The Great Evasion

No, this post is not about some ridiculous evasion from cops or robbers or anything like that, I'm sorry if that's what you were hoping for. But, this evasion did include, plans set in motion weeks ago, lots of bent truths, and a couple accomplices.

A few weeks back, Mariah had gotten her second (of currently 4) interview for the doctoral program she is planning to attend. While her first interview was in the Boston area, her second interview was at Pacific University in Oregon. Being that I'm roughly in the area and it would be in our top choices to live if we moved for her grad school, it made sense for me to make the trip out there. BUT, being that we hadn't seen each other for over a month and I was planning on missing both Valentines day and her Birthday for this trip, I wanted to make it a complete surprise. As soon as I found out, I told her there was no way I would make it as it was the opposite direction I was planning to go. I had been talking about going to Moab, UT to do some offroading since long before I started the trip so I convinced her thats where I was headed.

I made sure that, my phones location services "just stopped working" about a week and a half before her interview. My phone has been having some problems so that fit in well to the narrative. Mariah kept asking if I could change my plans to meet her there but I was adamant that it was not an option. I spent some time restructuring my trip plan and got in contact with one of Mariahs best friends in Idaho. When I finally left I had to limit and deceive my communication for the two days before I was going to surprise her. The hardest parts, included sleeping at her best Chana's house in Boise, and stopping at her favorite Boise restaurants without telling her. I couldn't even rub it in her face that I was drinking Dutch Bros, her favorite coffee shop in the world.

After sleeping in the mountains just off the Columbia river on the Oregon/Washington border I spent the morning in Portland gathering a bunch of her favorite things. This included, Chick-Fil-A, and Extra Sweet Dutch Bros Carmelizer Freeze, and of course some Roses as this is basically an early valentines day. I wanted to surprise her in the airport but knew that wouldn't work as she was planning to get an UBER and I didn't know if I would be able to catch her before hand. So I had to go with plan B.

When I knew she was in the air I sent her a message and a picture of the exit sign for the Portland airport and my Tacoma. At first she didn't get the picture and didn't believe me. To make it even more complicated, she met another interviewee on the plane and was planning to split an UBER ride with her. When the picture came through I was barraged with messages of excitement and disbelief. Since we've been together, we've been to Dutch Bros two more times and I'm sure we will fill out a whole 10 punch card and have a free drink in the matter of 36 hours.

As of this moment, I'm finally caught up on the trip log session of this blog. Mariah is amidst her interview for Pacific University. She has a 3rd at Florida Tech and just this morning was invited to an interview at Spalding University in Kentucky. Earlier this week we got accepted to William James College in Boston. Her current outlook is looking bright for grad school and I'm so excited for her.