250 miles today to finish the trip to Wenatchee. Coeur d'Alene was as pretty in the morning as it was the night before:

Yesterday, I-90 in eastern Washington was closed for a 40 miles stretch due to a dust storm. As I drove through the area today, it was easy to see why; there were no rows of trees to disrupt the wind and there was a lot of dry bare soil exposed. Even this morning I could see the dust kicking up from some harvested fields:

I arrived at the bed & breakfast at which I am staying around noon time. I spent the early part of the afternoon unpacking the car into a storage unit south of town. The storage place was surrounded by an apple orchard, which seemed a fitting place to store things in Wenatchee. It is a little sad though because the farmer made the economic calculation that they could generate more money with a storage business than the acreage of apples.

At the storage place, the manager asked me why I moved to town and I explained that I will be helping determine ATV, off-highway, and other transportation issues for the Forest Service. She said, "That issue is just starting to brew," and then we had a ten minute conversation about how recreational ATV use destroys roads, making it hard to access hunting locations in the fall. I had not been in town for an hour before I heard one strong opinion. The preview makes me look forward to the task ahead.

My rig seemed glad to have shed the weight of my life's possessions. I really appreciated the increased visibility and handling from emptying the car out. It had been packed to the brim:

I returned to the bed and breakfast and sat out on the back porch looking into places to rent on craigslist. I visited a few this afternoon, but nothing feels right yet; too loud, too far from work & town, too funky. As I looked through the apartments on my laptop, the B&B's dog was on the other side of the backyard fence and it very much wanted to say hi. He was a pretty cute companion as I went about the work of finding a place to live:

Tomorrow I start work at 8AM. I took the ten minute drive tonight, just to make sure that I could find the Supervisor's Office. I am really looking forward to getting to know a new team, a new set of challenges, and a new part of the Forest Service as it will help me settle into life here, just like emptying my rig and looking for places did.

I plan on updating the blog less often now that I am in Wenatchee, but will still try to get up a few postings up every week, waiting until I build up some stories and pictures. Thanks again to everyone for following the blog this far.