Forgive the delay in posting...

9/4/2011
We've been in Japan for 5 days now.
A lot of folks back home keep asking questions along the lines of "How do you like living in Japan?" and "Don't you love it?"
So I'm taking some time to answer these questions with my typical (albeit silent) response:
We are not "living" here. Not really. We are staying in a Navy Lodge hotel room. Imagine an efficiency apartment. Got that in your mind? Ok, good. Our room is smaller than that.
No, I don't love it. See the preceding paragraph.
We've been here 5 days. We don't even have driver's licenses yet, so don't expect to see a whole lot of new pictures, and we certainly won't have many stories for a while. We're not on vacation, people. We're still "arriving".

Ok, now that's out of my system.
There are a few things that have happened worth noting...for instance, taking my advancement exam approximately 24 hours after we landed.
And there's always the challenge of figuring out exactly what those kanji, hiragana & katakana symbols are trying to tell me.
Pictures help, of course. Still, some things are unexpected...like when you choose what appears to be grape pop from the vending machine. And it turns out to be some kind of carbonated grape jelly in a pop can.
No, really:

You can see the jelly-ness of it, creeping slowly out of the can. Kinda weird. And even creepier, when you don't expect it to have the consistency of jello.
 

Did I mention the spiders? They are huge (although I have been assured there are no poisonous species living on Kyushu.)

That thing? Is as big as my hand.

I might feel a little more chipper about this place in a month or so.

Arrived

We made it.
Finally.

11 hours on the first plane, made it through customs & immigration no problem. The cats were approved for immediate release (no quarantine necessary!). Got on the second plane. Two hours later, we landed, and then a few hours after that we made it to Sasebo.
Now I need a nap, then check on the kitties at the kennel (pets aren't allowed at the Navy Lodge), then sleep some more before the exam tomorrow morning.
Yay.

The Joy of Moving

Since Thursday night, I have been packing.
Packing clothes into suitcases, packing dishes into boxes, packing my little fantasy figurines into Styrofoam...wrapping crystal goblets and wine glasses in t-shirts and putting them neatly in stemware cases.
The moving company came and packed everything else up into neat bundles, put everything in more boxes, and finally put all the smaller boxes into a giant wooden box, which is now on its way to Japan.
I'm still left with clothes that need to go into suitcases, and a pair of high-strung cats that need to go in a crate to the veterinarian's office tomorrow to get their health certificates.

All told, I am very glad we had professional movers to perform most of the work. I may, in the future, shell out for professionals again--the amount of stress saved seems to be well worth the money spent.
It's the final countdown this week, we are days away from traversing the Pacific and setting up home in a completely foreign country.
It will be an adventure, that's for sure.

Southwestern Paradise

I love New Mexico.
After spending two days here, I can say this with certainty. Nevermind the altitude; I can get used to it (everyone tells me it only takes a couple of weeks). This state is amazing. I can't believe it wasn't admitted to the Union until 1912. Of course, this means that the city of Santa Fe is getting ready for the State's Centennial celebration next year.
Oh yeah, Santa Fe. The capital of the State and one of the oldest cities in North America...founded in 1610. Yes, 1610, that's ten years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. It's home to the oldest church in America, and the oldest continually-used public building in America. There's also some really cool museums...like the New Mexico Museum of History and the New Mexico Museum of Art.
Ok, ok, this post is not just to promote Santa Fe. And I've missed a couple days of describing my adventures.

I spent my first night on the road in Flagstaff, AZ. My impression of the city: Dark. As in, no streetlights. No lighted store signs. No lighted parking lots. Kind of a scary place to be driving at night, if you ask me.
However, the next morning I drove up to Wupatki National Monument and walked around the ruins, which were pretty cool. The walk was pretty easy and the photos I took were fantastic.
Then I drove over to Sunset Crater National Monument. To get there, I had to drive 20 miles through the Poconino National Forest. When I saw a sign for a Painted Desert Vista/picnic area, I pulled over to snap some pictures. The problem here is that the Painted Desert is huge, beautiful, and just doesn't translate into film very well. Not the full picture, anyway. It's something that really has to be experienced for yourself.
Anyway, at the vista I met a woman who was also traveling on her own, seeing the USA from coast to coast. We compared notes about the monuments (she was headed from Sunset Crater to Wupatki).
Sunset Crater was something I wanted to see because it's the youngest volcano in the San Francisco Volcano Field. Unfortunately, when I found the mountain itself, I found this:

Oh well. I did, however, get to hike around the lava flows.
From there I drove to Walnut Canyon and explored the ancient cliff dwellings, which was totally worthwhile but be warned: you climb down over 200 stairs, which means that at some point you have have to climb back up.
I also drove through Petrified Forest...which reminded me a little of visiting Yellowstone or Rocky Mountain National Parks. How? Well, you know how in Yellowstone, if someone sees a bison or elk, they pull over, and then three more cars pull over and suddenly you have 20 tourists staring off at a distant spot on a hillside? In Petrified Forest, the trigger is a fossilized tree from the Triassic period. I wish I were kidding; it's kind of embarrassing to see a dozen grown men and women stand around and stare in awe at piece of dead tree #352. At least bison move around.
Of course, the Northern end of the park overlooks more of the Painted Desert, which is breathtakingly beautiful. It was also where I very nearly got plowed over by a giant crow trying to land. (Sorry, Barb, but at that moment I actually was glad you weren't there.)
I probably could have stayed the night in Holbrook, AZ, and seen El Morrow and El Malpais monuments the next day, but Holbrook felt a bit sketchy to me so I just drove all the way to Albuquerque.
For those of you who haven't had the aggravation of navigating Albuquerque's freeway system, I'll spare you the details and simply say "Nightmare."
Petroglyph National Monument is pretty cool, though, especially if you like prehistoric graffiti art. And the view from Sundias Peak is worth the cost of the tram ticket. & when I got to the top, there was a really cool couple from Minneapolis who took my picture for me.

See? That's me. And behind me, that's Albuquerque. Albuquerque sits 1 mile above sea level. Sandias Peak is more than 2 miles above sea level. Pretty cool, huh?
I moved on to Santa Fe...and I can't praise this city enough. It's awesome.
Oh, and that cool couple from MN? Ran into them at Starbucks in Old Town this afternoon. We compared notes on museums & scenic routes. Traveling is AWESOME.

Seeing the USA in my Chevrolet...

I actually never thought I'd get to do that. I always thought it was just a nostalgic Chevy jingle, and I was destined to go no further than 300 miles from home in any of the Chevrolets I have owned. (For the record, there were 3. Plus a fourth that was on loan from a friend whilst he was deployed to Afghanistan. Technically it might be 5; California is a community property state and my husband drives a Malibu...Huh. Just caught that one.)
And yet here I am, trekking across the southwest in my tiny compact, cheap economical Cobalt.
So I left the West coast this morning, where it was about 67 degrees. When I drove through Needles, it was close to 92 degrees. As I was driving across Arizona, the temperature fluctuated quite a bit and by 6pm it was about 47 degrees. Of course, all these readings require me to trust the thermometer in my car, whose reliability (in reading the current climate, anyway) is a bit questionable.
So my mission this week is to see as many national parks/monuments/forests as I can...I have a National Park Service Annual Pass, so I won't have to keep shelling out for entrance fees.
More to follow.