Thursday, November 1, 2012

Our New Apartment in Kettle Falls

Moving from the city to a rural area is going to take some getting used to.  Today we paid the first and last month rent and I started moving our stuff into a SMALL one-bedroom apartment in Kettle Falls.

Kettle Falls is the red dot, it's 7 miles from the metropolis of Colville.


When I got to the apartment at 10am like we had agreed, the owner wasn't there.  I called her and it went straight to voice mail.  It was raining and a little cold out so I sat in my car and read on the kindle ap of my iphone.  She called me back, she had been held up at the vet but told me I could start moving my stuff into the apartment.  I start lugging action packers and canvas bags of stuff up the outdoor stairs and into the apartment.  When I got into the apartment, I was shocked!  There were hundreds of dead bugs everywhere-on the window sills, on the floors, under rugs-this is the stuff that nightmares are made of.  Luckily I had my vacuum cleaner with me and before getting anything else from my car, I quickly vacuumed all of those buggers from the apartment.  I still shiver thinking about it. 

When the owner got home, I gave her the check and asked for the keys.  "Oh honey, no one here uses keys or locks up their apartments.  In fact one of the apartments doesn't even have a lock."  I explained that we are coming from the city and even though it's perfectly safe, we would feel comfortable with keys.  It took her about 10 minutes to find a HUGE ring with about 10 keys on it labeled "GARAGE APT."  By comparing the keys, we realized that there were 4 different keys on this ring.  She gave me one copy of each and asked me to figure out which one opened the deadbolt and which one opened the door knob.  Only one of the keys was actually for our apartment, and it opened the door knob.  She has no key for the deadbolt.  There was no-"I'll get you a key." or anything like that, we just only get to lock our door knob.  Maybe I am being paranoid, but I would like to be able to lock our door with the deadbolt.  What if the zombies come?  They can totally get through the door knob-anyone with a credit card could. 


I also learned not to go shopping on the first of the month.  I don't know if it's just pay day or some other reason, but the stores were crazy!  I didn't know that there were that many people in this little area!  I needed to get 2 light bulbs and a trashcan and I could hardly move around the store.  People in small towns just randomly stop in the  middle of the aisle, blocking it unaware of the people behind them.  They also walk so slowly.  Maybe someday I will be one of them and learn to slow down, but I still have the city in me and it was infuriating today!

One great thing about the apartment is the view.  Kettle Falls is much smaller and more rural than Colville and it's close to many rivers.  Here is the view from the stairway to our apartment.  The owner has horses and there are farms all around.  It was raining so there's lots of mist.



Tomorrow I will finish moving the rest of our stuff in the apartment and give Hillary and Mark's basement a thorough cleaning.  We have loved being here and will miss them a ton but it's time for us to be on our own.

We're starting to settle down here.  I still can't believe that we moved to Washington!

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