Our First Month in Evanston, Part 2: Exploring Our New 'Hood

October: Finding Our Way

So the next priority after furnishing the apartment was starting to explore our new neighborhood and finding the most important destinations: (1) gym, (2) library, (3) coffee shop, (4) grocery store, and (5) wine shop. No problem! 

(1) We joined the McGaw YMCA, which is about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. The Y has not just one but two indoor pools. Woo-hoo! I prefer the "warm" 4-lane lap pool (82 degrees) over the "cold" 6-lane lap pool (77 degrees) and was able to get my ideal reservation time of 7-8am almost any day that I wanted. Even our first week, I went to a Thursday evening yoga class, which became my regular habit, and swam laps on Friday morning. Yay! 

We also have a great workout area in our apartment building that was very convenient for Mr. E for his weight workout or running if he didn't quite have enough time for the round-trip walk to the Y. 

I settled into a routine of getting up at my usual 6:15am time so that I could get in a bit of an extra walk around the neighborhood, usually to the Lake, before heading to the Y for my lap swim time. This also gave me an opportunity for some amazing views of sunrise over Lake Michigan.

(2) The Evanston Public Library is one block away. I got my library card as soon as I could!

(3) I began a weekly habit of trying the various local coffee shops on my way home from the Y on Friday mornings. Newport Coffee, Collectivo Coffee, Patisserie Coralie, and Mensch's Deli were all nearby options. Based on previous experience, I skipped the Peet's next door to our apartment, but Mr. E and I did take advantage of our perennial favorite Starbucks that's a few blocks farther away, on the same street as the Target. However, our favorite spot for sure became the newly-opened coffee kiosk at the Arrington Lagoon, right by the Lake. Yummy Americanos for a great price along with tasty pastries (blueberry muffin, cinnamon scone) soon made this into a regular weekend morning stop for us, followed by a stroll along the lake shore.

(4) I already mentioned that Whole Foods is literally next door to our apartment building. And Target is three blocks away (we can see it from our living room). For additional options, we have a Jewel Osco (aka Safeway) six blocks away with a Trader Joe's just across the street. Easy to get everything we need using bags or backpacks or the collapsible red canvas wagon that Mr. E procured from Amazon.

(5) One block farther south of TJ's is Binny's, the Midwest equivalent of Total Wine or BevMo, so we have an easy spot for wine and alcohol purchases as well.

The ease of having everything within walking distance is just so perfect and exactly the lifestyle we were looking for and hoping for. In addition, there are numerous massage options around -- I tried one local spot as well as the Wellness Suite on the Northwestern University campus -- and I found a fabulous chiropractic practice that's a 15-minute walk and easy to coordinate for a visit on my way home from my swim workout. 

What else? Oh, right, the Woman's Club of Evanston is a block away. I'm thinking I may join the Club once we get a better sense of when and for how long we'll be making Evanston our home base. There's also the Evanston History Center near the Lake, not to mention all of the venues on the Northwestern University campus, such as the Block Museum and the Virgina Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. More details to come about the various cultural events we were able to attend during our initial foray into life in Evanston!

Our First Month in Evanston, Part 1: The New Apartment

October: Setting Up a New Apartment From Scratch

We both took the day off on Monday, September 30 so that we could take advantage of having the rental car to procure essential items (furniture!) for our new apartment. 

Our first stop was the brick-and-mortar Wayfair store in nearby Wilmette, where we found quite a few pieces to help furnish our apartment: mid-century modern TV stand, side tables, carved cabinet for the entryway, four counter stools for the big island, two grey of fice chairs for our future workstations (TBD), hanging storage units for the closet, kitchen supplies, and two floor lamps (that we ended up returning once they were delivered because we didn't realize they were actually bronze rather than brushed chrome due to the showroom lights!). Oh, and an electric fireplace. So not a necessity but so awesome to have! We still talk about and miss our gas fireplace in the Madison apartment, and we figured a little extra light and warmth would be very welcome for the Midwest climate. Oh, and Louis XIV rather likes it as well, even though we don't let him jump up on top.

Most of the Wayfair in-store purchases weren't available on-site, but we did manage to bring home with us an awesome blue elephant lamp and some of the kitchen organizers. And a really cool poster featuring a map of Chicago. Our next destination was Kohl's to look for some small kitchen appliances. Fortuitously, there was a Ross located in the same shopping area, and we decided to browse there first to see if we could find anything on our list. We lucked out with two folding TV tables and two comfy padded folding chairs (since we still didn't have any sort of dining table) along with a small velvety lavender storage ottoman and some other kitchen utensils and equipment.

We were hoping to find a bed that could be delivered the same day, but no luck. One of the odd things we learned is that mattresses now are ginormously high -- 12 inches seems to be the standard -- and our sheet sets don't fit that type of size, so we kept holding out for something smaller. We finally settled on something that seemed reasonable at the American Mattress store just a few blocks from the apartment. Another challenge was the amount of time for anything to be delivered -- sometimes 4-6 weeks -- yikes! The staff person told us we could get this mattress within about 2 weeks and that they could provide us with a "loaner" in the meantime within 2 days. We figured that would have to be good enough. Unfortunately, the promised delivery window wasn't accurate and we didn't end up getting the mattress until about 10 days before we returned to Sac at the end of November! Thank goodness for the loaner mattress in the meantime, or we would have been stuck on the airbed from Evan's mom that had sprung a leak...!!!

Mr. E had found a local furniture store that was going out of business during his mid-September recon visit, so Affordable Portables was another destination for us the next day, and we found a great mid-century modern table and chairs set. Also a fabulous rug with a great pattern. Quite an unexpected find on both counts and great values! And since we still had the SUV, we were able to take it all home with us (table, four chairs, bench). The table is expandable thanks to a built in leaf so can accommodate up to six people quite comfortably. We put the kitty beds on the bench right next to the window, and the fur babies were very pleased with their new sun-filled perch.

Other stores we checked out included Crate & Barrel, CB2, and some local furniture shops. We ordered a few items from West Elm but ended up cancelling the bureau due to a delivery delay as well as the stacking end tables since we decided to use the side tables from Wayfair in the living room after finding bedside tables at West Elm that actually did arrived in a timely fashion. 

Wayfair and Amazon were definitely our go-to spots for additional furniture and kitchen stuff. We ordered two side chairs from Wayfair since we like the ones we have in Sac along with a headboard, standing desks, and mid-century modern low bureau. We ended up returning some pieces that didn't live up to expectations. And during the first few days of deliveries, our apartment was very well furnished with lots of boxes! Louis XIV was of course helpful as always...

Once we had the two side chairs and the TV stand, we could comfortably relax in the living room as we continued to search for a couch. Mr. E got our TV at CostCo, and we used one of our laptops to connect to our Xfinity account to access additional entertainment options.

One of the primary challenges with the couch search is that we needed something in a fabric that wouldn't entice the kitties to scratch. We learned that lesson the hard way with some side chairs in Sac that we had to cover with sticky tape to protect them from Louis XIV! Our solution was found at Bob's Discount Furniture, where we purchased a moderately sized sofa with storage ottoman and four throw pillows in a color and fabric that work perfectly for our home. And later, we returned to Bob's to purchase the small grey sofa that converts to a double bed for the office space since Mr. E often needs to sleep in a separate room.

A final finishing touch was ordering a triptych of The Great Wave from Wayfair to hang over the couch. We also found a big print of a Paris scene at TJ Maxx for our bedroom as we started to fill in the walls with artwork. The first piece to be hung, however, was my Mom's painting that I took down from the wall at Silverado after she died.

In addition to all of this shopping by car, we made numerous trips to the Target just a few blocks away from our apartment for other items that we realized we needed -- floor lamps, sheets, storage containers, yoga mat, kitchen utensils, etc. Mr. E had already done quite a bit of advance purchasing when he made his trip in mid-September, based on the lists we'd made, so that started us off quite well. And it was really interesting to set up a new household from scratch and realize what we really didn't need to have and what we felt the lack of. Good lessons to keep in mind for the future (and to help purge some stuff back in Sac, too...)!

Road Trip with the Kitties!

Friday, September 27-Sunday, September 29: Sac > Salt Lake City, UT > North Platte, NE > Evanston, IL 

As I wrote about in my previous entry for our July 4th travels, Mr. E and I decided to sign a one-year lease on an apartment in Evanston, IL. Our lease officially began on September 1st, but we didn't fully take occupancy right away since (1) we were in Hawai'i at the beginning of the month and (2) I had three solid weeks of work travel for my Finish Line college site visits. However, Mr. E's mid-month trip to Chicago while I was in the Inland Empire served as an early recon visit so that he could take care of the move-in checklist, confirm everything was ready, and get us set up with some necessary supplies to ease our arrival process with the kitties (e.g. airbed from his Mom, small kitchen appliances, basic dishware, utensils, and glasses, etc.).

Our big adventure of the cross-country road trip with the kitties started the morning of Friday, September 27. I had purchased new carriers for the fur babies that are backpacks for airline travel and that have a collapsible extension for more space during car trips. We had gotten them early enough that they kitties could get used to having them around the house, and they even started to use them as napping spots! Definitely a good sign...

We rented an SUV for the trip, since we don't need a car in Evanston and we weren't sure our beloved 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid would be able to make the trip anyway. Also, we needed some extra space for the kitties in the back seat as well as to bring some necessary items with us to the new place. Luckily, the two carriers fit perfectly with the expandable parts open so that the kitties could be safely belted in for the trip.

Overall, they did pretty well during the three days of 10ish hours of driving, although Louis XIV occasionally got a little antsy. And they were both amazingly adaptable to the hotel rooms, having no problem using their litter box or finding their travel food and water. I packed a "go" bag for them with all of the necessary supplies, including a new water bowl that finally outwitted Marlene so she couldn't push it around! Marlene even snuggled on the hotel bed with us when she wasn't curled up on a pillow on the couch.

Our first overnight was at a Residence Inn in Salt Lake City, UT. We managed to get the kitties into the room with no problem and without paying any additional charge (shh... don't tell...). We had a very large one-bedroom suite with a full kitchen, which was plenty of room for all of us. Mr. E found a nearby Thai restaurant for takeout dinner, but we struck out on procuring any wine (umm... yeah... Utah... didn't think about preparing for that in advance!).

Breakfast in the hotel lobby the next morning was sufficient, and then we loaded up the car again with our travel bags and the kitties and set off for our next overnight destination of North Platte, NE. We passed lots of rolling fields of hay and quite a few windmill farms as well.

We had a slightly shorter drive for this leg of the trip, so we got to the hotel right around sunset, giving us a bit more time to find dinner and get the kitties all settled. Louis XIV was particularly fond of the bathtub in this hotel room.

The final day was our longest drive yet, especially given that we had a time zone change, but we arrived in Evanston right around when we had anticipated, just after 7pm. We unloaded the kitties and their supplies first, and I got them all set up in the powder room while Mr. E brought up the rest of our stuff and parked the car in a guest spot in the parking garage of our building. 

The next door Whole Foods was still open, so we were able to pick up some dinner there, although we had to eat it on the airbed that we had pulled out into the living room because there were no lights in the bedrooms and no other place yet for a meal! The kitties made themselves right at home on the familiar Badger blanky on the airbed.

A good start to our new adventure of having a home-away-from-home. And we learned that we'll definitely take one more day if we ever do that drive again, just to avoid feeling so pressured to drive such long distances each day.

Catching Up: September College Site Visits

Time to catch up on my blog posts as I've had quite a bit of travel over the past few months! September was packed with work travel for Finish Line college site visits. I managed to pack 17 trips into three weeks so that I could see the last five Central Valley colleges and all 12 of the Inland Empire colleges. It was a bit of a whirlwind but so very worthwhile to meet up with program staff in person and see each of the campuses. 

For most visits, I spent about two hours on campus, talking with program staff, touring the campus, and sometimes meeting Finish Line scholarship recipients or campus leadership. The intent was to keep these visits mostly informal and focus on strengthening my relationship with our college contacts, and it was such a pleasure to meet people whom I've only ever talked to on Zoom for the past four years!

Tuesday, September 10-Thursday, September 12: Central Valley

I picked up a rental car on Monday afternoon in anticipation of my 7:45am departure on Tuesday, since my first visit was scheduled for 9:45am at Columbia College in Sonora. The weather was nice enough for a brief stroll around the lagoon, which was mostly shaded thanks all of the trees on campus. From there, I headed south to Porterville College for a 2:45pm visit. Given the rising temperature and lack of shade on this campus, we opted to forego a tour and spent the time talking and connecting. I drove a bit farther south to Bakersfield to my hotel for the two nights of the road trip.

My first visit on Wednesday was at 9am at Bakersfield College, the largest of the colleges participating in Finish Line. I got to meet all of the main program contacts from Financial Aid along with other staff from Student Services, the Transfer Center, and the college Foundation. We took a golf cart tour around the campus before I headed east for my 1pm visit at Cerro Coso Community College in Ridgecrest. I learned that they have one of the largest service areas of any CCC thanks to their other satellite campuses. Rather windy conditions from the campus location perched above the valley, so I was glad that our campus tour was mostly inside! I headed back to Bakersfield for the night. So nice to stay at the same hotel for the entire trip!

My final visit was on Thursday morning at Taft College at a rather luxurious time of 10am, so I could get some work and studying done before being on the road all day. After a lovely conversation with the program contact, we joined a few other staff who support the program for a quick lunch. Then I headed to downtown Bakersfield to return the rental car, summoned a Lyft, and got dropped off at the Amtrak station for the trip back to Sac. I had to transition to a bus connection in Stockton, but it was still much nicer than driving the 6ish hours back home. My train arrived in Sac at 8:05pm, and the kitties and Mr. E welcomed me home. 

Sunday, September 15-Thursday, September 19: Inland Empire #1

Mr. E left for Chicago the morning of Friday, September 13, giving us about 12 hours together with the kitties, most of which was overnight sleeping time! I had a late afternoon flight on Sunday down to Ontario in SoCal in anticipation of starting the first round of my Inland Empire site visits on Monday morning. My first hotel for two nights was in San Bernardino, since that was convenient for the first four colleges on my itinerary.

First up on Monday at 10am was Victor Valley College, which included a conversation with their President, a walking tour of the main campus, and a drive out to tour the Regional Safety Training Center as well. My Monday afternoon was spent at San Bernardino Valley College with a meet-up at 2pm. This visit included a brief meet & greet with the college President, a more extended conversation with their data lead, a golf cart campus tour, and a comprehensive tour of their amazing new Applied Technology Center. 

Tuesday started at 9am with a visit to Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa. I got to see their Public Safety Training Center and learn about their signature paramedicine program in addition to other parts of the campus. The next visit was to Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree at 1pm. The program contacts there presented me with a lovely hand-made blanket by a local artisan, and the small size of the campus allowed for an easy walking tour. The rest of my afternoon was spent on the long drive to Blythe, which is just a few exits from the Arizona border. The clearest radio station during the end of the trip was out of Quartzite, AZ!

Wednesday began with a 9:30am visit to Palo Verde College, the easternmost CCC in the state, which actually does draw students from nearby Arizona as well. The campus is perched at the top of a hill and has expansive views of the surrounding valley. Another long drive back west took me to College of the Desert in Palm Desert for my 2pm visit. This meet-up ended a little early, and then it was back to San Bernardino (but a different hotel) for a final overnight.

My trip ended with a visit to Barstow Community College at 10am on Thursday. The small campus was charming with a surprising number of trees and flowers throughout the grounds. Of course, anytime I think of Barstow, I always think of the lyric from the Sheryl Crow song: "I used to drive up to Barstow for the night..." !!! 

I headed back to the Ontario airport to return the rental car and spent a couple of hours in the airport lounge catching up on work and studying and enjoying some snacks and beverages. My flight back to Sac arrived just before 6pm, and since Mr. E had returned from Chicago on Wednesday evening, he and the kitties were all home to welcome me. And this time we had more than 12 hours together before the next travel!

Sunday, September 22-Wednesday, September 25: Inland Empire #2

I took the same Sunday afternoon flight to Ontario as the previous week, and for this trip, I was able to stay at the same hotel in Moreno Valley for all three nights. So much nicer to be able to unpack and settle in a bit!

Monday started off at 10am at Moreno Valley College. The campus has multiple levels, including a central courtyard area on the upper level that hosts different events, including a Farmers Market. My afternoon visit at 2pm was at Riverside City College, where a golf cart tour allowed me to see more parts of the larger campus.

My first visit on Tuesday was to Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga at 10am. I got a little lost on the campus due to all of the construction but eventually figured out how to find the meet-up spot. This was one of the visits that included some Finish Line scholarship recipients, and it was amazing to hear about their experiences, their dedication to their studies, and how the Finish Line funds have made a difference in their lives. The afternoon was my visit to Norco College at 2pm, which included a rather large group of staff from various departments that are somehow involved in the program along with one student who shared her story as a complement to the recorded video of other students. 

My last college visit was on Wednesday morning at 9am at the Menifee Valley campus of Mt. San Jacinto College. The campus has several new buildings, including a beautiful new stadium, and also hosts its own student health center, was is rather unusual for a CCC. 

With no afternoon site visit on the schedule, I headed back to the Ontario airport and repeated my routine of rental car return + work/study in the airport lounge. My flight was a little earlier than the previous week, and I was very glad to be home with Mr. E and the kitties after the three successive weeks of multi-day work travel!