We have the house closing set for early morning on the 12th of May. Lynne and I want to get "on the road" asap after that. So, we've been mapping out a route to the cabin that has a few constraints:

1. We don't want to go more than between 500 and 600 miles each day.
2. Would like to arrive at the cabin early in the afternoon. (This leaves plenty of time to get the cabin "running", unpack, etc.)
3. Need a contingency place to park the travel trailer if the roads are muddy.
4. Will only have 1/2-day of travel the first day.
5. Need to stay in motels that are pet friendly.

I think we have a plan.

We'll load both trucks on the 11th and be ready to go. We've done this many times to prepare for vacation, so this should be easy. We will hook up the T@B (travel trailer) to the Expedition and have it ready to go, also. We will leave the dogs and cat in the empty house and take the loaded Suburban to the closing, which is about 30 minutes away. When the closing is done, we'll drive back to the house to pick up the animals. Lynne will drive the Suburban and I'll drive the Expedition.

I think we will then be able to head West around noon. Our first overnight stop would be Clarion, PA. That is about a 308 mile drive, so about 6 hours. Not bad for a first day.

The second day will be the long one, but shooting for Davenport, IA, seems to make sense. 627 miles, probably about 12 hours of driving. That is a longish day, but if we leave around 7:00 a.m. we should arrive around 6:00 in the evening. We get the advantage of a time change.

The third day will be shorter and we'll strive for North Platte, NE. This is about 577 miles, maybe 11 hours of driving. And, another free hour with the time change.

We've found Comfort Inns in each of these places that are well rated and pet friendly, so that is whom we will likely make reservations with.

Finally, we will make it in to Laramie after another 270 miles or roughly 5-1/2 hours of drving. That should put us into Laramie around noon. We'll do some minimal shopping (meals for a couple of days), then head to the cabin. That is another 25 miles or so, and will take 45 minutes. If the roads are muddy, we'll need a place to store the travel trailer. We don't have that sorted out yet, but maybe the storage facility where we will store some household goods would allow us to park there for a few days? We hope the roads are not muddy and we can take the trailer directly into the cabin.

So, that's the plan. About 1,800 miles. About 35 hours of driving. (We usually make it in 31 hours without the trailer.)

Wish us luck!

When I got paid last week, it occurred to me that it was one of the last paychecks I'm likely to get in my life.

I've been earning a paycheck since I was a pre-teen. mowing lawns, paper route, radio DJ, data processing at a bank, computer operator at White Sands, satellite tracking technician, service engineer for HP, then many other jobs in HP, Agilent, Verigy, finally landing as VP of Marketing at Vision Research. Wow, probably close to 50 years of earning a paycheck. And, all without a break where I was unemployed.

This is scary. No more paychecks?

I've gotten very used to the idea of something coming in every couple of weeks to offset what gets paid out, and to have something left to set aside. Now, we'll have to be pulling from that "set aside" to live.

I will likely take on some periodic consulting or contract work in retirement. But no regular paycheck.

Very scary. But, the freedom of not getting up each week day with the obligation to put in a day's work for a paycheck very exciting. I have no idea what that is like.

Okay, I've made this claim before but I think we finally have success at establishing a mailing address.

I've sent two letters recently. And, a neighbor (who is checking our mail box and letting us know when mail succeeds) sent a few postcards to our address. All have arrived! (Our neighbor has not checked recently since there is too much snow to get out to the mailboxes.)

I will continue to send something about once a week until we start to forward mail. Of course, at that point there will be plenty of mail addressed to the cabin to establish reliable and on-going delivery.

Still, it is a weird address. And, not "legal" according to the USPS. One small example that came up yesterday is probably only the tip of the iceberg. I changed my phone over from AT&T to Verizon. I've been a loyal AT&T customer for many, many years, but we cannot get their cell signal at the cabin. We can get Verizon...sometimes. Anyway, I needed to establish an online account to set up billing, etc. When I typed in the cabin address, it would not accept it since it was not an address recognized by anyone (after all it is a "virtual" address that no GPS would recognize, and the USPS does not recognize it either).

This is a follow up post to Mail Box Success. I take it back. Between mid-November, when I wrote that post, and now, I've done two additional test mailings. After all, we are getting closer and closer to needing to forward our mail, and I want to continue to remind the postal carrier about us and our address. 

Unfortunately, neither of the subsequent mailings have been successful. Both have been returned.

I'm sending the most recent return, with its little yellow "Return to Sender, No Such Street, Unable to Forward" sticker back to a neighbor to actually show to the letter carrier and ask "what's up?" After all, why can't a letter mailed to an invalid Laramie, WY address, meant for a remote cabin in CO, to be delivered to a mail box at the Wooden Shoe Ranch, not find its way?

Hey, life, look at me
I can see the reality
'Cause when you shook me, took me out of my world
I woke up
Suddenly I just woke up to the happening ~ The Supremes

Yikes. It's happening. It's really, truly all starting to happen. 

We found out last week that the buyers had qualified for their loan on the house. They also were asking how we felt about the closing date. Right now it's set for May 12th, but if they closed in April that would save a good amount in interest rates. We told them to go ahead and do what they needed to do to get the lower interest rate and we would figure it out. We proposed the idea of closing, then renting back from them for a month until we can be more certain of getting in to the cabin and Rick's jobs ends. We've not heard back so we are assuming that all is going as planned. Our buyers have been wondeful in working around our weather and time contraints. Very accomodating.

That's the other thing: Rick turned in his resignation letter to the company the other day. His final day is May 13th.

Like I said, it's happening.

On Friday we have two different estate sale companies sending out someone to look at all that we will be selling when we move. We've decided this is the quickest and easiest way to get rid of all the things we are not taking with us, which is a considerable amount of furtniture, some antiques, and things that just are not going to fit in with our lifestyle anymore. The cabin is already furnished, albeit in a "cabinesque" style, but it's things we like having around us. Some of it is flea market finds, while others American Furntiture Warehouse delivered.

We don't want to have to store a lot of furniture not knowing if and when we will be living somewhere other than the cabin. We've learned after many moves that furniture does not store well. And why drag it around with us like a tortoise with its shell? We are giving it a lot of thought and not just making snap decisions. Once in a while we will decide to move something to the "go with us pile" from the sell pile. Hopefully we won't have any regrets when it's all said and done.

Time seems to be flying by now.