Our new home

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It was a long haul down to Oregon, but we made it, plants and all! It took us about 5 days to make the entire trip, with one day spent in Vancouver, Canada. We saw a menagerie of ungulates on our drive down, such as deer, caribou, buffalo, and some sort of sheep or goat that did not look like the Alaskan doll sheep or the mountain goat. We also spotted next to the Alaskan Highway a brown bear with a small cub.

Maciek and I have been living in Corvallis for about two and a half months now. Corvallis is a lot different than Anchorage. For one thing, Corvallis is pretty flat, yes there are some hills and occasionally we have seen mountains with snow cap peaks in the distance, but nothing is the same as having mountains surrounding you. However, I'll have to give props to Corvallis for great weather. It rained about 5 times since we've been down here and the summers seem endless. It's almost November and it's still sunny and fairly warm outside.

Maciek is settling into grad school life and I am busy studying for the police exam and preparing physically for the police academy.

-Cheers from the lower 48

PS. For some reason not all of our pictures (30 in all) that I have posted for the Our New Home entry are showing up with the text. To View all 30 pictures you can click on the arrows above the pictures or any picture in the entry and at the top of the picture should be an option to view the pictures by number.

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Photos

First camping trip in Oregon
We were still living in a motel and it was getting very expensive. We decided to camp out during Labor Day Weekend.

Finding the highest point
Sayard hiking up Mary's Peak, which is the highest point in the Willamette Valley where Corvallis lies.

Something scared Maciek!
Hiking to get to Mary's Peak. Can you spot Maciek in the tree?

Silver Falls Park
Sayard in Silver Falls State park, about a half an hour drive from Corvallis. This Park features 10 waterfalls in which we saw 8 of them. This was in Oregon's dry season so the waterfalls were not at their fullest. We were able to walk behind some of the falls.

Oregon State University
Much of the University and Corvallis are full of these large trees.

Avery Park
Avery Park is a 5 minute walk from our house. The park is huge with a good size rose garden that displays about 100 different species of roses. Sayard's favorite park.

House Guest
Sayard on a canoe trip with some friends that visited us, our first house guest! We floated down the Willamette River, which runs next to Corvallis.

The Friends
Our friends. Front of boat is Erik and Diana and the other couple is Erik’s brother, Loren and girlfriend, Jennie.

Our Home
The apartment building, our apartment is the middle one.

A look inside
Looking through the front door. Straight ahead the living room, to the left the kitchen and to the right bedroom, study, and bathroom.

Shot 1
Looking to the right. Bathroom in front, bedroom to left and study room to right.

Shot 2
Maciek loves butterflies!!

Shot 3
Our bare bedroom

Shot 4
Different angle of bedroom

Shot 5
Maciek pretending to be hard at work