We Made It!

Yes!  We are here and doing fine.  It was a balmy 98 degrees yesterday when we arrived at around 11:30am, but with air conditioning everywhere we went, it was more than bearable.  Just to give the low down on the statistics for the 800 mile trip, we ended up leaving Milwaukee at 8:30pm Tuesday night, so it took us 14 hours total (only 11.5 hours driving) to get to Alabama.  Best advice for making the drive is to do it in steps … about 200 miles (3 hours driving) and take a break.  Virtually no traffic once we left Chicago, so driving was a breeze.  After we checked in to our room on campus at JSU yesterday, we went for lunch at the school cafeteria.  As I have told many of you before, this is no ordinary school cafeteria.  It is an all-you-can-eat buffet of a variety of made-to-order food (e.g., pizza, fajitas, subs, burgers, etc.).  After we ate, we took a nap to rest up after the long trip.  Jet was able to sleep (although uncomfortably) for most of the drive.  I had an espresso shake (double shot) from Alterra in Milwaukee to help keep me awake for the drive, unfortunately, it kept me awake nearly the entire drive!  When we took our breaks during the drive to get a nap, I could barely close my eyes from all the caffeine!  I guess that is what I get for not being a coffee drinker.

After we woke up from our nap, we decided to take a look at the RAV4 from the Toyota dealer in town.  After over 2 hours of negotiating, we left with no deal in hand after Jet's counter-offer (the master negotiater she is!).  The offer we got, however, was pretty close to the offer we received in Milwaukee.  They will contact us back today with another counter-offer, so it is possible that we may be driving back home with a new car!  After all that work, Jet was starving.  We ate at a Chinese restaurant close by and were surprised at how good the food was!  A place we will be sure to visit many times over.  We then headed back to our room to catch up on the rest of our sleep and help us prepare for the day ahead.

Today we just had breakfast at the Waffle House (bacon and eggs).  In a little bit I will get the keys to my new office here on campus and hopefully meet with some of the faculty to discuss the upcoming semester.  We will be meeting with our real estate agent at 10:30am, so we already have a busy day planned ahead of us.  We will be taking lots of pictures and notes about each of the homes we visit, so there will be much to talk about in our next post.  Wish us luck!