The Start of it All

Two years ago today two very toasty workaholics set out on their first-ever RV trip. For 10 glorious days they explored the American Southwest. By the time they returned they were determined to become fulltimers one day.

The story is right here. It's a very quick read. Just follow the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page to start at the beginning.

Today, those two are toasty workaholics no more. As fulltimers, they find themselves back in the American Southwest.

We've come along way since that first day in that little rented Class C. And, these days, we're taking our time.

Our Independence Day

The Great RV Escape has, at long last, begun.

It's official. We're fulltimers!

Our last morning in the Bay Area started early. Like every morning for the last couple of weeks, we had a lot of stuff to do. We had piles of stuff sitting outside the moose, and each pile needed to go somewhere. Resisting the temptation to simply put the stuff somewhere and roll, we wisely took the time to get organized. Believe it or not, the purging continued! A couple of hours later, we had a place for almost everything. We gifted several items to our hosts: storage tubs, cleaning supplies, hangers, liquor and wine. (We have plenty of the latter on board!) It felt great to leave that extra weight behind at the start.

With our organization complete, we were off to run our last errands: We returned our cable modem; I mailed the keys to our former back gate to the new owner and had my vintage Gibson guitar packed and shipped off to my brother; and, Boris got one last haircut from his favorite barber. We picked up a yummy grinder sandwich from a great neighborhood spot and took it back to the moose for lunch. On the way, our realtor called to tell us the title transfer was complete.

With that call, we were now free to roam about the country!

Though we were hungry, we were too excited to eat. We decided to share half the sandwich for lunch and saved the rest for later. In just a few minutes we had the moose ready to roll.

This was the moment we were waiting for! All of our preparation, hard work and good luck was leading to this day - this moment - for our new lifestyle to begin. We took a deep breath (OK, actually, it was several) and headed out.

The egress from our hosts' house was a bit tricky (though not as scary as the ingress!) so we decided to save the hooking up for a church parking lot about couple of miles away. There, a UPS driver, City of Oakland employee and several church volunteer gardeners likely took great amusement in watching these brand new fulltimers get hooked up.

For the benefit of our future fulltiming friends, we offer the following advice: If you plan to carry a bike rack on your tow hitch, take it on a test run before you load up for your fulltiming adventure.

Among the hundreds of "to-dos" we've done over recent months, one was to have our drop hitch receiver modified to accept our bike rack. Another was to replace our bike rack with a more RV-friendly version. Done and done. What we had not done, however, is try them all out with the squirrel in tow. So, the driver, city employee and gardeners got quite a show as we unloaded three bikes and figured out how to get the Jeep hooked up. It won't be that complicated in the future, thankfully. And, with practice, we'll get better at it all. With everything finally hooked together, we started toward the street. With the first right turn in the parking lot, we checked the camera. It looked like a front corner of the Jeep was plowing into Boris' fancy road bike. (Yikes!) We stopped, jumped out and looked. Turns out that camera angle can be quite deceiving. Thankfully, the bike and Jeep had plenty of clearance.

We waved a friendly so long to the amused gardeners and thanked them for the use of their parking lot. At 2:00 PM Pacific Time, we hit the road. It was much later than we had anticipated. With an estimated six hours of travel ahead of us, we were in for a long first travel day. We did our very best to get our adrenaline levels down to something close to normal and settle in for the first leg of our great escape.

It was a gorgeous day to travel. Sunny, with little wind and very pleasant Summer temperatures. With surprisingly little emotion, we waved so long to Oakland and traveled on very familiar highways most of the afternoon. Along the way, we reflected on what it took for us to get to this point, and how happy we were to finally be here. As we passed Redding we were venturing into new territory, and it was beautiful. As we were crossing stunning Lake Shasta, we placed a call to our fulltiming Godfadda and his bride to share our virtual toast to new adventures. (We saved our toast for later, of course!)

At 8PM, we pulled into the Mount Shasta KOA, which sits in the shadow of - you guessed it - magnificent Mount Shasta. We were settled into our very level pull thru in a matter of minutes. We made a couple of quick calls to family members to let them know we'd made it safely to our destination, and then enjoyed our favorite adult beverages with a toast to our exciting new lifestyle. With plans for a special celebratory dinner, we opted to save that meal for tomorrow - given the late hour. Instead, we sat down to what will surely be a very memorable first night meal.

Yep, we shared the rest of the sandwich and a Heineken.

With that, we're calling it a day. And, like so many of our fulltiming friends, we just can't wait to see what is in store for tomorrow.

Moving Out

The papers are signed.

The POD is gone (and the HOA board members cheered).

1-800-GOT-JUNK has come and taken ours away. 

Salvation Army should be here soon, though someone apparently came by and took about half of what we left for them. 

We've shuffled a load or two to our rolling home. 

All that's left is a little bit of cleanup. 

Before we do that, we're going to unhook the modem. So, it's time for us to sign off until we're back within wi-fi range. And, that might be tomorrow night.

By then, we have high hopes of being very happy fulltimers. 

For now, we're flat out exhausted soon-to-be-former homeowners. 

All is well. Let me just say we've collected a bunch of stories this week that will make great campfire conversation down the road. We look forward to it. 

More soon...from the road!

Down to the Wire

Yes, it's crunch time, people.

We have much to do before our heads hit the pillows in our rolling home tonight. But, so far, so good. 

The POD is packing quite nicely, if you don't count the nasty stares by HOA board members as they pass by. And, the piles for Salvation Army and 1-800-Got-Junk, who will both be passing by tomorrow, are manageable. Though it all still feels a little surreal, we're confident we will get it done tonight. We can only hope that we can wrap it all up at a reasonable hour. 

For having so much work to do today we sure had a busy social calendar. We had brunch with friends and said so long to one of our party hosts before she hopped in her taxi for the airport. An old friend and her daughter stopped by this afternoon to take some things off our hands and help out. But, we're down to the point where, as Boris says, everything we touch involves us having to make a decision. So, that made it a little tough to delegate.

The extra special treat in our day was an phone call from Gordon (aka da Godfadda) and Juanita. Having traveled this path more than three years ago, they know how these last days feel. We so appreciated their call of encouragement. We made a virtual date to enjoy a celebratory toast to our independence on Tuesday. We so look forward to seeing them live and in person in Port Orford in a couple of weeks to continue the celebration.

Time's a wasting, so I'll close. More to come.

Celebrating Our Independence

As predicted, this is indeed turning into some kind of Saturday. We're getting close to wrapping up our packing and purging. We have about half of the day tomorrow, then it needs to be done. And, it will be, one way or the other.

We are so ready!

Our frenetic Friday continued into the evening. When we returned home from the vet, we had a message from a member of our HOA board. She was none too happy to see our POD sitting on our private street. And, she just had to tell us all about it. She was sure our local fire department was going to fine us $100 a night for our violation. We said we were sorry, this isn't how things were supposed to turn out, and we'd do whatever we could.

We called PODS to see if there was anything they could do, such as pick the pod up today. But, to no avail, the local site was closed for the holiday. The earliest it could be picked is Monday, our regularly scheduled time. 

Next thing we knew, the PODS people were calling us. Seems they had received nasty emails from two of our HOA board members. They asked us to assume all liability if anything happened while it was on the street. We said we would. Then, emails were flying between our HOA board and the PODS people. To say we were frustrated with the whole situation would be an understatement. 

Now, it's important to understand that our neighbors have said they are fine with this. It's the size of a car sitting on the curb. Everyone can get around just fine. (Even a fire truck!) No one has been inconvenienced in any way. In talking with the neighbors, we've learned that this is SOP for our HOA board. They love to get into everyone's business. It's obvious they have nothing better to do. Boris has started referring to them as our HOA "bored". 

With all of this correspondence flying, and the sun getting ready to set in the West, we decided we'd take a few extra steps to make our big white box on the curb look a little more visible. Though we were due at a farewell dinner in our honor, we made a trip to Home Depot and an auto parts store to pick up two bright orange cones, two reflective safety triangles and a handful of round stick-on orange reflectors. Back home, we surrounded the box with glowing orange and headed off to our dinner, nearly two hours late. 

Emails continued to fly during the evening. The president of our HOA emailed our agent! Our degree of agitation continued to boil. Afraid we weren't very good company, we excused ourselves from dinner and headed home. As we pulled onto our street in the dark, we were so pleased to see all of the day-glo orange doing its job. You can't miss this thing! 

Neither of us slept particularly well or long last night. This morning over coffee we read the latest email exchange, and it seems that the tempers of our HOA board members have cooled. Perhaps everyone has come to accept that, on this holiday weekend, the soonest this big box will be moved is Monday morning.  And, maybe our HOA board members have, at long last, decided to get a life.

Our heads are cooler today, as well. It's just one more piece of affirmation that we no longer want to be here and have far better places to go. 

We're taking a break from our last minute surge to attend our going away party. It should be a fun, informal gathering of friends. Together, we'll grill a few brats, have a beer or two, check out our motorhome, see some fireworks. In the end, we won't say goodbye. We'll simply say, see you later. 

We wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July. It's an extra special holiday for us, as we celebrate our very soon-to-be independence.

Cheers!

Frenetic Friday

The madness continues! 

But first, we took a well-deserved break last night and met a former colleague for drinks after work. It was great to see her again and catch up. While we were together we ran into a client from our former firm. She seemed very interested in what we were up to and said we both look 10 years younger! 

After drinks the younger-looking two of us stopped for dinner at our favorite neighborhood restaurant for one last simple and very tasty Italian meal. We'll definitely miss that place, but look forward to finding many other favorite neighborhood spots around the country. 

Our frenetic day started early. We got the house ready for the walk-through with the new buyer. I finished the binding on Bullwinkle's quilt and finally got our old PC laptop up and running again. Then, we headed out to rescue Bullwinkle from storage. 

Bullwinkle's fulltiming journey is already underway! We vacated our not-so-secure storage lot and headed toward home to our friends' house with the big driveway. Boris captained the moose on its first trip through the nearby Caldecott Tunnel. As I followed behind in the squirrel, it looked as if Boris had made this trip hundreds of times. It was a piece of cake! We ventured along roads that were familiar to us, but new to Bullwinkle. Pulling into our friends' long driveway took some time and several friendly discussions, but we got it done, leaving the moose parked there for the holiday weekend. 

With Bullwinkle settled, we ran the short distance home to meet our buyer and her agents for the walk-through. She's a seemingly lovely woman who seems to think our house is lovely. And, she's paying over our asking price, cash. It was a weird visit. But, it's all good.

While the walk-through was wrapping up, our POD storage unit arrived. With much noise and fanfare, our 7 x 7 x 8 foot box landed safely on our street. Now, it's sitting there just waiting for us to fill it! And, we will. 

Next up is a final trip to the vet for one of our lucky felines. Then, we're off to the suburbs to have dinner with friends. 

Tomorrow is sure to be some kind of Saturday.

Thrilling Thursday

So much progress today! 

The most thrilling event of the day was the "de-staging" of our house. In just over an hour, a crew of three removed all of the furniture and decorative items. We couldn't believe how fast they worked! 

Boris sold the beemer today. Hip, hip Hooray! Now, our only vehicles are Bullwinkle and Rocky. 

The Salvation Army guys are starting to feel like family. They came by today to pick up another truck load. And, they'll be back for their final pickup on Monday. They are very grateful for our generosity. We are so grateful to them for giving new purpose to so much of our stuff. 

A friend stopped by this morning and saw the stack of stuff we put out for "the guys". He eyed our camping equipment and we handed it over. He'll put it to good use and we feel good helping out a friend. 

All of that thrilling activity leaves us with a big empty space. And, that's just what we needed. Now, we can actually see what's left. It actually looks like we're moving. 

It's about time!

Wonderful Wednesday

I'm sticking with the alliteration, folks. Whatever it takes to get through this wacky week! 

We still have lots to do today. So, this will be quick. 

The best part of today was our trip to the title company, where we signed our closing documents. (Yippee!) The second best part was seeing our big sectional get loaded into a truck after it was purchased by a lovely family. (Double Yippee!) The third best part was confirming a time tomorrow morning to deliver our BMW to its soon-to-be-new owner. (Triple Yippee!) And, just this moment the UPS guy dropped off our new bike rack cover. (Quadruple Yippee!)

The rest of the day has been (and will continue to be) spent sorting through stuff.  (How can we STILL have stuff in this house. Is it multiplying, or what?) We have designated three areas for our belongings: stuff for the RV, stuff for our two remaining Salvation Army pickups and stuff for the POD. Anything not fitting in one of those three categories is headed for the trash. (Something tells me we'll be combing neighborhood trash bins far and wide Sunday night!) We stacked our moving boxes inside one of the 7-by-7 foot squares in our garage, and we're optimistic that it might all actually fit. That said, we are continuing to be ruthless in our purging. 

When we've needed a break from that never-ending task, we've made calls and logged on to various service providers to change our address and "go paperless" whenever we can. When those activities provide a welcome break, it's time to get a new life. 

Oh yeah. We're are! 

Terrific Tuesday

And, what made today so great?

We sold a car!

Yee-HAW!

Our bug just left in the happy hands of a couple from our Winnie group. We just happened to mention at breakfast Sunday that it was for sale. That planted a seed. They thought about it on the way home and decided they needed to come and take a look. And, this evening they decided they needed to take it home. We're delighted that our vintage beauty has found a new home with friends. We wish them all many happy and carefree miles. 

Suddenly, we're feeling a lot lighter! 

The rest of the day we maintained our manic pace of packing and last minute purging. We're down to the wire here, so we are being ruthless in our purging. We are surprised that we still have stuff to get rid of.  (A word here to future fulltimers: When you're days away from hitting the road, chances are you'll be surprised, too.) Right now, though, it feels like we have it pretty well handled. 

The FedEx man delivered our new bike rack today, and Boris went right to work on the "some assembly" that was required. Within minutes, he had the new rack in one piece, and it looks like it will work great. The cover should be here tomorrow. It'll be great to get it all loaded on to the moose.

As the reality hit that we will be on the road in a week, I took a few minutes to plot out a route for our Oregon travels and make a campground reservation. As much as I would have loved to spend the rest of the afternoon planning, I could hear these boxes calling my name. 

They'll be plenty of time to work on planning our journey...soon.

And, that, dear readers, is all pretty terrific!

Manic Monday

Rested, refreshed and recharged after our weekend away, we hit the ground running this morning. We are in serious multi-tasking mode around here! 

Lots of things got done today. I mean, lots! 

We have two "big things" left in the house that belong to us: a sleeper sofa sectional and an upright freezer. We found a buyer for the former, put the latter on Craigslist and have one interested party for that. Our biggest concern about the sectional was getting it out of our upstairs loft. We have vague memories of delivery people struggling to wedge each piece up several flights of stairs. This is one of those things that has haunted us. We had hopes that our buyer would take it, but she's not interested. So, today Boris and I mustered our collective strength and geometry skills and successfully got the thing down to ground level. Yahoo!!

The person who bought our monster workstation is coming back tonight to pick up the remaining two pieces. So, with just one day of usable workspace left, I went to work on a bunch of tasks that required that required use of this big flat surface. I destroyed dozens of floppy disks. (I can't remember when I last actually used a floppy disk!) And, I started the process of erasing files from our desktop, which we'll give to charity on Thursday. That's a very time consuming task. The eraser application overwrites each file 35 times!

While the hard drive was humming, I ran a handful of clothes that will go into storage to the cleaners. (You don't want to store dirty clothes!) While I was out, I picked up Bullwinkle's quilt from the longarm quilter, brought it home, pulled out the sewing machine and sewed on the binding. I'll finish the job by hand, but I wanted to take advantage of this great workspace one last time. 

With the clock ticking, right now I am attempting to reinstall the operating system on our PC laptop. The operative word there is "attempting". No success yet. But, I'm hoping I can restore this thing to something that will at least be useful for surfing. If not, I'll erase the files on it and throw it in with the desktop. 

Boris was very busy today facilitating address changes, terminating utilities, faxing real estate paperwork, scheduling "de-staging" and our trip to the title company to sign documents for closing. The best news is I think he's found someone to buy our old bug. And, if that doesn't work out, it sounds like he might have a backup plan. 

After the rest of this workstation makes its way out the door tonight, I know two people who will definitely be ready to put their feet up!

Our Last Trip as Weekenders

We're back from our Winnebago outing in unbearably hot Chico. Check out Bullwinkle's Travels for details and evidence of the extreme heat.

It was sad saying so long to our fellow Chardonnay Travelers. We all vowed to stay in touch and look forward to seeing them somewhere down the road. They are a great group of people. We're so glad to know them. 

The weekend away was just what we needed. It was a welcome break before the scramble of our final week in our house. We got lots of great sleep, which we desperately needed, and wonderful support from our Winnie friends.

As we packed up and headed home this morning, we were very mindful that this was our last trip as "weekenders". The next time we leave a campground, we won't be headed home. Instead, we'll be leaving for another campground!  As we pulled Bullwinkle into the storage facility for the last time, we smiled at the the thought of never again having to squeeze through the entry gate or drive over countless speed bumps to get to our spot. I stopped in the storage office and got everything set up for us to vacate the place on Friday. We can't wait. 

It's Sunday, and our second to the last trash night. It'll be a big one! We have dinner scheduled with friends, then we'll be filling the extra space in our neighbors' bins. 

I have a feeling our plans for tonight are a precursor to the week: many farewell meals with friends, in between dumping the final loads of our stuff. 

It should be some kind of week. Then, we'll be "weekenders" no more!

Getting Ready to Store

We made today another good day. It definitely feels like we've left the "overwhelm" behind us. Boris says "we're out in front of it". And, I agree! There's bound to be another wave or two of emotion out there somewhere. But, for now, we have things well in hand. 

It just so happens that the seams in our garage floor create 7 x 7 ft. squares. How convenient! We've stacked most of our boxes in one of the squares, and so far so good. It looks like it should all fit. Our fingers are definitely crossed. 

Fellow future fulltimers Tom and Marci posed the question of what we're planning on packing in our POD. And, how we chose to go the POD route in the first place. Good questions! 

Although we have no idea how long we'll be fulltimers, we are planning to come off the road sometime. Be it in six months, or six years, we will find ourselves back in a stick and brick house one day. When that day comes, we don't exactly want to start over from scratch. We just might want to have some stuff. But, what do we know? 

With no family around for a couple thousand miles, we don't have a place nearby to "park" any of our possessions. Plus, we have no plans to land anywhere near here. Besides, there's nothing about Northern California that is central. Whatever we store needs to be moved. We decided we'd move our stuff to the middle of the country. That way, it's close to family, located in a place we plan to pass through several times while we're on the road, and a heck of a lot closer to any place we might eventually settle.

About a year ago, we started thinking about our criteria for what we would be willing to move and store for the duration of our fulltiming adventures. China, crystal, art, photos and quilts were the Big Five. Why? I'm not sure. But, they were. So, we went with it. Then, we added the mixer and my stash to the list. We own one piece of new furniture, which we looked far and wide for. It's small and we love it. So, it's the one piece of furniture we're planning to keep.  We each have a few files from our work lives that we want to hang on to. (I confess! I have several more than Boris.) We decided to keep a very few books. (How we chose which were keepers I really can't remember.) We also have a few mementos and heirloom type things that we just plain decided we'd keep.  And, we're going to pack a wardrobe box with a few things, mostly so we have dress clothes close to our family's homes should we need them for weddings and funerals. We've packed one small box that has Bullwinkle's factory-issued bedding inside. It's labeled "Load Last" so it'll be within easy reach when and if we trade for a new moose. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. We're taking our mattress and box springs, if they fit. If not, they'll be on the last charity load.

Now, that it's just about all packed up, it's more than we thought it would be. But, it is a small fraction of what we had.

Since we're moving and storing, we looked into the different options that were available. We found a handful of companies that do the "we'll bring a container to you, you load it, we'll pick it up and deliver it" thing. Originally, we thought we'd load our container and fly to Kansas City, rent a truck, unload the container and move it to a self storage. (Yeah, it didn't take us too long to figure out that was way too much work.) When we talked to the PODS people, they had a solution that really worked for us: they'd deliver a POD, we'd load it, they'd move it to their climate-controlled warehouse in Kansas City and there it would sit until we called them to deliver it to our sticks and bricks. And, the price was right. 

There are three handy sizes of PODS: small, medium and large. Based on the amount of stuff that met our storage criteria, we were thinking about going with the medium. But, we very recently discovered that the container that is the perfect size for us is not used for long distance moves. Curses! So, rather than paying for space we couldn't possibly fill, we decided to downsize. Where we once thought we'd have plenty of space, now we have our fingers crossed that it'll all fit.

If we were to approach all this purely from an economic perspective, we wouldn't move or store a thing. We'd ship a couple of boxes of family heirlooms to family members and call it done. For what we'll pay in moving and years of storage, we could probably replace everything in that container with funds to spare. We're letting our hearts guide us on this one. One day, we'll have that container delivered to our new house. Sure, we'll open some boxes and think "we can't believe we packed this worthless stuff". But, we'll open others and say, "we're so glad we kept this all these years." 

That'll be priceless!

A Better Day

We're on the upside of the pre-fulltiming ups and downs today. We woke up this morning determined to make it a good day, and guess what? It was! 

We worked hard today to clear a whole bunch of stuff out of here. The Salvation Army came and took away more than they said they could (thanks guys), which means all of our big, unsold furniture is now gone. 

Yee haa!

A young woman came and purchased our bar stools. Lots of meals, conversations, drinks and dreams were shared in those two chairs. Now, just like us, they're off on a new journey.  The husband of another young woman we've had lots of craigslist conversations with came to pick up the first load of our office furniture that they're getting for a steal, and they know it. Again, it's furniture that triggers years of memories for us. But, today, we're thankful that someone is willing to give this monstrous piece of furniture a new home.

Even with all the staging, our house is finally starting to feel empty. We have a stack of packed boxes that doesn't (yet) fill a 7x7 foot square in our garage. It looks like we might actually be moving around here. Finally, we have something that resembles a sense of accomplishment with all this.

And, that's a very good thing!

Mixed Bag

With this post, we raise our right hands and swear to tell the truth. 

It's not that we've lied in the past, mind you. It's just that today we're approaching the blog with a spirit of full disclosure, in hopes that it might provide some helpful perspective to another future fulltimer who comes down this road after us. 

Today was one of those days that reminds us what a big transition this is and how stressed we are.

The details of the day don't really matter, except that I (Natasha) found myself blubbering in tears twice today over stressful, but really stupid little things. Neither of us is getting much sleep these days, which is the recipe for a real mixed bag of emotions for the both of us, especially when we have a ton of things to do.

Yes, we have all sorts of things to do. There is still packing and purging, but it's tough to tell how much is left because we're living in a fully staged house. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we don't have to worry about all this stuff. It's really messing with us.

But, besides the packing and purging, we have to get the moose ready to hit the road. We had to drop it off in Petaluma today to get a window replaced. While on that 5-hour errand, we discovered we need a new bike rack and were disappointed to find the floormats we ordered from Winnebago to be, well, a disappointment. 

Besides getting the moose ready, we have to contact everyone from the post office to the daily newspaper to let them know our new address (which we just got today!), or discontinue service before we leave, or this, that or the other thing. There's so much that so many places need to know. And, we just hope it all works. 

We're tired. Really tired. Living a life of serious disruption for the last several weeks, we're not doing all of this with the energy of two excited people ready to start a new chapter in life...anymore.  No, today we feel like a couple of people in some serious need of a shot of Geritol. 

But, we know that between the tears and the grumpiness, we really are two excited people ready to start a new chapter in life. And, we know that we are truly blessed that we have such an opportunity. Sure, we're tired. But, we're healthy. And, any other day, we're pretty darn youthful. And, when we need to pull ourselves out of the dark side, we just remind ourselves how truly fortunate we are: We sold our house in four days! 

One way or another, this house will be empty come closing day. Every this, that and the other thing will be taken care of. Bullwinkle and Rocky will be ready. And, so will we. 

Meanwhile, we are in the midst of a big transition. We are stressed. It's good stress, indeed. But, still, it's stressful. 

Our advice to ourselves, and other good folks who follow us on this road, is to take care of ourselves and keep moving toward that light at the end of this tunnel. We'll emerge into the light of a sunny new day...very soon!

Where Did All This Stuff Come From?

Whew! I won't bore you with another lengthy post. Just know that the final round of purging and packing continues. 

The surprise du jour is that we still have a lot of stuff. 

Mind you, we've been working on parting with our stuff for a year. That's 365 days! And, still, we have a lot of stuff. 

Where did it all come from?

All I know is that in 14 days, most of it will be gone.

Facing Reality

This weekend has been a tough one, folks. With just a day or two over two weeks before we vacate this place, we're facing the hard truth about all of our stuff: We still have too much.

We ordered our POD today. It's arriving Friday, July 3 for us to load. Two weeks from tonight we'll have it locked and loaded, ready for pickup bright and early Monday, July 6. Then, it'll be shipped off to the midwest, where it will sit in climate-controlled comfort for who knows how long.

Our POD is small. At just 7 x 7 x 8 feet, that adds up to just 392 cubic feet for us to store everything we want to keep but don't want to take along in our 300 square foot motorhome.

As soon as the Salvation Army truck pulls away on Wednesday with all of our unsold Craigslist items, we're going to tape a 7 x 7 foot square on our garage floor and start stacking. That will be very interesting. 

Our game plan from here on out is to start emptying rooms. That's a little tough to do, because all of these rooms will have staging stuff in them until the 1st or so. Today, our goal was to empty the guest room. On the surface, that sounded like a quick, one-hour project. After all, it was just the closet. Seriously, I didn't think there was that much in there.  But, I'm sad to report our guest room is not yet "cleared". 

Ugh! 

To be fair, the guest room closet emptying project sort of spilled over into the office closet. So, I found myself dealing with stuff in that black hole, too. It ended up taking several hours and it's still not done. But, it's progress, I guess. 

Of special note in today's cleanup was my knitting stuff. I'm a newbie knitter who, I discovered today, appeared to have become quite interested in this new hobby. I demonstrated my new found enthusiasm by buying more yarn than I needed and starting and not finishing two sweaters and at least one pair of socks. Today, I had no room in my psyche for UFOs (Unfinished Objects). So, out went the sweater pieces. The collective hours that went into the trash today was tough to take. But, as Boris pointed out, one way to look at the time I spent on these two UFOs was as entertainment. 

"It's like watching a movie," he said. "If you enjoyed it at the time, it's worth it." 

Good point, dear. Thanks! 

I reduced my knitting clutter to one bag, which should ride just fine in the moose. Knitting is a great hobby for the road. It's lightweight and doesn't take much space or many tools.

I cleared my quilting stuff, too. I'm taking a wee bit of stash and a few essential notions with me on the road. It all fits in one small plastic container. Another container had notions I won't part with, and that will go to storage. The rest of my fabric, batting and my stash cabinet will be delivered to a quilting friend later this week.

So it goes! 

It's trash night once again, so time for the Sunday night check in. Our neighbors have a bulky trash pickup scheduled for tomorrow. They placed a few little things at the end of their driveway and invited us to add to the pile. We did! Thanks, neighbors! Our bins are once again filled to the brim. And, we have a couple of extra bags that will find a home in a neighborhood bin later tonight. 

What we're noticing right about now is how we're feeling about getting rid of our stuff. Some things, like the sectional in our loft, we're ready to take a chainsaw to them if that's what it takes to get them out the door. (Long story.) As we face the idea of purging smaller things, now this is the stuff that's made it through many cuts. 

In the end, the fate of the remaining little stuff will be determined by what will fit in 392 cubic feet.  

And, that's hard.

We Have a Deal

I can’t believe I am about to type these words. But, here goes.

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!

The last 24 hours have been a bit of a blur. What a ride it’s been. Actually, it started Saturday when we got a call from our agent that the “second looker” intended to write an offer. Our agent asked us to stay close to our rolling home. With that, we did our best to stay calm while emails began to fly. There were questions about this that and the other about the house. We made several trips into “town” to pick up voice mail messages and respond. As the flurry began to die down in the early evening, we stopped in the campground office and inquired about fax capabilities. We explained the situation and they graciously offered us ready access to their fax machine. With a potential offer in the wings, we didn’t get much sleep Saturday night. With our house on the market just three days, we had a feeling the offer would be a good one.

Sunday morning started with an email from our agent requesting a detailed recap of our recent roof repairs. We compiled the information and sent it off with 10 pictures of our neat and tidy roof. Then we waited. 

Just before noon, we checked email for the thousandth time and at last saw the message we had been waiting for. We had an offer. And, it was a good one. This buyer wanted to buy our house for more than our asking price. Significantly more. And, it would be a cash transaction. Cash! We could not believe our eyes!

Our agent was hosting our first open house in the early afternoon, so we had to wait until that wrapped up to review the contract with her. (The open house was a huge success, with about 100 lookers and rave reviews.) We went through the contract page by page and crafted our counter-offer. (We were fine with the price, of course. There were just a few other little things.) It was well past closing time when we made it back to the campground office. But, the managers gracefully offered to stay and facilitate the receiving and sending of a bunch of legal papers. With the deal now back in the prospective buyer’s hands, we got less sleep Sunday night than the night before. 

We didn’t have to wait long to get the word this morning. The campground manager delivered a one-page fax containing a addendum of one tiny detail to the contract. With that, we drove back to town to call our agent. Our counter had been verbally accepted! We drove back to the campground and faxed the signed and dated addendum. The buyer and her agent met at 1PM to get her signatures. With that, the deal was done. We have a contract!

We close July 7th.

We can’t wait to tell this campfire story: In the crappiest real estate market in decades, we sold our house in four days for significantly more than our asking price to a cash buyer. Three weeks later, we hit the road.

Our fingers are crossed that it turns out that way.

Regulating Inspections

OK. We have just three things to say today:

1. We didn't get to go see Gypsy. We'll try again tomorrow.

2. The management at this KOA are the nicest people in the world. If you ever stay here in the middle of a life-changing event, we promise, they will be of great help.

3. The Great State of California is a mess.

Number 1 requires no explanation. Hang with us. We'll get there.

Number 2 might require some explanation. And, we will provide it. We promise. Just give us time.

So, on to this messed up state. Here's something we learned today: We're calling it "Reason #956 why we can't wait to leave this silly state." 

Did you know that when you have a structural/pest inspection on your house in the state of California and the inspector "finds something", that that very same inspector is expected to do - and be paid for - the work? All courtesy of state regulations! And, if you, the ever wise home seller decide to choose someone else to do the job because you see a more than obvious conflict of interest, then the regulations kick in again. Yes, you see, if you choose another contractor, then you must invite the inspector back to make another inspection. And, yes, that will cost ya!

Geez.

Tell me where I can sign up for a gig like this: You have people pay you to discover work they need to pay you to do. And, if they don't, you charge them to come back and make sure it was done. 

Only in California!

Three Ringy Dingies

Our very lazy first day in Shingletown has been punctuated by three very encouraging rings.

Cell phone service here is spotty. But, thankfully, we have wi-fi. So, first thing this morning we emailed our real estate agent to let her know how to best reach us. 

Actually, the cell phone service is cruelly spotty. The phone will ring, we answer, then after a word or two the call is dropped. Yes, it's very frustrating.

The "arrangement" that realtors in our area have with sellers is they will call the seller's listing phone number anytime they want to show the property. If there is no answer, they "leave a message and go." So, when Boris' phone rang this morning with an unfamiliar home area code phone number, we let it ring. An hour or so later, another call from an unfamiliar number. Again, we let it ring. Later this afternoon, phone call number three came in. Once more, we let it ring.

We hopped in the Jeep and drove a few miles into "town" where facilities are few but cell service is strong. We picked up the messages left on his cell phone: Three showings scheduled for today! 

Yee hah! Three showings on Day #2 has to be a good sign. Doesn't it?

We'll definitely keep you posted.

Much Needed Road Trip

Greetings from Shingletown, California! Much more to come on Bullwinkle's Travels. But, the breaking news for this blog is that we are away in our home away from home!

Suddenly, THIS is feeling like our home. There is no staging here. The cats are free to roam anywhere they wish in these 300 square feet. We are all very happy here. 

Ahhhh!!! 

While the craziness of selling a house takes place some 250 miles south, we are here at a cozy campground where everyone, including the cats, feels VERY comfortable. 

We are thankful for a trouble-free travel day, and look forward to a few days of fun, relaxation and exploration in and around Mt. Lassen National Park.

Much more to come.