Moving Day

  It's been a long, hard slog but Moving Day was completed successfully. Well, Moving Three Days, actually.

  For the past two months we've been looking at everything we have with a critical eye. Do we need this? Am I ever going to fit into this again? Why do we have three of these? You haven't used this in ten years! I hate this picture!

  Reducing our lives from filling a 2,500 sq ft house to a 200 sq ft storage unit has taken patience, objectivity and a degree of ruthlessness. How many of those things we've collected actually mean anything to us? How much of what we had was there because we had room for it? When we sold our house in 2017 we actually "downsized" to a bigger house! As a result, we ended up buying more furniture to fill it, more art to go on walls and stored more stuff in our unfinished basement.

  This new adventure has forced us to pare our belongings down to essentials. When your belongings can be measured in cost per sq ft it forces you to re-evaluate what is really important to you. For us to rent a bigger storage unit would have cost an additional $100-$150/month. How much is that box of books you read twenty years ago worth to you when you measure its worth by the cubic foot?

  Since we started this I've made five trips to the Salvation Army with a minivan loaded to overflowing each time. By now I think our discarded belongings could fill a good portion of their retail outlet. Add to that a bunch of things sold on Facebook Marketplace, a load of bric-a-brac from deceased relatives that went to a collectibles dealer and three loads to the local dump and it's been quite the weight loss journey. The kids have taken some stuff as well, either permanently or borrowed until we settle back down. All of it has helped to shrink our footprint to where we are now.

  So you have an idea of how that all went I present you with this:

  To fully appreciate this requires you to immerse yourself within it. We'll call this the All-Immersive Jenga Experience. You must be over 54" tall to ride this ride. Don't touch anything unless you want a microwave or a box of hats to fall on your head. I guess a box of hats wouldn't be too bad although the box has corners that might hurt, but I digress.

  Suffice to say loading everything we own into the unit was a challenge. It was a bit like a magician pulling things from his hat. Just when you think he can't pull anything else out of there, POOF, a rhinoceros! Whenever I thought I couldn't add a wafer-thin mint to the organized chaos I'd find a crevice or some other hole that needed filling. Fortunately we don't live in an earthquake zone or it would be a disaster movie in the making -- "Shockwave: Storage Unit Hell", now playing. Enter at your own risk.

  After living with Jen this weekend we hit the road Monday. Our schedule is:

• May 29 - June 3: Wandering from Newmarket to Arizona
• June 4 - 27: Prescott Valley, AZ
• June 28 - June 30: Wandering from Arizona to San Francisco
• July 1 - 16: Richmond, CA
• July 17 - 18: Drive from San Francisco to Vancouver
• July 19 - August 19: Surrey, BC
• August 20 - 27: Wander from Vancouver to Minnesota
• August 28 - September 13: Montgomery, MN
• September 14 - 16: Wander from Minnesota to Toronto

  We plan to see as much as we can see, do all the things we can do and eat all the different local foods as we can eat. We'll golf, hike, walk dogs, ride horses, visit museums and other points of interest and visit far-flung friends and family. We have tickets for the Jays at Seattle July 23. We may get tickets to see the Savannah Bananas in Des Moines, Iowa, August 25/26. As you read along with us you'll see where we went and what we did, good or bad, because this is the unknown and you all have told us you want to know how the adventure unfolds.

  We know you want to communicate with us while we wander but know that our Canadian cell phone numbers won't get you any joy when we're in the USA. We'll be using US SIM cards with different numbers so the best way to reach us is by Facebook Messenger. If you absolutely need to reach us urgently the kids will have our US phone numbers. If you send us a text on our US numbers we'll call you back as we can call you free but you can't call us free.

  Also, since we can call/text you without charge you might see a call from a 520 area code. That's us, not spam.

  By the way, if you're leaving comments on this blog please don't be anonymous. Google can tell us who you are if you let it and we want to know what you think about all this. Also, if you click the "Follow" button on my posts then you'll always know when there's a new episode when you look at Blogger. For the time being I'll post new episodes on FB but it would be easier if you just follow us.

  Monday we hit the road. Can't wait!