Not quite ready to go

So this is Pat writing. I keep trying to write, but am so exhausted that i don't have the energy!

We are leaving this Thursday for this great adventure, and I am in a state of numbness at present. In the past 12 days, we have cleaned up after a wonderful party for Jay and Lindsey, packed up mostly all of our personal belongings as well as some furniture, rented a UHaul and brought box after box to our upnorth house, and came back home to finish up. "Finishing up" means putting the rest of our stuff in locked storage, and leaving the house in some presentable shape to rent, as well as pack for our 2 1/2 months cross country.

We leave with much ambiguity: our boxes are not unpacked upnorth and we have to figure out where and how to put our things there, so it is unfinished; we have no renters as yet for our Ann Arbor house. So far we leave not knowing who may rent it, how long, and if it will even rent. We are not sure where or when we will return in late April, it is really unsettled. It struck me last night that if we don't return to Ann Arbor, we haven't even said good-bye, we;re just sort of leaving town. I do want to do this, I do want this adventure, but I am grieving the transition, the huge change this all entails. I am putting voice and words to these emotions because i think it is so important to acknowledge them.

We are both feeling them, and able to talk about it together, though I tend to just get pretty withdrawn, and Dan gets more talkative. Different styles, but both going through all the feelings of a huge transition---retirement, spending the winter in another location, moving houses, etc. wonderful times ahead, we are sure, but the getting there is filled with many emotions.

So, read on, and stay with us, as we travel the country with our intrepid dog, Gus.

And oh, yeah, p.s., we leave behind ALOT OF SNOW!!!! This, we will not miss!

My goose, which is about 14 inches high, is covered in snow!

We are back in Ann Arbor. In the last week, we have packed up most of our belongings and hauled them up north. What is left in the house is most of our furniture, but almost all of our belongings have been moved up north. So essentially, we are now residing up north. This has been exhausting, as all of you probably know because of your own moves. I am on autopilot, and just moving from one task to another. We emptied the entire 17 ft Uhaul truck up north . We got help with some of the furniture. Wally helped me load in A2 and Don Ranville helped me in Cedar. Without their help I don't know what we would have done. It didn't help that we are in a cold wave, and yesterday it was about 12 degrees in Cedar with six inches of new snow.

Pat has been working relentlessly on packing and on things in each house. We are whipped. Now all we have to do is pack up for California and get the house ready for potential renters. We've both been working non stop and are ready to get this over with and to get on the road for our next adventure.

First delivery trip to Cedar

I just returned from trip number one to drop off our belongings in Cedar. Like our previous blog, we are posting these things for our own log of our adventures, if people want to read and post comments, that is great. But you might find some of the postings boring, such as what we at a particular restaurant, or how bad the roads were on a particular day. I did set it so that anyone can comment.

This was a short trip, I left Tuesday morning and returned Wednesday morning. I brought a whole van load full of stuff, filled to the top. The trip was uneventful, except for the drive home, which was on snow covered roads half of the way. I did stop at the Turtle Creek Casino and won about $90 playing Three Card Poker and Let it Ride.

Sunday we are getting a large UHaul trailer and bringing a large load, including some furniture back up north on Monday. It is exciting that we have started this adventure, but right now, readying the house seems overwhelming. Pat worked very hard while I was gone, but we have a long way to go.

Dan

Preparing for our trip

Step one in a trip like this is to prepare your current home, or in our case homes, to be left empty. We have been working hard to empty the Ann Arbor house, so that it can be available for rent. Our initial plan was to rent it short term, up to six months. We listed it with a realtor and have since realized there is also a long term rental market for people coming to Ann Arbor for work for 2-3 years. So we are planning with that also as an option. We have spent the last week throwing things out, preparing things for storage, and traveling to the Salvation Army and the Ann Arbor land fill. Dan is going to take a full van of things to Cedar today. Our long term plan is to relocate in Cedar and rent the Ann Arbor house for a while until the economy rejuvenates. We are excited and overwhelmed at the moment.

More postings later

Dan