Just About Ready to Go!!!!

Just eleven days until we pick up Erin and start our summer/fall adventure. WooHoo!!! We decided to stay in the house until sometime next week. Might as well use the house water and sewer instead of filling up the tanks in the motorhome. Plus, it's really been easier to organize in the MH. I've had just about everything out of the cabinets and closet and re-sorted, rearranged and labeled. Dan cleaned the basement storage areas and rearranged those also. Looks like we'll actually have some extra space even after he includes tools and a small air compressor.

He made some dividers for the cabinets so canned food and such will stay better organized while traveling. Just normal accelerating and braking can really mess up the cans. Our MH has such a smooth ride that very few things shift around during travel, but I hadn't found a way to keep the cans from sliding around. That rubberized shelf liner just gets wrinkled up. I do put the coffee pot in the sink and the toaster oven and 2 or 3 other items in a basket on the floor while traveling.

Dan sold the dump truck to the Village of Rochester last week, so the only work vehicles left are the Kioti tractor and the old 1983 Dodge Van (otherwise known as the Brogdon Bus). Gretchen drove the Brogdon Bus in high school and had several "adventures" with it; but I won't elaborate on those here.

Dan has purchased a bike rack for the back of the truck so the bikes won't have to lay in the bed of the truck. Three bikes will fit on it. Really nice!! And he began moving some of the tools into the front garage in preparation for a sale when we get back to Rochester in the fall. He had already sorted everything, but things were really crowded in the back garage and it wouldn't be very easy to display everything.

I just need to move food from the freezer and fridge and all the food will be in the MH. Sorting through the spice cabinet was quite interesting. I found 3 jars of chili powder and 3 cans of cocoa and numerous spices that I'm not sure how old they were. If I couldn't smell them when I opened them; they were history!! And I'm not sure why I even bought some of them. I bought some new spices and they now have a "date of purchase" marked on them.

We still need to go through a few clothes and decide what do to with them, but we are really close to being ready to leave. Monday I'll start calling to stop the paper, cable TV, trash pickup and all that stuff. A friend will be picking up our mail at the post office twice a month and sending it to us. We have switched everything to online bills and payments except for one insurance statement, so we don't have much mail. And our neighbor is going to mow our yard.

I didn't start out to write so much, but since this blog is also a diary of sorts, I guess I can write whatever I want to. :) We will be back in the fall to finish working on the house to put it on the market. Some might ask why we don't get that done now and then travel, but without going into detail; we have decided this is best for us.

So June 2 it's off to Ohio for Sarah and Chad's wedding, then to Branson, MO for the RV-Dreams rally; Burdett, KS to visit friends; Denver to visit Jean (Gail's sister) and Steve; Carbondale, CO to visit Tim, Karen, Elijah and Isaac in their NEW home; and then on to Seattle for Lucy's birthday. And we'll be stopping along the way to enjoy this wonderful country and all the beautiful sites and scenery, and posting pictures.

AND, we're so happy to have Miss Erin traveling with us.

More later........