"5 years is almost 7 years and 7 years is practically a decade"

This is how I justify telling Josh that we've been married for "nearly a decade," but I guess the world has only had the pleasure of the ShepAlder union for 5 years as of... TODAY!

During my staff retreat last Wednesday, one of the "getting-to-know-you" questions was "What 30 seconds of your life would you choose to relive if you only had 30 seconds to live?" I chose these 30 seconds:

We had been married less than a year and were at Disneyland together for the first time. My grad program hadn't yet gotten stressful and we didn't yet know how hard the next few years would be both personally and professionally. We were just newly married, at Disneyland, and extremely happy. We had probably eaten at the Blue Bayou earlier in the day and watched the fireworks from Splash Mountain. It doesn't get more perfect than that.

Happy Anniversary, Schwobes! I'm sorry I made you move to North Dakota, but at least you have been spared from living in Utah. ;)

Things I didn't know about Grand Forks #20

Another thing I mentioned to my coworkers that I thought was strange about Grand Forks is the prevalence of these tiny stop signs:

a terrible picture taken by me of me and one of these weirdly tiny stop signs during a run for size reference. They are about 6 ft tall and the sign is slightly larger than my head

The conversation went something like this:
ME: I don't understand why there are all of these pedestrian stop signs.
COWORKERS: Pedestrian stop signs! (huge laughter) Don't tell her, don't tell her! See if she can guess what they are!
OTHER COWORKER: What else would people drive in Grand Forks? Think of during the winter.
ME: For snowmobiles?
COWORKERS: YES! SNOWMOBILES! (more laughter)
ME: That makes more sense. I kept stopping at these stop signs during my walks, thinking, "This must be a particularly busy intersection. I would stop, look both ways, and then keep walking."

wouldn't you think you should stop for this?

They think my ignorance is hilarious.

Things I didn't know about Grand Forks #19

During lunch today, all the counseling coworkers gathered in the break room for a potluck. Someone asked me about some of the things I found strange (he used the word "provincial") about GF, and I answered:

Blue laws are weird. It's nice that stores are closed so that the employees can go to church, but if you believe Sunday is the Sabbath, then you probably wouldn't be shopping anyway. Also, what if you don't view Sunday as the Sabbath? One of the interns discovered that you can't just drive over to East Grand Forks-- that WalMart is also closed on Sunday.

Something I have learned? GF just got their first mosque two weeks ago and it is actually in an abandoned Christian chapel. I tried to find an accompanying newspaper article about it, but apparently, though I find this to be supremely outrageous, the GF Herald doesn't think of this as news.

I actually learned all sorts of things from my coworkers today, so you can expect more "fascinating" facts about GF in the next few days.

My First Day

It happened. I started my internship. I am officially a pre-doctoral intern at the UND counseling center (it says so on my nametag).

I started out my day like this:

But ended the day like this:

under those band-aids is a world of horror not fit for human eyes. I am lucky I have a mom who taught me to always have a first-aid kit handy.

In between, I had a two hour tour of campus, which I knew was coming but apparently didn't prepare for adequately, a chocolate doughnut, a serious conversation about how it's strange that heroin isn't more of a problem in GF, and I got to flex my newly-acquired moving muscles by moving all the furniture around in my office. It was awesome (aside from the blisters), and I'm looking forward to more tomorrow!

Doppelganger: The Return

Last Summer, around this time, Josh and I spent the weekend in Vegas and happened upon a man who looked startlingly like my brother-in-law Kaly. This year, we happened upon someone who looks startlingly like my little sister (not the one married to Kaly) working at Devils Tower, Wyoming.

Judge for yourself:

My sister

My sister?

I wish I could have found a picture where my sister was making the same face as her doppelganger because she does make that face too. I wasn't even stealth with my picture-taking this time. I full on, shamelessly camera-phoned her. 

Things I didn't know about Grand Forks #18

They have running trails! But so far we have only seen two people running, but about half a dozen people biking them and two people in-like skating (is that still a thing?!)

We have gone both north and south on these trails, but we have yet to venture to the Minnesota side. The whole loop is apparently 8.5 miles and the goal is to jog/walk the entire thing before the weather goes below zero.

Remember when I found out about the flood of 1997? On the trail is a memorial to the water levels of past floods. I am apparently almost as high as 1996:

Here are some pictures of the river Josh snapped during his run (while I was doing more of the walking thing):

Red River north

the Red River "dam"

Maybe things in Grand Forks aren't so terrible after all.

ShepAlder Trek Phase 4: The Aftermath

We finally made it to Grand Forks on Thursday, the 5th, but first we had to meet our relo-cube in Fargo, unload it into a Uhaul, and drive all of that to Grand Forks because ABF does not deliver to Grand Forks. So, when I say that GF is in the middle of nowhere, I mean it's the kind of nowhere where delivery companies don't deliver. That's nowhere.

this is what I have to look forward to for the next year

And, as a continuing theme of our trip, it was really hot outside, so while we loaded and unloaded, I had to leave my car on with the air conditioning going just so Mercury didn't suffocate on the final day of our trip.

A few things shifted, some things were damaged, but our belongings made the trip mostly intact.

I don't have any pictures of us actually moving things into the apartment because it was an annoying experience that included neighbors literally watching us from their windows as we struggled in the North Dakota afternoon heat. 

We took a break to eat at the nationally-renowned Grand Forks Olive Garden, but I had a hard time keeping my enthusiasm up:

We finished moving the big things into the apartment after the sun had gone down and the temperature dropped a little. We're on the second floor, so thankfully it wasn't a terrible, awful, no-good-day experience, except that as we were resting outside our apartment from lugging our couch down the hall, our across-the-hall neighbor opened his door. Josh said, "Hi! We're just moving in!" The neighbor gave us a look, then slammed his door without comment. About fifteen minutes later, some random person walked into our apartment, looked at us, then left. I think he was aiming for across the hall. It was awkward.

 But we did find a nifty note and some sodas in the fridge, courtesy of our property management company:

Welcome to our apartment:

the kitchen

the living room

and THE CUTEST BATHROOM EVER!

Such has been our domestic lives in Grand Forks so far.

Things I didn't know about Grand Forks #17

We had a bit of an odd experience today. We were in Target, searching intently for picture hooks, when a woman announced over the loudspeaker that a severe tornado warning had been issued and we were ordered to stay away from the windows and move to the back of the store or leave our items and run for our cars. Josh and I chose to stay and hide out in the seasonal items section.

We were only on lockdown for half an hour or so, but apparently in Grand Forks, tornados can appear at any moment and strand the ShepAlders anywhere they happen to be. I didn't know!

Deadwood, SD is full of bikers and prostitutes

The most interesting place where we spent the night was in Deadwood, SD. To prepare, Josh and I watched some of the HBO series Deadwood, so it was interesting to be in the actual place.

Here is the view from our hotel room:

I love the houses in the hills

Our hotel was really cool because it was historic and still had an original, working Otis elevator:

You had to close both doors to make it work. I felt so fancy.

What makes Deadwood so interesting is that it is technically illegal. A bunch of settlers decided to stay here, even though it was reservation land, and just refused to leave. The other interesting fact about Deadwood is that it is the place where "Wild Bill" Hickok was shot in the back while playing poker.

In fact:

 

Next to our hotel is this memorial to Wild Bill, sculpted by the sculptor of the Crazy Horse monument and from the extraneous rock blasted from the Crazy Horse memorial site:

 We woke up early on Wednesday (for context: we had been on the road for three long days at this point) and walked through town trying to find a place for breakfast. We finally settled on the Gem Steakhouse and Saloon, which used to be the Gem Theater. The Gem plays a significant role in the tv show, but was a little less impressive in person.

There were a lot of bikers due to some biker convention in a nearby town, so eating my eggs next to a bunch of burly bikers made me a bit nervous.

also, I should have known better than to order eggs bennedict

This is just a random store, but Josh thought the door handles were clever:

There was also a boy scout soapbox derby happening:

And every small town needs its name on a water tower:

We then went to the Adams Museum, which had historical artifacts from the town and was located conveniently across the street from our hotel:

 

Josh thought it was very fitting that the symbols of the city are a gold pan, shovel, and deadly, deadly pickaxe:

Inside the museum, we saw sights such as:

The first train engine in the west, brought in by oxcart, and a bell reported to be used on a steamship, but the note says that this claim is unlikely

a binder of the history of prostitution in the town, including pictures that were reversed to negative in order to protect the identities of these ladies who are now probably grandmas

Josh sampled the newfangled stereoscope machine

an old-timey slot machine

fan art of Wild Bill Hickok

one man took 3,700 hours to carve out these 97 figures that make up this teeny, tiny nudist colony

And thus ended our day in Deadwood.

ShepAlder Trek Phase 3: The Actual Trek Part

We started off with really good intentions to leave in the early afternoon on Sunday (July 1st) to get to Coeur d'Alene at a reasonable hour, but unfortunately we had so many last-minute things to do, we didn't get out of Beaverton until around 4:30.

We had to drug Mercury, and she wasn't happy about it:

Josh drove the entire way, so he deserves a lot of recognition for that since, all told, we traveled over 2,000 miles. We spent the first night in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which was pretty but we saw pretty much none of it. On Monday we drove to Billings, Montana, with a quick stop-off in Helena to see the capitol:

There was a very relaxed feel to Helena, especially since they let me roll around on the carpet:

They also had very nice bathrooms and a free blood pressure machine.

Across the street from the capitol was a Montana state history museum, which included a huge metal sculpture of a cow skull. You don't see this in Oregon:

I liked Helena a lot. I'm not sure if I will ever have a reason to live there, but it's a cute, little college town. The Montana landscape was also very pretty:

We stayed overnight in Billings and went to the temple in the morning. 

Montana = beautiful, but then we went to Wyoming, which is flat and boring, except for this:

Josh was really the motivating force behind our sightseeing, since I had already seen many of these places as a kid. He wanted to see Devils Tower very badly. So we went. 

It was really hot. We hiked around a little bit. Josh loves this picture:

And he also wants you to know that he chose this t-shirt specifically for this day of sight-seeing:

These areas attract tourists from strange places. For instance, at the Montana State Capitol, there was a Swedish family taking pictures and generally being in the way. At Devils Tower, I had to wait 5 minutes while a German family had a water fight with the potable water. 

We then drove to our hotel in Deadwood, South Dakota, where we dropped off Mercury before going out again to see:

Which looks like this a little closer-up:

Although it is a work-in-progress, they have finished the face:

The statue in the foreground is what the finished product will look like:

If you don't know much about this monument, or about Crazy Horse in general, I recommend reading a bit about it. It was commission by a Lakota elder and has been in progress since 1948. 

This is the quote that inspired the design:

This is how the finished product will look:

It was getting late at night, and Josh wanted to see Mt. Rushmore lit up, so we went there next. Apparently when you buy a day pass to Mt. Rushmore it is good for the entire year, so we went back the next day as well:

the flags are the U.S. state flags. We tried to get a picture of Oregon's flag, but it refused to unfurl in the wind.

We were actually there on the 4th of July, but they can't do fireworks at Mt. Rushmore because of fire danger. They did, however, have men dressed up as the presidents, taking pictures with tourists. 

It was special to be there on Independence Day, but I was glad we had gone to the museum and everything the night before because it was hot. 

I am going to have to write a separate post about Deadwood, just because it's a cool town and I have lots to say, but I can tell you now that the farther east we got, the crankier I became. We have now been in Grand Forks for almost a week and it hasn't gotten much better. But you can still look forward to a post about our trip to Universal Studios in Florida, new things we are discovering about Grand Forks, and pictures of our new apartment.