We were operating on adrenaline and caffeine.
It was hot in western Colorado that May, and our to-do list was so long that we had to put ‘shorten the to-do list’ on the to-do list!
Just a couple of months earlier, we decided to sell most of the belongings in our 3-bedroom house, including the bedrooms, because we were moving into our new 19-foot travel trailer and driving to Alaska.
Things move fast around here. (We got married 4 months after our first date.)
In those two months, we had five yard sales and sold all the furniture. We also had multiple goodbye parties and celebrated the last day at work.
Did you know that in the year 2000, it cost $1 per pound to send things on a moving truck?
We began to question what we valued. Was it this stuff that has been sitting in the closet for the past 5 years?
It’s incredible how much we got rid of.
We actually put things on the scale (which did not get shipped by the way) to see how much they weighed. Would it be cheaper to ship or buy new ones when we arrive?
I mean, a 19-foot travel trailer isn’t going to hold much more than a change of clothes and a toothbrush.
After you have a couple of yard sales, you start looking for more things you can sell. It was fun purging. The more we sold, the better and more excited I became. A new life was about to unfold in front of us.
Not that the current one was bad. But I do thrive on adventure. And boy was this an adventure.
We did not have time to worry about what family and friends thought about our significant change. I bet they were questioning selling our home and going so far away from family, where we knew no one.
It was now the end of May and Labor Day weekend. Friends drove over from Denver to say goodbye, but we had nowhere to go. We sold all the furniture. The house was empty. We had moved into the travel trailer that we could not plug into to turn on the air conditioner.
It didn’t matter. We were still high on adrenaline, and they were excited for us.
After all the yard sales and friendly goodbyes, it was just us, in the driveway, with the trailer hooked up to the truck.
We heard a faint noise coming from above.
When we looked up, we saw a flock of Sandhill Cranes circling about 2000 feet above us. They were also headed for Alaska.
This was a good sign for us, and it proved to be right. That 19-foot travel trailer set the stage for many stories after 20 years of service and 300,000 miles of adventures. And the adventure continues.
