Augusta, Week 1

(Blows dust of blogger site)

It’s been a week. Last Sunday we left Chicago and drove to till we just outside of Knoxville, TN. We stopped at the first Hampton Inn off the express way. It was this odd hotel that had clearly been converted to a Hampton Inn. It had a llama pack in the back to watch and old ski lift seats to sit in to look over the mountains. The stairwell had old photographs and paintings in it, including a portrait of Sophia Loren and a depiction of slaves picking cotton.

We arrived in Augusta in the early afternoon, unloaded the car, bought groceries, and settled in. The temporary apartment we’re in is about 700 sq ft. It’s small, but really has everything we need: Cable, Internet, Kitchen, Deck, Etc. It in Hephzibah, GA which is about 20 minutes from everything you’d want to do but it works for now. The YMCA has a branch about 8 miles up the road and I’ve been there at least 5 times already.

We had the home inspection on the new house. I took pics that I’ll add soon. There will be a lot of work to do. The seller agreed to all our requests so we’re good to go there. We also got a contract on our condo. So the house buying/ selling experience so far has been smooth and quick.

We went out to dinner downtown on Friday; meandered around the city for awhile before settling on a pub which had great burgers and sandwiches. We also went up to the Augusta Canal. I expect we’ll spend some Saturdays there bike riding/ running but on Friday night the bugs drove us away fairly quickly.

Saturday night we went to Columbia, SC to see our friends the Zells. Robbin drank beer from their home tap and I drank Chris’ homemade wine. I’m pretty sure we could talk to them for hours and not ever go to bed. At 1:15am we climbed into our car and were home just before 3am. I was insistent that we not spend the night because I wanted to go to church in Augusta in the morning. Of course, we slept right through church. Next time, we’ll spend the night.