Vacation Day 9 - Arriving in Rochester!

Day 9: Chamberlain, SD to Rochester, MN

Estimated Mileage: 370 miles
Estimated Driving Time: 5.4 hours

There wasn't that much interesting about this day. Just driving through farm country. We stopped at "Perkins" (a nice family restaurant) for lunch near Sioux Falls, SD. Then we booked it through to Rochester with a couple of bathroom stops.

We arrived at our house around dinner time and cooked up some spaghetti using our camping utensils on our house stove. We tried to unpack as much stuff as possible from our van and spent the night in the house on the floor with our sleeping bags. It was nice to be "home" finally!

The next day, our moving trailer arrived with all of our stuff and we hired a couple of movers to unload it with us.





Our moving trailer.





All of our stuff.





Me hard at work.





Katie worked with Rebekah on her back, and then she fell asleep - how precious!





Most of our stuff was fine, except for a couple bookcases and entertainment center (all broken during the move - we chucked them), and possibly some of our china dishes (see picture). In spite of us writing "fragile" on the box, the movers put this box at the bottom of a heavy stack. We still haven't opened it up to see if it's OK...





Also, unfortunately, our queen boxspring would not fit upstairs into our bedroom. The mattress fit, but only because we squeezed the sides as we went up. We had to buy a split boxspring, and we're trying to sell this one on craigslist!

Since we moved in on June 3rd, we've had some time to unpack most everything, buy furniture, etc., and try to get ourselves settled. It's quite a job. Here's some pictures of the progress we've made:






Our bedroom is quite a bit larger than our previous one. We don't know what to do with all the room!





We drove up to Minneapolis a few days ago and went to IKEA, where we bought Rachel a bed. It can be turned upside down and made into a bunk bed later when she and Rebekah will share a room. She loves it!





Here is the family room/music room. Our piano made it safe and sound. We kept our couches in this room because they wouldn't fit downstairs in our basement (the original intended location).





Rebekah loves to roam around our new house and have fun. Here she is playing a duet with me. I was playing Debussy's Etude in 4ths, which is quite modern sounding. Most of the notes she hit fit in pretty well!





Rachel has also been very busy playing with all her toys and making up interesting imaginative games.





The largest room in our basement will be the movie/entertainment room. The furniture seen here is largely supplied from the Goodwill: Sofa - $20, Easychair - $10, entertainment center - $50, coffee table - $5. Can't beat those prices!





Another room in the basement is Katie's laundry room - already in full swing!





Here's another one of the kitchen.





And here's one of the office/guest room.





I also mowed our lawn yesterday.





We first had to purchase a lawn mower (nice big garage, huh?). Originally Katie was anticipating doing the mowing, since I'd be so busy in residency. She was quite apprehensive about it, though, as she's never mowed a lawn in her life. I don't blame her. While unpacking/assembling the mower, there were so many warnings about death and dismemberment in the instruction packet, I was even slightly concerned myself and made sure to read all the directions before operating it. I decided I'll do all the mowing, even if I'm busy.






I also bought a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee off of Craiglist from another Mayo employee. It has a lot of miles (~129,000), but it seems like it runs great. This is ideal car for the snow, I've heard.

Well, that's all about our California to Minnesota trip. Hope you've enjoyed the pictures and stories.