The Big Move

After a long four days of travel we have arrived safely in Paducah. Here's a quick rundown of our travels:

The trip started on Sunday as a group of six men from Desert Cross helped us move out of our apartment (thanks guys, couldn't have done it without you!). Our first stop was Flagstaff, which happened to be blanketed with a few feet of snow. One of the most beautiful parts of the drive occurred during twilight as we drove past the endless snow-covered pine forests. With the sun setting and the temperatures dropping, a layer of fog rose from the snow and reached up to the purple sky. It was eerily beautiful.

The second day we drove from Flag to Tucumcari, New Mexico. The only real eventful part of this drive happened one hour away from our destination when we called the police to report a drunk driver who passed us on the freeway. How did we know this person was drunk? It was a combination of the extreme swerving between the lanes and even off the road, the random breaking, and the drastic variations of speed. Even if they weren't drunk, the deserved to be pulled over. Aaron commented that he almost hoped the driver was drunk because the alternative would be that the person always drives like that.

The next day we woke up to weather reports declaring that the winter storm of the century would soon be barreling down I-40, directly towards us. We decided to drive as far as we could so that we could stay ahead of the storm. We ended up making it to Joplin, Missouri. Worth mentioning is that even with all these hours of travel, Nolan was a great passenger. He cried very rarely, and when he would start to get upset we could usually buy a few more miles by giving him cheerios.

We arrived into Paducah at 7pm on Wednesday, one day earlier than expected. And here we sit in our hotel room, only vaguely aware that we have "arrived." It's a bit anti-climactic to move to a town and be living in a hotel room. Our first goal is to secure a place to live for the short-term. There is not much of a rental market in the city, so our options are very limited, even with the whole congregation looking for properties on our behalf. We're simultaneously looking for a home to purchase; however, our options remain very limited.

And now to top it off, the storm has finally caught up to us. Depending on who you talk to, Paducah is expected to get anywhere from 3 inches to 1 foot of snow tonight. Quite the welcome back to winter!