Mark and I flew out of SF on Friday evening to Seattle. We have left SF many times, but this time was the final exit. We had a quiet drive down to SFO as we reminisced about memories and what each street/part of the city meant to us. We had a smooth flight up to Seattle. A quick Lyft up to Matt, Liz and Wally, and then we drove to a brewery for dinner along with Rhi, Ryan, Haley and Ilya. It feels good to be around family, and friends who have moved from SF. On Saturday, we had a fun bike ride, paddle board/swim/picnic on Lake Washington and then a competitive game of laser tag. Sunday was mass, donut time, Ballard farmer's market, and then boardgames and pizza at Rhi and Ryan's. On Monday we drove to our campsite at Kachess Park. It was spectacular! We did not see a single cloud for the 6 days we were in Seattle. The days reached between 80 and 90 degrees with cooler evenings. Our friends and family were in top form and full swing! Haley and Ilya are newly engaged. Rhi and Ryan are absolutely loving Seattle. Liz and Matt are on cloud nine raising Wally. Steven is writing in all his spare time. And Michael came up to celebrate his 30th birthday! We enjoyed hanging out at camp, swimming in Kachess Lake and chatting around the campfire. On Tuesday, 4th of July, we came back to Seattle, prepped for a barbecue on the roof and continued celebrations! We flew to NY on Wednesday. We look forward to being back in Seattle in late August and having that be our new home airport. It is all starting to feel very real...after two years of pure chat and theorizing!

Burke Gilman Trail (we are big fans!) Lake Washington, Rhi, Roux and the Cascades Laser Tag! Kachess Birthday Boy! Three lads hard at work!

Our last week in SF was spent working and closing up loose ends. Mark was in the office everyday, soaking up in-person time with his coworkers. He also worked hard to set himself up well for his 9 week sabatical. Lyft held a happy hour on Thursday, which celebrated many things - our move among them. It was really nice to meet the coworkers I have heard so much about. I worked on scrubbing our apartment, donating furniture and belongings we didn't pack in the pod, and crossing things off my SF bucketlist. I visited the de Young for the first time. I highly recommend Kehinde Wiley's An Archaeology of Silence. I walked the full length of Golden Gate Park, rode the ferris wheel that arrived temporarily in March of 2020 and never left, and walked through the Conservatory of Flowers. I also nursed a sore throat, unfortunately. Stef graciously hosted us in her beautiful and comfortable Sunset home, we had great tacos with Michael, and were treated to a very special evening of beach time and meals by Stef, Steve and Michael. Leaving our friends is the hardest part of leaving SF. We will also miss our jobs, the landscape, weather, cuisine, diversity and St Ignatius. Our memories will keep us smiling and we will be back for plenty of visits.

Ansel Adam's exhibit FLR! Ferris wheel ride

Steve spent many months planning a Deschutes River trip: a three day rafting/two nights camping, float down some 50 miles of the Deschutes with twelve of his nearest and dearest. Mark and I rented a car and drove the 8hrs to Bend after Mark's full day of work on Thursday, June 22nd. We packed the car with our plants and Mark's mountain bike (which is too valuable to go in the pod) that we then drove up to Seattle after the rafting trip. The plants will stay with Rhi & Ryan and the bike will be with Matt, Liz and Wally for the months of July and August. We got into Bend around midnight and were up at 6am on Friday. We threw our bags in the car and ate a quick breakfast. Within an hour of driving we were at the put-in. All 12 of us floated down the river in 3 boats. Two boats rowed and one paddled. We had an absolute blast! The three mornings and afternoons on the river were peaceful, with beautiful scenery and a mix of relaxing ripples and intense Class 4 rapids. We spotted about a dozen wild horses on the Native American Reservation, which was on the west bank for most of our trip. We saw osprey continuously throughout the trip, as well as two mountain sheep. We cliff jumped off of 40+ foot rocks, swam, lazed on the rafts, opened beers, strategized on campsites, timing and route of rapids. There was lots of chat and laughs! In the evenings we played games. Mark and Eli did a fabulous job of creating a variety of activities for us: a running/floating relay contest, a team making name/flag/song contest, followed by a trivia competition centered on rivers. We also cooked all our meals, set up and took down camp each night and avoided rattlesnakes! The spiders and ants were harder to avoid. Steve put together a seemless trip & his Gonzaga and Marin friends were a real treat to meet. After Bend we drove the 6 more hours to Seattle, unloaded the car, slept for 5hrs and headed to the airport for our last week in SF!!! PS we bought a drone :)

We have officially packed up all of our belongings into a U-Pack pod. After 20+ hours of packing everything within our apartment and hauling them into the pods (thank you Stef, Mike and Ben for the helping hands) we say goodbye to our lovely SF home and go without an abode for the summer. We are thankful to our friends and family that we are staying with this summer and look forward to the hotel & tent hopping that is ahead of us!

Schul(tell)em is a blog Mark and Darragh are planning on keeping as we complete our summer travels in Europe, the U.S., and potentially Canada! This blog will contain stories of our trips. We hope to keep these updated on a close to daily basis, and include lots of photos and funny stories so that our friends and family can both know we're alive, and read from their office buildings about what we're doing!

Hope y'all will enjoy it!