The Hazard Chronicles

What a week! So much has happened over the past seven days that it is hard to believe that only a week has gone by since I was sitting on my front porch in Cleveland eagerly anticipating graduation.

Let's go day by day.

Monday:
Monday morning our house did NOT look like we were moving out is less than 24 hours. Somehow though, with the help of Allison, my parents, and some friends, we were able to get everything cleaned, packed, and loaded up by the end of the day. The U-haul was totally packed to the point that I began to fear for my life when I opened it lest the whole mound of "stuff" come pouring down on top of me. Luckily it didn't though.

Tuesday:
We woke our kids up early and put them in the van we borrowed from our friends (ours was already on the trailer attached to the U-haul). On the way to the airport Evelyn said goodbye to all of the things she had known in Cleveland. It was a bittersweet feeling to actually be doing this move. It didn't take long to unload our kids and wave goodbye as my parents and Allison took them into the airport. Now it was just Rachel and me.

You know, I've had the feeling for the past several weeks that I can only describe by drawing the connection to something most people have experienced. Roller coasters. Stay with me here, because I have been trying for a long time to figure out how to record these thoughts and feelings, and I think that this works.

So, you get on the ride because you know that in the end it will have been fun. The cart takes off slowly enough and everybody is smiling and having the time of their lives. But then comes the part where you start going up. Click. Click. Click. Higher and higher- way higher than it looked from the ground. It isn't long before you start questioning your sanity for ever stepping foot on this thing because there is no way out now but to ride it through to the end. Click. Click. Click. Higher and higher. And you know that with the last click, you are going to plummet downwards into a series of twists and turns that, to you, is totally unpredictable.

And then, just as the car reaches the crest of the hill, there is a moment when you take a look around and think, how pretty. Let's just stay up here for a while and enjoy the view. We don't need to move forward- that sounds scary. This is comfortable. And you might even start to wish that instead of getting on the roller coaster you had joined the swarms of young children and grandmas that were riding the little trams back and forth across the park. They seemed happy, and they didn't have to risk their lives to do it. How easy would that be?

And you ask yourself for the hundredth time, why do I keep doing this? Why do I always have to find the biggest, fastest roller coaster that there is? Why can't I just content myself with the tram? What's wrong with me? Why can I not help but to think big?

And then your stomach starts rising out of your throat and you realize that you are in free-fall and totally, one hundred percent, out of control. And you scream.

Well, that's pretty much what happened inside of me on Tuesday morning when my kids left at the airport. I was screaming inside.

Over the past several years I feel like we have been slowly moving up, up, up. The view has gotten better and better. And as I tried to ignore the inevitable drop that was looming in our future, I became very comfortable with the easy predictability of life. Last Sunday when I graduated I felt like I was on top of the world. Things had never been so good.

And then my stomach caught in my throat when I realized that for the next several months I would be in total free-fall. Starting Now.

Wednesday:
The good thing about roller coasters is that usually the gut-wrenching feeling of doom only lasts for a couple of seconds. And then you realize that, while the end of the world may someday come- that day was not in the near future (I had to make reference). But seriously, after just a couple of seconds of complete and utter terror, you suddenly realize that you are smiling and that you are actually enjoying yourself, and that the fear you had was more of the drop itself than for the twists and turns that followed. And the drop was over (or at least, almost over), and you were still alive.

That was Wednesday.

I was driving across the country with my beautiful wife, on her birthday nonetheless, and completely loving it. And oh how we drove. I'll just say that we became very familiar with the inside of that noisy, gutless, gas-guzzling truck. When we both got too tired to drive we would sleep in the back of our van where we had somehow fit our queen-sized mattress across the seats, and then we would wake up and drive some more.

Thursday-Saturday:
We arrived in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on Thursday at around 11:00 am.

We have spent the past few days becoming familiar with our new town. This place is incredible! I honestly don't think I could design a better place to live. Here's a rapid breakdown of our agenda over these days:

• Go to Q'emlin Park (Fact: There is nobody who actually knows the pronunciation of this park) and hike around in the beautiful alpine setting that is just three minutes from where we are going to live.


• Go to Taco Loco- a locally owned taco shop that I inexplicably fell in love with from the moment I saw it. Strange, I know.


• Go to Wal-Mart and wash up a little bit in their bathrooms since we haven't showered in several days. Sort of gross, I know.


• Unload the U-haul into a storage facility. A few members of the local Elder's Quorum came to help us. One of them rents out rooms for a living and offered to let us live in one for free during our time here, and the Relief Society of the area made sure we had dinners for the duration of our stay. I love the church and the instant connections that it provides. Hopefully one day (soon) I will be able to be on the giving end of things.


• Hike Tubbs Hill and stare in awe at the perfectness of this place. I seriously think that this may be the prettiest place to live in the whole world.


• Hang out at the park by the Coeur d'Alene resort and think about how fun things are going to be when we have kids here.


• Look at houses and realize that in the very-near future we will be able to buy a home that perfectly fits our needs.


• Go to Corbin Park and see the perfect kayaking play spot that apparently gets a lot of attention in the summer. There is also a swimming hole right next to it and a put-in for a 6-mile class III stretch of river. Again, about five minutes from where we will live. I'm in heaven.


• Go back to Q'emlin park in the early morning for some rock climbing. I love this place! We did three different climbs on these beautiful granite cliffs and realized how much we had missed climbing. There are over 120 climbs in this area, with a few more going up every year. Remember, 3 minutes. Amazing.


• Get a place to rent while we are in the process of finding a home to buy. I think we may end up paying a bit more than we had hoped for, but that's okay. We will have a fenced-in yard, and that will be great.


• Go to another park (I forgot the name- there are a lot of parks around here) and see, what I think, is the most beautiful home I have ever laid eyes on. We looked it up and apparently it is owned by the guy who sits at the top of a big multi-level-marketing (legalized pyramid-scheme) company. At 28,000 square feet (in the main house) I think it would be uncomfortably large to actually live in though.


• Go out to dinner at the Olive Garden to celebrate Rachel's birthday.


• Look at more homes.


• Go to Falls Park (2 minutes) where they have stocked fishing holes for kids and adults, and a view over the waterfalls. The river is totally swollen right now and the falls are amazing. (Fact: It is impossible for anyone with the last name of Hazard to see any sort of whitewater without engaging in a serious discussion about how one would go about running it in a kayak).

Sunday:
We went to church and met our new ward. They are very welcoming, and we were very happy to see that during sacrament meeting there were times when the children were louder than the speaker. We will feel right at home.

You know, as I've been writing this I came to the realization that the other thing about roller coasters is that sometimes they surprise you. Just when you think you have figured out some sort of rhythm to the madness it will suddenly switch directions and take you off-guard. But I came to the realization that this unpredictability, while being a little bit scary, is what makes roller coasters fun. That, I think, is why I love them so much. They keep life interesting. And fun.

And now for the pictures:

You can buy food in bulk! I know it's a dumb thing to be excited about, but in Cleveland you can only buy bags of flour in 5 pound increments.

Oh- the sweet feeling of granite!

Our first view of Coeur d'Alene. This picture does no justice to the magnitude of this place.

This is in Cleveland. After we dropped the kids off at the airport we went to the lake by our house and walked around it and reminisced and cried a little bit and vowed to ourselves that we would never forget how wonderful the past four years had been.

Evelyn's last nap in Cleveland. Actually, I took this picture because I thought it was sort of funny just seeing her little mattress in the middle of an empty room. I'm weird, I know.