Countdown

Countdown
August 24, 2006

The last few days before take off were
quite surreal and very intense. We lost all
sense of reference points as everything

The last few days before take off were quite surreal and very intense. We lost all sense of reference
points as everything in our old reality disappeared before our eyes. Everything is sold, thrown away, given away, packed for the trip or moved into a 10×10 storage space near relatives several hours away. On one level it is very freeing, but its also a little scary at times and totally confusing and disorienting at moments. Too many times we go to grab something simple that we need like a pen or piece of paper to write something on and it’s already packed or given away. The non liquid restrictions on carryon these days just add to it because one can not pack in a normal way. I have triple bagged every liquid in ziplock bags, so now much is lost in duffles where much had to be done at the last moment…. never to be seen again until we unpack in the RV.

Moving is different when you are not moving into another place and are simultaneously taking off on an open ended journey. One gets all the confusion of moving and more. (Grin.)We thought it was good training for our upcoming life, but its a weird feeling to let all that is familiar go. It is strange to watch the three vehicles you have owned for years disappear down your street on a tow truck suddenly leaving you car less. One begins to see clearly that this journey is not for the faint of heart and one wonders and hopes that it’s the right choice and that all of us have the fortitude. Meanwhile, the relentless clock continues to tick and there is no turning back.

Just by chance my mom and step father scheduled a short golf trip many months ago just days before our random departure date. We waited until September to miss the summer tourists in Europe and to get a little better deal on the flight and to enjoy the perfect summer weather of our area. What a godsend that turned out to be! We thought we would just stay in a motel, but there was so much to still be done and such confusion that this was so much better and gave us more room for what we needed, not to mention a car. We still had to deal with lots of learning curve since we never drove their car before, nor did we know where all the house lights were or how to use their remote etc, but it was comforting to be in a beautiful place we knew well Plus it was in town, so much closer to all those endless last minute errands that still needed doing and the empty garage was the perfect place to deal with all our luggage. Thanks mom and Al!

Ms. Mozart was enjoying Seascape day camp which we could book by the day where she enjoyed going
to the beach, swimming pool and tennis lessons and lots of fun crafts and new friends while we toiled away finishing up. The poor thing had to wear the same old things over again as we were down to throw away clothes, but she did not seem to mind. She also had lots of play dates with our lovely neighbors Cindy and Mo who are the sweetest people. So she had lots of fun while we completed things.

Of course,not everything went smoothly. One night we were going to go to grandma’s house to sleep, but she fell asleep on the way home because we ate and did several errands before heading home. Luckily we still had our hide a bed couch, so we quickly changed plans and  improvised a bed for her in our empty bedroom with cushions from the couch and threw left over sheets on the windows. We retrieved our blankets out of the go-to -goodwill bag. She never even knew it was not her bed. We worked late into the night and then had her join us in the pull out bed.

The evening  before move out was an interesting one as Murphy’s law set in. First the people who were to pick up the vehicles cancelled, then the person getting the couch cancelled, then the maid we have used for years cancelled. Yikes! There were moments of frustration and panic, but it was actually more like that Goeth quote:

“once you commit…”

Luckily our landlords are great people who are flexible and the person moving in was too. The vehicles had to leave early in the morning the new tenant arrived and the couch was claimed by the wonderful man we found to clean the house (who just happened to have a job cancel on him so was available for us).

We were burning the candles at both ends, but felt very supported by spirit. We had a lot to do, but had so many small miracles and really felt like we were in the flow. Every where we went on the last day we would find the perfect parking place right in front and everything just seemed to click.

We originally thought we would just use carryon bags and packed that some time ago. We had some particular problems because I do not wear a size that is easy to find in Europe and we were planning a small RV for the first few months and then would be in a four bedroom home. So I had to think of all the clothes I would need for at least 2 1/2 years and how to  solve the dilemma of carrying too much in a small space to get to a large space. We are also homeschooling and need more books than most, plus we will be planning a lot of the trip as we go so have lots of important books on travel that were hard to pare down.

We will also be using a 2 way small satellite for most of the trip (starting in November when we pick it
up in Malaga Spain) so that we can have 24/7 internet connection. We had to buy a tripod to go with the satellite and it was cheaper to buy it here, but cost a young fortune to send to Europe. So we decided to take it with us via check in luggage duffle bag style. We also bought a car vest for Ms Mozart which would take the place of a car seat, so that needed to be in check in as well.

So once we opened up the can of worms of check in, we thought about more things that we would like to bring and our list kept growing ,so we kept buying more duffles. Mostly we brought books, some toys,huge selection of DVD’s, CDroms  and things that are hard to find or are expensive in Europe. I lived in Europe for a year, so I know an expat needs pictures from home and comfort food sometimes. So we have things like a bunch of mac and cheese packed a way, pancake mix and Mrs Buttersworth syrup, and enough pumpkin and condensed milk and spices to make pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as a big bag of brown sugar for my holiday candied yams .We never get sick but we have enough child and adult cold remedies etc  to handle anything as we hear they are hard to find there, plus a big supply of our vitamins and alternative health things. So even tho all the clothes we need were packed in a small amount of carryon (due to picking lots of Exofficio or similar easy to pack multi-purpose clothes), we ended up also checking 6 duffle bags!

It will definitely be a challenge in the RV, but hopefully worth the effort for our winter home in Spain. I know I brought too many books (& I also sent some ahead via m-bag to both Spain and Amsterdam) but we are bookaholics and I figure I can always sell some in Spain if I need to regroup once we leave there. I got rid of a ton of books (while I was also buying some essential books for the trip 😉 but I just could not part with them all, so much of the carryon weight is in books. We stuffed Ms. Mozart’s violin in carryon and will buy a digital piano in Amsterdam to add to our pile. I figure I can always get rid of stuff if I do not need it and we have time before we are on the road more permanently next spring. Family will be visiting and we can ask them to bring something or take it back for us.

Another challenge in those last few days was deciding to put almost everything we had in photo albums and important papers that were stored onto discs to take with us or store on the internet. Sure, it is something that should have been done a long time ago, but it just never got done because we were just too busy taking care of other things. So that was an intense process of taking things out of storage and scanning everything before putting them back into storage and taking things like VHS tapes to a video place to put on CD. Not a fun process with such a short time to do it in, but well worth the great effort and comforting to know they are with us.