Tag: packing

Packing Up for a Month

It’s the weekend before we leave Monday morning for our month-long trip. Fiona is excited to see her sister Rachelle. That’s a photo there of the two of them last August when Rachelle came to Rice Lake, Wisconsin to visit.

What do you take with you when you know you’ll be gone a month? And you’re on a budget and know you don’t want to eat out too  much so you have to bring food stuffs along. Easy! We’ve done this so often it really doesn’t take us long at all.

Joel and I did some shopping for on-the-road snacks and drinks yesterday. Things like:

  • Water, iced tea, apple juice boxes for Fiona, lemonade mix, hot cocoa mix for Fiona
  • Chips, pretzels, pita crackers, fruit & grain bars
  • Black olives (Sue loves those), three-bean salad, baked beans
  • Chocolate – milk chocolate and M&Ms for Fiona, lots of dark chocolate for the adults

We still have to get the giant jar of green olives and Sue has to make bread rolls for making vegetable sandwiches for the road. Isn’t this exciting?

Montreal 1st Leg: Roseville to Phoenix

Official time out: 7:30am PST, only 30 minutes later than planned. Good thing we woke up two hours early. About a 13-hour drive.

It almost fit. We’re leaving (besides what’s already in storage) four small boxes and two folding tables. If we weren’t taking an extra bass guitar and a microwave for friends we’re staying with in Phoenix, it would have fit. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it over again. Friends mean more than stuff.

The two bits that hurt are leaving my early 70s Ludwig snare drum, and all the DVDs. I’ll survive until December, when they’ll fit.

Amazing thing is, we called it, spot on. If we hadn’t chosen to deliver some stuff for beloved friends, we would have exactly perfectly fit everything we wanted to bring along into the van.

For totally winging it, not even having a dry run to pack, stuffing it all in for the first time on the morning we leave our old life for the new, well, it’s simply amazing.

Nomads wing it. That’s us; winged nomads.

Growing Up and Moving Out

We’ve spent the last three days packing, moving, selling stuff. My two grown children, James and Rachelle, moved into their first apartment. It’s a big step for me to let my children grow up and move out! Though I think I’ve been handling it well and am very proud of them, it’s very emotional also. Sure I’m the one that is going away to travel, leaving them behind. And I know this is going to be a very good thing all around. I’m still allowed to get a bit emotional and cry some.

Especially after James sends an email like this, “Just short and sweet. It’s been exactly 5 years since I moved down. It’s been great. It was definitely for the best, all things considered and done, even the trying and impossibly difficult. Here they could be fought and overcome. Thank you both for the letters I still keep that made me decide to move here to begin with. Enjoy your travels.”

Rachelle is handling it all quite well. She said after their first night away, “I woke up and was a little confused, where am I??, but it only last a second.  It still feels a little weird though! I keep thinking about ‘when I go home’ and then realize I am home!”

I’ll miss seeing them every day. But I know we’ll stay in close touch. I’m proud of you both and wish you both the very best life has to offer!