Wednesday, October 18, 2017

My Move.

I decided to stay in Laramie until the Eclipse on August 21st. I had planned to drive to the path of Totality, but decided with all that I had to do, and with the predicted traffic, that 97% Totality was good enough for me. I finished work at the end of July and took several road trips.

The week before the eclipse, I attended a Geocaching event in town and almost all of my Geocaching friends were able to attend. It was so good to see them one more time, as we have made some fun memories together over the years.

Kim and Capri (Laramie), Peggy and Lee (Rawlins), myself, Jeanne and David (Laramie). I've gotten to know this group pretty well over the last four and a half years, along with the Blaylocks, who could not make the event.

The day of the eclipse Georgia and I sat outside and enjoyed the weather. She slept while I kept a protected eye on the sun.Then there was more packing and more worrying that I hadn't gotten rid of enough things and it would not all fit in my Uhaul the next morning. That evening there was another Geocaching event in town, hosted by a couple from Belgium. It turned out that they got stuck in eclipse traffic and did not make the event, however I did get to see some of my friends again, as well as Matt, who had missed the event earlier in the week. I was able to hand off several of my travel bugs that I wanted to send to Europe with a nice fellow from Germany.

The morning of the move my ran some errands, did some petsitting, and picked up my Uhaul. My movers arrived and had everything loaded in about 40 minutes. Half of the trailer was empty, so clearly my ability to estimate size is faulty.

I did some last minute cleaning that I could not do with all my stuff in the house. A friend came over while I worked to say goodbye, and then I loaded Georgia up and we headed to Gem City Vet to say our last goodbyes to my vet girls.

In the weeks leading up to my move, we'd gotten together quite a few times, from dinner, to day drinking into night, to ice cream under the stars, to lunches and hanging out. It was good to see them all so often leading up to the move.

CFD Pancake Breakfast with Tia, her mom, and Colby
GCV going away drinks


Visiting Emily in Buffalo


April and I turned our once a month meal into a once a week meal out


Tia, Maria and I hit up Anongs

Day drinking at The Alibi with April, Maria, and Tia turned into a marathon of much needed fun

Georgia and I stopped in at GCV one last time to say goodbye to Auntie Tia and Auntie April

 I was on the road at 2pm on the 22nd of August. Half way through Nebraska I had a blow out on my car, and had to call for assistance. I know how to change a tire, but I was on a major interstate and since it's free, I called for help. The guy showed up much quicker than they'd expected and had it changed in no time and I was on my way. Thankfully my spare was full sized, so I didn't need to stop and get a new tire. I was disappointed to not make it out of Nebraska that first day, but I was mentally exhausted so I drove another couple of hours and found a hotel where I could stop.


Driving out to Wyoming I went a slightly more direct route, though I did manage to geocache in every state in the middle, but I needed to get Geocaches in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and even though it added about six hours to my journey, it would take me a lot more than six hours to make a trip there in the future, so I went for it.

Day two got me almost all the way through Wisconsin, and day three took me to Pennsylvania. I have to say that the drive was fine, but the toll roads were tedious. I could have made much better time without them, and also saved a fortune. Day four I arrived at my parents house around 2pm, and I crashed hard for a couple of day.

Since then, I have been job and apartment hunting. I want to live and work in Richmond, but with some disappointments about several applications, I branched out and started looking in Charlottesville. Within two days I had two interviews and one became an offer. I was going to take it, but then realized deep down that I just do not want to live in Charlottesville. The housing market it ridiculous, and also, UVA students, I can't be dealing with them on a regular basis. So the search continues in Richmond, where I have several leads on apartments, I just need a job offer to proceed.