California, there we go...

Friday, December 17th.  No photo embellishments tonight - just too tired.

Well, we've actually gone and done it; not without great effort and stamina, I must say. Let me bring you back in time for a day, just as a start.

Thursday, the Ides of December.  Already exhausted from yesterday's packing whirlwind, I rose at about 6am to place the stuff we needed to put into the RV on the porch so it wouldn't be confused with the stuff the movers were to put into the van.  It mostly worked - we found out later that they had loaded up our photographic equipment, so there went our best chances for fabulous pictures of the trip.  Oh well - I've still got my little Canon.  Anyway, Thursday was also a grueling day, as we started out exhausted already.  We've both been ending the days feeling like we've been beaten up.  Moving is not for the faint of heart!

So just to prove that life is a cosmic joke, just as we were about to connect the electric pump to empty our California King-sized waterbed the electricity went out in the entire neighborhood!  Luckily the movers were able to hook us up to their truck and we emptied the bed.  Between one thing and another it took the entire day to get everything out - with the exception of the bird cages - the SPCA, to whom I had wanted to donate them, never showed up so I had the movers put them out by the curb for a bulk pick-up.  Turns out my neighbor Shiela's daughter has a use for them so she took them away!  Then some other neighbors came by and bought our cars (this had been pre-arranged - it wasn't miraculous).  In the meantime, the 3 birds were so entirely exhausted and stressed out from seeing all these people take away everything in their world that when I took them into the RV and went to put them into these brand new, never been seen before cages, despite my expectation that they'd balk at them, they were so done in that each of them simply entered their cage, turned around, had a bite to eat and settled down.

Al and I, also exhausted and stressed out, tried our best to organize the stuff in the RV and finally FELL into the bed at maybe 10pm.  In the meantime, California had decided to have one last chance to make us happy with our decision to leave - a very bad Santa Ana (windy!) situation developed.  We were parked under a Jacaranda tree, and the wind made the lower branches scratch and knock against the roof of the RV ALL NIGHT LONG!!  That, plus the RV shaking around every time the wind blew, didn't exactly enhance our sleep.  Neither of us slept at all well; especially when you consider we moved from a nice, warm waterbed to a cold, hard-as-a-rock (in comparison, anyway) queen mattress.  OUCH.

So this morning both of us FLED out of the bed and got ready to do our local errands and get out of town!  We received some very wonderful phone calls from our dearest friends and (former) neighbors and we assured them we wouldn't lose touch!

Our errands took up the entire morning, and were enhanced by California's last laugh - more very high winds.  Try driving around in a high profile vehicle in 60mph winds sometime.  Yeah.  Fun.  By 2pm Al and I were exhausted, so we pulled into a little residential neighborhood off Foothill Blvd (so named because it's at the foot of a range of very tall, snow-covered mountains) and fell onto the bed.  2 hours never went by so quickly but it was finally time to actually hit the road.

So, off we went, picking up Route 10 and fighting the wind for mile after mile.  It's a good thing we never said it could only get worse if it rained...because it started to rain!  Yeah - now we had wind AND rainy roads but thankfully the rain didn't last long and for a while the winds even died down.

10 pm we arrived in Quartzsite, Arizona and checked ourselves into a quiet little RV park where we finally sit and relax.  The worst is behind us.  The rest is adventure as we slowly but surely recover from the bad part of moving and start looking around and "discovering America".  Good evening, all.  Happy Trails.