Farewell Potsdam!

We are leaving tomorrow morning for a trip across America! Well, at least to the Midwest. Tomorrow we'll begin our first leg of the journey, traveling to Erie, PA where we'll stay over night (and if I have my way, stop in at the Babies R Us). We'll be driving 6 hours, but this time we're armed with a series of baby rattles, toys, mirrors and other baby-soothing paraphernalia.

Eleanor did sleep all the way to and from Syracuse when we picked up our BRAND NEW SUBARU FORESTER! Well, it's not completely new, but it is an '09 and has only 8,000 miles or so. Dave and I were originally just going to stick it out with our little Ford Focus, but we began to realize that Eleanor and her gear were going to make it a rather uncomfortable ride. And, the Forester has a 5 star safety rating, good gas mileage and good Consumer Reports ratings in all categories. We first went to a dealer in Potsdam, but found they weren't willing to 'deal.' So Dave made some phone calls to dealerships within a 3 hour radius and found some good deals in Syracuse where there are two Subaru dealerships. We spent all of Wednesday haggling in Syracuse and left triumphant after I made an unintentional power play by walking out to change Eleanor in the middle of a price dispute. The dealer thought I was leaving for good, and within minutes agreed to a much better price for Dave. We saved $4,000 just by traveling out of Potsdam (and by having a baby with a wet diaper).

After we make it to PA, we'll leave for Ohio the following morning to stay at Dave's family farm in Eaton. Eleanor will then meet her Great Grandmother 'Bomie' and her Great Aunt Suzy and Great Uncle Jim as well as her Great Great Uncle Bob and Aunt Anita. Grammy and Papa will also be there of course!

Then on Wednesday, we'll drive to Iowa and will meet up with Grandma and Grandpa in Decorah. We'll stay over night, and then on Thursday Dave will head to Nebraska for a 3.5 week artist residency at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and Eleanor and I will drive to Minneapolis to stay with my parents. We'll also be up at our family cabin in Hayward, WI. When Dave is finished with his residency, he'll come to Minneapolis and we'll travel to Arcadia, MI where we'll stay with Grammy and Papa. Dave will be a camp counselor for Teen Week at Camp Arcadia for a week and will hopefully be able to finally relax the second week we're there. Our whole journey will take almost 2 months.

On top of all this, Eleanor had her 2 month immunizations on Friday. Whew! Wish us luck!