So Moved

We've moved to a new location in Vancouver although it didn't take as much effort as moving out of the last one. This place is bigger but louder.

It's three stories, this condo. Garage on bottom floor, kitchen/living in the middle, and bedroom/bath on the top. (All singular. There's still just one of each, although the garage is new. We didn't have that before. Didn't have a washer/dryer either so that's a definite improvement.)

The kitchen is big enough to actually cook in it, although I managed before. I found if I pulled out a drawer and placed a cutting board on top, I could increase my working space. Once my ingredients were chopped, I could slide the cutting board between the top of the microwave and the cabinets beneath which the microwave was housed. You know, those four inches there.

This new place has counters. Space. It's nice. And there's a deck so we can have a grill.

Speaking of decks, that's where I am now. On the deck which is off the kitchen overlooking - well, nothing. A sidewalk, a narrow street, and the next door neighbor's living room. Lots of next door neighbors' living rooms. (Or is that livings room?)

From this vantage point I can see that my deck is the only one without the back end of an air conditioning unit. Anyone else on their deck, should they choose to forgo the A/C and actually sit outside, would be listening to the buzz of their air conditioning unit whining to keep the indoors cool. But they're not out here. They're in there, staying cool. I have A/C but it's mounted elsewhere. So, when I sit on my deck I don't have to listen to my air conditioning unit. I have to listen to all of theirs.

I try to imagine it's bees in a field of wildflowers.

Then, there's the train. There's one going by right now. The train doesn't bother me. The only thing between me and the railroad track is a another row of condos: My deck, a row of condos, a street, then the train. I can hear what sounds like air compressors in the brake system. Is that what that is? It's all freight so it's a lumbering, slow noise. Sometimes, there's a metallic squeal. But they don't blow the horn here so I don't mind.

It's the planes that are the loudest. Seems we are in a flight path. Do real estate agents have a deal with the Portland International Airport to shut down the airspace or reroute flights when they're showing a house? I wonder, because I don't remember the planes on the two times I visited the condo before we moved here. Now we know why the units have air conditioning. It drowns out the airplane noise. Of course, when the F-15s take off from there, there's nothing that will drown out the sound. Not that I really want to. Those suckers are cool.

There's an industrial park nearby with semis going in and out but they don't make much noise to speak of. Not when we're speaking of F-15s.

And the sailboats on the Columbia River don't make any noise at all.

Trains, planes, automobiles (oh, yeah Hwy 14 is just on the other side of the RR tracks), trucks, and sailboats. That pretty much covers it.

But then, one block away, opposite in direction from the trains, we can do this:

*picture a pretty picture here because my SD card just puked so I can't show you last night's sunset, my feet in the sand, toes in the river*

GRR. Tomorrow's project....