Destination: Seattle! Pre-Departure

In mid-December, David and I packed our suitcases, cleaned as much of the apartment as we could, and raced to the bus stop. We were on our way to Seattle and I was really excited. Life is great in Rauland, but nothing beats Seattle!

The week before we were scheduled to leave we'd been on a class trip to Oslo to visit a variety of folk music organizations and archives. While it was a very interesting trip, the most memorable part for me is the phone call I received when we were almost home. A very nice sounding man had found my wallet, passport included, in the parking lot where we had stopped on the way home.

He said he'd mail it up here and that was a great relief. When it hadn't arrived several days later, I started to get nervous. I was grumpy, having trouble sleeping, and stressed about all the things we needed to get done before we left, plus I was really starting to worry that the passport wouldn't arrive in time. I went to the effort of checking online what I would need to do to get an emergency passport in Oslo (a fairly straightforward process, however, I was looking at needing to get the emergency passport the same day President Obama was visiting Oslo).

I tried a few times calling the number that the guy had called from - no answer and no response to voice messages. Then, I sent him a message explaining that I needed the passport before Friday and that we would happily drive to Kongsberg (a two hour drive) to pick it up if he still had it. He replied that he and his friend had been in his friend's car, and if we hadn't received it, it was probably still there. I got in touch with the friend, who had completely forgotten about the wallet and was very agreeable to meeting us whenever we could get to Kongsberg. We took off directly after school and successfully retrieved the wallet and the passport.

On the way back we drove through the beginning of the snow that would form the foundation for this year's winter sports. We had been in Fall mode since October with lots of ice and snow that melted into ice followed by rain that froze into ice. Everyone welcomed the arrival of real cold weather and a solid snowfall. In the three days left before we took off roughly 12 to 18 inches had fallen!