Illinois

Woo hoo, we finally made it. Dan and I drove his dad's truck out all the way to Illinois last week, and what an adventure that was! We broke down outside Gallup, NM and spent the night in front of a Chevron gas station, then when we got up in the morning, the truck started right up and made it all the way to the mechanic. With a diagnosis of loose battery connections, we were on our merry way again. But it kept happening, until finally in Oklahoma we replaced the battery terminal and kept chugging along. We did have to go back to a mechanic in Oklahoma City though because the problem was not totally fixed, and the check engine light came on. But the auto parts store guy was really nice and recommended a local mechanic who was not only very nice and helpful (he listed a couple of ways to get the truck to 'limp home' so we could deal with it later, and he offered to talk with our mechanic back home to prove he wasn't trying to screw us over) he also stayed an hour past closing time to finish replacing the fuel pump so that we could get back on our way! So, if you're ever in need of a mechanic in Oklahoma City, I reccomend AJ's right behind the rt. 66 used car lot. After that, the truck ran like a champ and we made it into town Wednesday afternoon.
So far we've been super busy, we saw Fiddler on the Roof at an outside city theatre, and we've been to the zoo, and we've played board games, and tonight I made my first attempt at a homemade pie whose filling does not come from a can! We're also going to tour the university campus in case we decide to move out here, and Dan's going to try to get in touch with some people at Boeing who can help him get into a program next year. And we have a really pushy realator that I accidentally contacted when I was browsing around because I've been looking at houses in both Mesa and Illinois since we're not sure yet where we'll end up. He's sent me pages and pages of property information and I think we're going to look at houses next week even though Dan and I both told him that we're not even sure that we're moving out here, and if we do it won't be untion next year. So all in all, it's been really busy and fun and insane! And it will only get more so because Ryan is leaving tomorrow afternoon and he'll be out here by Friday, so our visits will overlap until we leave on Wednesday! The only part I'm sad about is that I'm going to miss the LemonAID festivites in Arizona, and my in-laws house is very, very secluded and out of the way, so I can't set one up out here :(