing possible in Yellowstone. There were very few people there and we could stop in the road to take pictures and we weren’t blocking someone from passing. We could do whatever we wanted, when we wanted. S remembers visiting with his family and having to sit in traffic to traverse the park. The biggest worry for early-May visits is the weather. We had two bright sunny days in the 50s and 60s. Perfect for the high-altitude sun!

We left the park and spent the night in Cody, WY. In a town of ~9,000, the two best restaurants had 1-2 hour-long waits because we didn’t have a reservation. We ended up eating at the hotel restaurant, which was fine.

E mid-sneeze in front of a Geyser Basin

S in front of his favorite mud pots (boiling mud, bubbling up)

Day 4: Left Cody, WY. Besides a 9,033 ft pass and a drive-by of Devil’s Tower, this was a dull driving day to get us closer to Mount Rushmore. Many hotels in the Black Hills have yet to open for the season, but we found a hotel that charges LESS than the government per diem rate. I didn’t know that was even possible! Granted it was only $0.50 less, but that was the rate without having to show any travel orders. (Pictures posted later, they are still on the camera.)

Last Day of Vacation!

Tomorrow we began our drive to Washington DC. Our tentative plan takes us through Walla Walla, Yellowstone, South Dakota and stopping in PA to stay with S’s family before our final leg into DC. Although I’m looking forward to the scenery for most of the trip, I’m worried about the highways once we get past Chicago. Tolls and traffic aren’t very much fun.

It has been a great 10 days with my parents and it will be sad to say goodbye, even though I know they plan to visit while we are in DC. Also, not knowing when we’ll be back in the Pacific Northwest makes it harder to leave. Besides studying abroad, I have been in the Pac NW since middle school. I know I’ll miss the weather...I am not excited about being 7, 8 and 9 months pregnant during the hot and humid DC summer. People try to console me with “everywhere has air conditioning,” but you can’t avoid the outdoors. Hopefully I’ll get used to it!

Pack-out complete! On vacation!

We made it to Vancouver, WA! The movers came at 9:30 am on Friday and left around 3:00 pm. We started with two and ended up with 4 guys by about 12 or 1. I’m not sure they needed the extra help, but the two extra packers moved faster than one of the two original ones. We had bought donuts and coffee for the team, but no one drank any of the coffee and only two had donuts. They did finish off our orange juice and beef jerky though...

I ran into work for ~1 hour on Friday afternoon to turn in my badge and parking sticker. After goodbyes I came home to an empty apartment. Well, empty except for the piles of stuff left in our bedroom that were supposed to fit into one car. It is a good thing that we had two cars for our first leg to Vancouver, it allowed us to randomly throw stuff into both cars and gives us an extra 10 days to sort what we actually want and can fit in the one car we are driving to DC.

After an uncomfortable night on my sister’s self-deflating air mattress, we spent Saturday frantically cleaning the apartment and stuffing the cars. Late on Saturday we landed and slept for a long time! An air mattress one night and then a few on a 20+-year-old mattress really makes you miss the Tempurpedic you’ve been sleeping on for years.

As of day 3 in Vancouver, we haven’t gone through anything of our extra stuff and haven’t even finished unloading the second car. We’ll see how rushed we are this time next week. We begin our drive to DC on May 9^th, I’m still holding out hope that Yellowstone will be clear enough to make it worth a 2-night stay. I’ve always wanted to see the park, but early May isn’t ideal. (At least there will be a lot fewer tourists if the snow is still a few feet deep.)

After Yellowstone, (if we make it there), we have two options. 1) Head over to South Dakota and then east. 2) Head down to Denver, CO and then east. We have a few friends in Denver, but I’d much rather visit Badlands and Mt. Rushmore in SD. We’ll see where we end up, I’ve got a spreadsheet full of various routes and options. Hopefully S will approve one of them before we pull out of town next week.

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On the other front, we’ve nicknamed Baby Streett “Tuesday” just so we have something to call him/her. Tuesday is nice and active, wiggling and kicking. Although, Tuesday does like to sleep when someone other than mommy is paying attention. I have to go and get a pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination because of the outbreak. Hopefully Tuesday won’t mind. We’ve reached the halfway point and with him/her kicking away, there is no doubt that this thing is real and coming quickly. O_O Wish us luck!

Stuck in the "List" Phase

The March Foreign Service class (the one immediately preceding mine), just got their onward assignments last Friday. The two people I know in the class are going to Togo and India. This means that we are next! In 1 month and 4 days, I will begin my first day of orientation. Almost exactly a month after that, we will learn where we are going next.

I have been inventorying our household goods (HHE) trying to get a fairly complete list of all the things we will store. This will help with any insurance claims and also because it could be over a year until we see the stuff again. It’ll be nice to know what is in there. My dad tells me it’ll feel like Christmas when we finally open the boxes again!

I can already feel the toll both moving and the baby are having on my nerves. (In case you don’t know me that well, I tend to be a worrier. I worry when I should be sleeping.) Last night, the baby was moving away around 9:30 pm, prime falling asleep time. I was so excited because I could feel it from the outside and stayed awake so that S could feel it too. (I have the unfair advantage of feeling it move inside me.) Lo and behold, it went back to sleep before S’s hand made it to my belly. But for far too long after that, I stayed awake waiting for it to wake back up so S could feel it too.

To end this post, I will note that being a list maker has helped for both of these transitions. My life has been taken over by various types of lists, “to do,” “registries,” “inventories,” etc.

S and I have had over a month to procrastinate our moving and packing. The nice thing about our move is that the State Department sends a moving crew to pack and load all everything. The trouble with that system is that you cannot pack anything and must leave it in piles until the movers pack it for you. We currently have a large pile of stuff in our living room that we will not see again until we get to our first overseas location. Our poor baby shower attendees will have to endure the mess and may even need to bring their own chairs…

S and I have to sort all our belongings into five categories: 1) Stuff that will travel to DC with us in the car; 2) Stuff that will fly to DC and arrive 2-3 weeks after our arrival (450 lbs max!); 3) Stuff that we want overseas with us, but won’t see until we arrive at our overseas location; 4) Stuff we want to store until we are posted to DC or leave the Foreign Service; and 5) Everything else (Goodwill, garage sale, Craigslist, etc.). Some of our family members are better at sorting than others, but I won’t mention any names.

I can’t believe we have less than three weeks in Seattle left. The last few weeks have been filled with goodbyes already, good thing we started our goodbye dinners already!

Welcome to the World Streett Journal!

This blog will be a chronicle of the Streett's journey in the Foreign Service. E first began her march to enter the Foreign Service in 2006, a failed, handwritten FSOT (Foreign Service Officer's Test) attempt. After a three year hiatus, E attempted the new computerized FSOT in October 2009. Passing both the FSOT and QEP (Qualification Evaluation Panel) stages, E failed the FSOA miserably in May 2010. Although discouraged, E took the FSOT again in February 2011. E passed all three stages by October 2011.

E was added to the register (list of candidates who have passed all states in score/date order) in early February, and received an invitation to the May 2012 class on February 28^th. E was 12/59, pretty good odds. Many blogs discuss the quick turnaround between the offer date and reporting date, however, the Streetts had almost 3 months to prepare. It is exhausting to prepare and maintain a certain level of excitement/enthusiasm for 3 months straight.

To top it all off, the Streetts just found out they are expecting their first child in September! E is not excited about the prospect of spending a hot, humid summer with a large baby bump. But the Streetts are worried thrilled about becoming new parents.

Please join in this adventure. Both E and S will be contributing to the blog, so you can hear from both the FSO and the trailing husband side. (S doesn't like the term trailing spouse, so who wrote this post?)