First Stop: Portland, Maine
It’s official: We’re Mainers for the next four months!
Some highlights leading up to our move:
November 22nd – Ross, Kleo, and I made our last drop off to the storage unit and moved into Mom’s house just in time for Thanksgiving pie prep.
November 23rd – We ate enough mashed potatoes and mac n cheese to lose all rational thought – so much so, that my phone took a solo trip to Indiana courtesy of one of our Thanksgiving guests.
November 24th – Kleo made her first trip to Indiana. Operation phone rescue was a success.
November 27th – We said our final goodbyes to 1616 and all of the juicy neighborhood drama after officially closing on the house. I’m still on the neighborhood Facebook page, so we plan to continue channeling Mrs. Kravitz from afar.
Our entire lives fit into a 5x7 storage unit, the trunk of my RAV4, and a hardshell Thule roof box.
Goodbye, 1616! <3
December 17th – We celebrated Mom’s birthday with an unintentional three-course rice meal (chicken tikka masala, rice pudding, and rice crispy treats). Stella approves.
December 24th – I forced everyone to start a 2k-piece puzzle with me with high hopes of finishing it before Christmas dinner. Narrator: They did not finish the puzzle before Christmas dinner.
December 25th – As always, our spread was amazing (special shout out to our homemade toffee). This Christmas was bittersweet – I got to spend a lot of time with Mom and Maddi, but it certainly made it much more difficult to leave.
Happy Birthday, Mommy!
This picture shows Mom’s puzzle progress since Christmas. I’ll be requesting daily updates until it’s complete.
December 26th – Ross, Kleo, and I left home for the first time since college *sniff sniff* and made our way up to the burbs of Philadelphia to spend some time with Ross’s sister, Erin, her husband Peter, and their kiddos Luke and Colin. We drove through 6 states: The entire east side of TN, the longest route possible through Virginia, a sliver of West Virginia, then Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Kleo’s first Buc-ee’s experience. The powdered eggs did not disappoint. (Her words, not mine.)
December 27th – December 29th – We visited the Delaware Children’s Museum (think STEM-driven Chuck-E-Cheese, but less creepy), went bowling with Ross’s nephews (Ross bowled a turkey, no help from the bumpers), and cranked down on some authentic Philly cheese steaks. Highly recommend Delco Steaks, but can confidently say I will never touch cheese wiz again.
Cheese wiz not pictured.
On Saturday, December 30th, Ross, Kleo, and I took off for our final road trip from Pennsylvania to Maine.
We took a slightly longer route than necessary so that we could drive through as many deep-city traffic jams as possible.
On this trip, we passed through 7 states, starting with 3-4 mostly unintentional loops through New Jersey / New York in an attempt to see the Statue of Liberty (I was navigating). Once we spotted her, we drove deep enough into NYC to say we were there, then took I-95 along the coastal side of Connecticut, up through Providence, RI, to Boston. The last leg of the trip took us through New Hampshire, and then we finally arrived at our new (temporary) home in Portland, Maine!
Upon arrival, Portland looked just like all of the Google Earth exploring we’ve done over the last several months, but better.
After locating our lock box to the Airbnb, we unloaded Kleo and most of our lives into our building’s hallway then trekked everything – including our rotund, mildly disabled pup and the awkwardly large rooftop carrier – up 3 flights of stairs to our new home. It’s exactly as we expected: a super cute renovated loft overlooking a busy corner of the city and our parking garage (we can wave at the car from our kitchen window). It’s perfect.
Top left picture is the view of our building from the parking garage.
Before settling in for the night, we took Kleo for a walk in her new park, Deering Oaks, went for a quick shopping trip to Trader Joe’s, picked up our monthly parking pass from the garage across the street, and then unloaded everything into the kitchen before walking down to OTTO to pick up some pizza (very similar to Five Points in East Nashville). Our first night exceeded expectations, and despite my concerns, Kleo is doing great.
Just a couple of days in, and we’ve already learned quite a lot about city life:
Yesterday, we spilled our groceries all over the sidewalk and garnered some sympathy from a local passerby who offered us a reusable bag through their driver-side window. Embarrassed and scrambling to scoop up our fallen soldiers, we thanked them and kindly passed on their offer, only to immediately drop everything in the street again as they rolled through the traffic light (probably shaking their heads in pity).
A few additional learnings thus far:
Hannaford (a local grocery store) has really weak paper bags. Do not load more than 3 items into a bag if you plan to carry them from your car to the apartment.
Gum, cigarette butts, sidewalk salt, and questionable street sludge make for dirty paws. Keep a glass of water by the door for daily paw dunking.
Locals are up in arms about the “southern transplants” clearing the grocery store shelves of black-eyed peas on NYE. This specific local was talking to us (and also at us without knowing it) as we bonded over the absence of those lucky beans.
Old houses have joke stairs that are about as half as deep as a normal foot length, making carrying an elderly pupper up and down three flights of stairs more of an American Ninja Warrior experience.
Outside of the bean incident, New Englanders are pretty dang friendly.
The next challenge will be testing out Kleo’s shoes on our snowy morning walks (pictures and videos to come). Currently, it’s still bone dry here, but it looks like our first snowstorm is slated to hit us early Thursday morning. We’ll be grocery shopping later this week to pick up a few more essentials, but overall, I think we’re pretty prepared.
We’re living in the arts district, so we’re just down the street from an art museum, the state theater, and several trendy coffee shops, restaurants, and bookstores. We have a lot of exploring to do in the next four months.
Last night, we rang in the new year just as we have over the last couple of years – me falling asleep on the couch, Kleo passed out at our feet, and Ross waking us up just before the ball drop so we can celebrate one more year together as a little family.
I felt really grateful waking up in a new year and in a new city this morning.
Cheers to 2024!
Taylor
