Getting There, part 1

I truly hate leaving. I don't mean just moving, I mean leaving. Whenever it was time to pack up and go, be it to San Francisco, New Orleans, or just a road trip, my gut would sink and a minor depression sets in. I feel bad, I feel sad. You think after years of doing it, it would be second nature. It's not. If anything, it's gotten worse.

You throw packing and moving into the mix, and I'm a mess. This move has been the worst, largely because we don't know what we're moving to. How do you pack for a boat? How much can we bring? How much cold weather can we expect, and how cold? How much space is in the kitchen? I saw the boat, but I just don't recall. This move is a particular challenge largely because of how much I don't know. I don't even know how much I don't know.

Thankfully, we started loading up a couple of days earlier than our departure date. We have to put everything into one of five categories: stays here, to the boat, to storage, to donate, and to the dump. I would hold something and freeze, like a deer in headlights, trying to come up with some answer. 

When we said goodbye to a friend in New Orleans, we planned on driving the RV and truck together, like a caravan to Florida. Late in the afternoon, however, we got an offer to have the RV purchased. So packing became even more complex, loading out the RV as well as the condo. We needed the extra time.

Crowded in the U-haul

The day we planned on leaving, a huge rainstorm blew in the night before, and rain continued throughout the day. That storm plagued us not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times during the trip. It made loading a bother in New Orleans, then we had to drive through it to get to Pensacola, our first stop. It passed us that night, so we had to drive through it again, around Tallahassee. Then we turned down the Florida peninsula, and the storm came slamming back for a last visit. That one was a doozy -- our phones went off with tornado warnings, urging us to seek shelter immediately. The rain remained throughout the day, making the already congested rush hour traffic around Tampa just horrendous.

Our dogs know that when they see us packing it's time for a road trip. Ready to travel they bolting into the coach. When I tried to get them to leave, explaining that we're selling the vehicle, Savannah wouldn't even look at me.

The pic to the right wasn't taken on this trip (you could tell, because the skies are blue here). This was along I-10, between Pensacola and Tallahassee, just one week after Hurricane Michael. You may have to blow up the picture to appreciate it. It was a forest. This kind of devastation when on for miles. In fact, you drive for over an hour at 70 mph and the view is just like this the entire time. The hurricane was more like a 80 mile wide tornado.