Moving to the Bay Area

On December 8th, we learned Luke would be transferred to CA, Antioch to be exact. Antioch is located in the (far) East Bay area of San Francisco. 
The packers/movers arrived on Dec. 28th and loaded everything! This picture shows all of our stuff in the hallway of our building. I'm sure the neighbors loved that! I did not! Not everyone in our building needed to see all of our stuff lined up. 

We loaded up my car. We have learned we don't need much next time. Live & Learn.  Why didn't we take Luke's vehicle? Look at all the room we would have had! LOL. 

We began our journey to CA the next morning. Thank you, Kali & James, for the warm bed the night before!! Since weather can be so darn unpredictable through the Rocky Mountains, we opted for the Southern route. Our first day was through KS, OK, TX- all of which are unbelievably brown and boring in the Winter (probably all year). We stayed in Albuquerque, NM on our first night. 


Day 2 brought us through AZ, where we FINALLY had some scenery and some hint of being near CA! 

We were in the Mojave Reserve when we had to stop and fill gas at the only gas station for MILES and MILES! We were so close to E, thankfully the Hi Desert Oasis was not a mirage. Since they are the only place out there, their customer service leaves very little to be desired!

We made it to Fresno, CA before stopping off for the night! That left us with about 3 hours to go on our last day. 
Our final day included lots of fog, lots of vineyards and orchards. We made it to our destination in time to ring in the New Year! 
We spent the next several days apartment hunting: a difficult task when you have NO idea where the bad parts of town are, how long it will take to get to Luke's job site, etc, etc. We found a place in Antioch, CA that meets some of our expectations and is within our budget. We would love to be closer to San Francisco, but SF is one of the most expensive cities to live in the world (think of 700 sq ft as large and $2500 to $4000+) and the suburbs get slightly less expensive the further away you get! The "sticker shock" was not AS bad since we moved from downtown Kansas City. 
We found an apartment that suits our needs in Antioch (no neighbors above or below, the ones next door are bad enough; attached garage and 2 bedrooms). We are only a few blocks from the Freeway and Luke is only 15 minutes from the job site. 
Unpacking was an adventure in and of itself! Food packed in with vases and who knows what else. We didn't have anything broken, so I will not complain about the way things were unorganized!
I am currently taking a much needed break from working and searching for a job that doesn't require me to be bilingual. Difficult, especially in CA!  
Look for future posts on our adventures in the Bay Area!