Big BIG changes for Fiberton...Part 1

“Well, I guess we’re moving to West Virginia,” I said to Ashley after receiving the news, “I got accepted to Wheeling Jesuit University’s Respiratory Therapy Program!”

I should introduce myself, I’m Ric! Ashley has probably mentioned me before, but now she’s working like crazy (I’ll explain on what later) so I’m picking up the slack with my superior talents :-)

I am the hubby that Ashley keeps talking about. (On the right.)

As I mentioned above, I got accepted to Uni halfway across the country in a place I’d never heard of, let alone been to. I needed a change of career, or a career at all really. I have asthma and have been in hospitals quite often my entire life (I find them comforting… I know, weird, right?) and I have always wanted to be in a medical field, but didn’t want to be a doctor or a nurse. I honestly had forgotten that respiratory therapists existed until I had a bad day at work and was looking for something better to do with my work life.

I decided to get the full BA degree, so I looked at schools that offered it, there were about 48. And the top five were Ivy League and/or prohibitively expensive. But WJU looked right up my alley, so I applied. Not only did they accept me, but they gave me scholarships!

After we had decided to move there at the end of summer one of Ashley’s old friends called from Oregon and offered her a job on a campaign, it was a city council race that was highly contested and the candidate needed the best campaign manager that Eugene has ever known (I’m tooting her horn for her) and they asked her to come back to the Eug for “One more race.”

“.......... Should we?” Ashley asked me.

“Why the hell not? I love adventure, and excitement.” (That’s why I’d be a bad Jedi.)

After about two days of me convincing her that we could pack up 6 rabbits, 2 sheep, 2 cats, and an incredibly old black lab into Oliver (the cool name we’ve given to our 1986 Winnebago) she caved.

Oliver, our trusty Winnebago

It was official, we had less than a month to pack up and get to Oregon. We discussed it with Ashley’s parents and after they helped us decide it wasn’t a ridiculous idea, we began telling people with “The Friendlords” (our friends who also happened to be our landlords) and then Mike, Christy, and their friendtern (their intern who also happened to be their friend) Tiffany, and lastly our jobs. We began frantically packing and doing dump runs in between our last shifts at work. 

We pulled Oliver around near the house and bought a 2-horse trailer made sometime in the ‘60’s to haul the sheep (Ashley’s dad Dean drove her, like, 4 hours north just to pick it up because it was SUPER CUTE and also half the price of any other ones we saw online). We started overhauling Oliver and converting the pullout bed into a full time bed and putting in the new entertainment center and bookshelf that I had built. (I just learned how to build stuff recently, so I’m bragging.) Once I had hooked up my Playstation, NES, Atari, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Wii, and my computer I was ready to go. (Unfortunately, we still had a whole house to move out of, hehe.)

The adventure will continue...