After 15 years in our house and 19 years in California,
we were ready to leave. We lived on a
fantastic cul-de-sac with great neighbors, but it was time to begin the
adventure.
On April 12th, the sale of our house was registered and
we closed escrow. Emily and I did a walk-through of the house with Peter
and JP (and their beautiful daughter Sophie). We wish them the best and
hope that they will enjoy the house and neighborhood as much as we did
Next step: clean out the house. The interior of the
house was already empty; everything that we wanted to keep had been transferred
to the garage. We loaded up the pickup with a load for the dump and the
trailer with everything that was going to Minnesota with us. For those of
you who have seen my garage/workshop, this picture might be surprising:
By 5:00p, everything was out of the house, so the truck
and trailer were loaded. The house was
locked (the keys left in the kitchen) and we left through the garage, leaving
the openers inside. We were locked out
for the first time in 15 years (it’s not our house anymore!), but that didn’t
stop us from having one last shindig on the driveway.:
Emily and I shared a bottle of champagne with our
neighbors and very good friends Rory and Lindy.
They also brought chairs and snacks, so we chatted for a while and
watched the sun go down. After a short
time, neighbors Bill and Peter also joined us for a final send-off:
From there, it was back to the Extended Stay hotel to
pack up clothes, photos and other personal effects. We spent the night and next morning finishing
this work. Here’s a picture of the
trolley with the totes and suitcases that we packed in the hotel:
And we’re off! Bound
for Minnesota, we’re planning to take I-80 through Reno and Salt Lake City to
get there. The trailer is really slowing
us down; we can do max 60 mph on the freeways.
We got to Wendover, NV, on the night of the 14th after
fighting a blowing snowstorm 30 miles out of town. We decided to stay in Wendover at the Rainbow
Hotel/Casino for the night.
After we checked into the room, I looked at weather
conditions for Wyoming the next day.
Damn Xerxes! This winter storm
was going to close I-80 across Wyoming for the next two days! Emily and I decided to make to most of it and
spend a couple of days at the hotel.
We’ve always enjoyed cheap casinos, and Wendover provided a few for
us. We spent these two days playing $3
blackjack, $2 craps, penny slots and
nickel video poker, along with $2.99 ham and eggs breakfasts. It was a good
time to decompress from all of the activity from the past month. We also spent
time in the sportsbook watching the Giants, our last exposure to CSN and live
Giant’s games!
Wednesday morning (4/17), we checked all of the state
travel websites for Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and South Dakota. We’re heading out – Minnesota bound!
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