TTFN - Friday, August 3, 2007

Palmdale, CA to Las Vegas, NV
275 miles today

I can't believe it really. It's so surreal, leaving here. I have so many mixed emotions. I loved the desert, but what made this place home had nothing to do with geography. The Antelope Valley has been the only home I've ever known because that's where my family is, plus a few friends close enough to call family, and our church family. I really refuse to say good-bye; that sounds so permanent and it really hurts my heart. It's just TTFN: ta-ta for now. In my heart of hearts I hope everyone will miss us so much they'll pack up and join us.

So I haven't blogged in nearly a year - since Kyle died, in fact - but I felt that this was as good a time as any to begin again, especially since there's so many miles between us and our family and friends now. Maybe this will be another way for everyone to keep up with us.

We were supposed to be out of our house (oops - no longer our house) by 3pm today. We thought it wouldn't be a problem, but it turned out to be quite a stressful day. We had some glitches in packing and everything took longer than expected. I don't know why we didn't expect it to take this long - we did everything ourselves except for getting the POD about half packed on Thursday with some of our former youth guys. But as usual, things didn't go so smoothly today and we ended up pulling out of our (oops - again no longer ours) driveway a little after 5. It wasn't the way I'd wanted to leave. I felt rushed. I'd wanted to stay and linger, say a final good-bye, take a few pictures. But the new owners were there, and although friendly and not pushy, we knew they were anxious to take possession of their new house.

We had to leave a lot behind. Sadly that means we'll be spending a lot more money when we get settled, but at least shopping for it all should be fun. :) By last night we realized the fridge was just going to be easier to leave, and we called the buyers and they agreed to buy it. They had previously agreed to buy some other things, including the washer and dryer. Made sense but it was still kind of a shame, since we'd just bought the washer, dryer, and fridge two years ago.

Among other things, we also had to leave the kids' mattresses (pretty worn out anyway), Robert's bike, and - ready? - the van. We had thought the neighbors were interested in buying it but they didn't have the money when we had to leave, so we parked it at Chad's, gave Mom the keys, and left. We'll have to figure something out for that soon I guess.

Anyway, we left Palmdale around 5:45 for Las Vegas. Slow going, pulling the U-Haul. We didn't make it to Boulder Station until nearly 11. What a day - just insane. Some lovely folks Ro worked with at Kaiser gave him a lot of McMoney to use along the way, so we had dinner at Mickey D's in Barstow on the way. Traffic wasn't bad, thankfully - it was just a long drive after a long day...