Getting there

Tuesday, 4 days to takeoff to Las Vegas. We went to Missouri last Friday to drop off a couch and sundry other items and one last visit with son Zach, his wife Amanda and daughter Libby and children. Turned right around for home on Saturday. 1500 miles in two days. Funny story there. We'd originally planned on another overnight in Missouri, but got to counting days and trips to Kay's to store stuff. Really need one more day. Meanwhile, Liz had contracted with a local kid to paint the apartment. he and his girlfriend were spending the weekend in the apartment. There's only the airbed available. Okay, we'll find a cheap motel near Detroit and show up Sunday morning. There was a Michigan home game Saturday. Motels from Taylor to Romulus were fully booked. Verizon (Smart phones are really great!) led us to something in Dearborn - with a vacancy! - I knew something was up when I saw the glass shield between us and the clerk. Then I noticed the card taped to the window. $30 for short time, $45 for overnight and $225 for the week. OH! We gave him $45 cash (only) and he gave us a room key. The room had been recently occupied. Obviously. Thoroughly. For the intended, unstated purpose, with breaks for refreshments and the TV tuned to an inspirational channel.  Back to the clerk, whose English was limited to memorized phrases. He simply couldn't understand the problem, but said someone would check. We went across the street for a very late dinner. Came back. No change. Finally lured him from his nice safe cage to the room. Understanding! Ne w room, fresh sheets, bed made. Sleep at last.


Well, the apartment is now almost totally empty. It's Wednesday night, no TV (gone to a friend of Liz's son), no couch (now residing in Missouri), no big beautiful desktop computer or comfortble desk chair (niece, friend Kay) no microwave even ( painter). Liz is at her laptop (Her mother, Friday)balanced on two boxes and a board (second best desk chair,  to go to yet another friend tomorrow), I'm doing this on a netbook (goes with us, nice but tiny keyboard) on  a TV table (deservedly destined for the dumpster) (last bedroom chair, also to friend). Contented sigh. Nearly there.

Lots of small step

LOTS of small steps!  It's been 8 days since I posted. In that time, there have  been a bunch of little detail things done. Most important - set aside the  stuff that's going along with us.What goes into the backpack, what into the suitcase. Remember, the suitcase may be discarded after Austraila depending on advice from other backpackers. At any rate, the important things go into the backpacks which ideally will not leave our sight.

Something that takes a bunch of time and attention is setting up our rootless existence. Effectively, our only truly valuable  possession will be our proof of solvency. The credit and ATM cards will need to be guarded at all times. Come to think of it, this netbook could become precious also, though any net terminal could prove our bona fides.

We seem to have used up a lot of time visiting friends and relatives, always taking along stuff to drop off and give away. We spent the weekend with My brother Fred and my parents, celebraitng brother Ted's 60th and Mom and Dad's 65th(!) wedding anniversary. Next weekend it's off to Missouri to see a son and daughter with a couch, end tables and whatever else we can pack into the van.

 Considering there are 10 days till takeoff, we still have a long way to go. On the other hand, life is getting a little bare. Eating off TV trays, not many pots and pans, silverware left. I've managed to keep an iron hold on the TV but its hours are numbered. One more trip to Kay's with golf clubs and other stuff that will be resurrected in the motor home when we return.

Tonight, the huge desk upstairs will evaporate along with a pine entertainment center my friend Dick Gingrich and I built. It's been a nice piece but it's going to a good home. Be glad to be rid of the desk, though, just because I've been worrying howthehell to get it down the stairs. The buyer assured me he'd bring along a big strong friend. We'll need him.

Moving stuff phase 1

Apparently it's not possible to allow stuff you can't sell to just evaporate. Some of it even may have some sentimental value. I have such an attachment to the toolbox I built as an apprentice wood model maker.

Liz, of course also has a lot of affection for certain heirlooms and other things too nice to just give up. So, there is a fair amount of stuff we need to store somewhere. Fortunately, Liz has a friend (well, several, actually) named Kay Bruns who is blessed with a large room above her garage she has no use for. Saturday we boxed up the essential cast-offs and prepared them for transport. On Sunday we rented a truck, recruited  another friend of Liz's - Tim Parlin ( a fine handyman and for hire - Liz will be glad to introduce him)  and moved them to Kay's. A sweaty day indeed.

Some before and afters.

There is a lot more to go in the next week. A very cute young couple will be around  to buy that god-awful heavy desk and some other stuff in my man-cave, er, office and there is at least one van-load for my parents and brothers to distribute. All in all, a good start. With a whole (only) 18 days to go.

Have I bragged about my ghost peppers lately? It turns out that hot peppers (maybe all peppers, I don't know) are perennials. If they don't get frosted they can go on quite a while. I brought mine inside last year, just to see. A nice thing about potting. This year, they're outperforming last year by a bunch. Maybe I just lucked onto the right fertilizer.  These fiery little dudes are NOT to be eaten raw - cooking only. I've picked 3 or four dozen and there's that much more left on the two plants. They go to my niece Sarah, who begged to be allowed to take over their care.

Cold wet Saturday, cool sunny Saturday

When someone asked my father what retirement is like he'd answer " Every day is Saturday". I'm beginning to understand.

On Thursday (Saturday) nothing but cold wet rain. A great day to finish delivering Ben's stuff to Greg's house and then once again off to the gym for a little more conditioning. Actually I think my Thursday golf league played but by then I was miles away doing this and that. Too bad, we were playing the best guys in the league. On the other hand my marginal skills are REALLY hampered by wet ground so I felt no need to humiliate myself more than necessary.

Today was Friday (Saturday again) and weather was ideal. My beautiful wife and I took off on bikes on the Paint Creek Trail. Okay, time for an advertisement. First off, Rochester Hills is a great place to live. I'm really going to miss this apartment. There's a Lifetime Fitness right across the street. A really pretty downtown area filled with really good restaurants just a few blocks away, a really good library. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's the storefronts downtown are all coated with strings of little Christmas lights. The lights look like glowing velvet. Almost worth a walk in the cold. AND the area is covered with bike trails. You can bike from Rochester to Lake Orion, Pontiac, Troy and Stoney Creek Park. Not to mention downtown is completely bike friendly. It's easy to count a dozen or more bikes any warm day downtown.

Since this might be the last time we ride this trail I took the camera along. Travelogue time.

The Private Bank which I've dubbed "The Bank of Money". The only sign we've ever seen on this bank is the one in the picture. Just a nice greenback aroma to match the perfect lawn. Landscape includes natural grasses that are as tall as bushes. Take note they didn't hit the grasses with a weed wacker the way they did in front of GM Powertrain.

Royal Park Hotel. Never been inside but Liz met her girlfriends there for dinner before Christmas. Again has that aroma of unlimited funds. Only thing I know for sure is that visiting pro basketball teams stay there due to its proximity to the Palace and the 10 foot ceilings.

 

Back of the Library, Liz, Us.

Turns out there was a craft fair in the park (also on Paint Creek Trail). I'm always attracted by nice woodworking and this fellow ( Wayne Cruze) of Ohio had some very nice chipcarved boxes in a celtic style. I fantasize that if I ever find the right situation, I could be content making boxes - very nice boxes. Above them are some extremely pretty and comfortable chairs of several types, featuring traditional rockers. I couldn't find the proprietor which is a shame. I'm of the opinion that a good, comfortable, sturdy, lightweight chair is the hardest woodworking project to get right.

Just a couple of shots along the river and the cutest little snapping turtle, found along the trail. Yes, it is alive.

Hey, tomorrow's Saturday!

Labor Day long weekend

We made a very long weekend of it. With a late start. Too hot to do much Saturday except hit the gym and  continue planning. Sunday things got moving. Liz had never seen an actual stock car race. I'd expressed the opinion that circle track racing Nascar style was fine for TV but the real fun was going to a 1/4 mile bullring and get splattered with rubber and (if the track is dirt) mud. She had no idea what I was talking about.  So I finally got her to Spartan Speedway, my old favorite located south of Lansing on South Cedar Street. For the season finale. With 5 different classes, two 100 lap races, two 50 lap races, a 25 lapper, a figure-8 15 lapper (NOT for the faint of heart)  and several other qualifiers. Something like 500 laps of racing. Met my old friend Dick Gingrich and his wife Ruth there a little too early.  What did I know. Back just before the earth cooled, the parking lot would have been filled by 4:00 for a 6:00 race like that. So we got to watch a couple of hours of time trials (actually little races themselves, run a little like 5-car qualifiers, only against the clock) instead of each other.  Anyway, Liz enjoyed it, no exaggeration!

Monday, hung out with Mom and Dad, brothers Fred and Ted, Fred's wife Pat. Watched golf, Dinner at Logan's Steak House. Tuesday, completed some business with our credit union, then drove home for our last Tuesday league golf. For the last night we had a scramble followed by Pizza at Buddy's. Just a nice friendly league tolerant with double bogie duffers such as ourselves. We'll miss you guys. Once we get into the RV, touring the country, I'm considering making a point of stopping at every cheap little country course we find and reviewing them. Is this anything anybody would want to follow? Let me know.

We borrowed Mom and Dad's Olds Silhouette van. Very handy! Today we got about half of Ben's (Liz's son) stuff out of the basement and transferred it to a friend of Ben's (Greg Adamisin) basement. One large task half completed. We'll finish that tomorrow. This was one of the things I was most concerned about. I really envisioned that stuff ending up on the curb.

Partial Itinerary

There have been questions about just where we're spending the next six months. Okay, a partial itinerary.

Oct 1st we fly to Las Vegas to stay for 4 days. Not only is it actually cheaper than direct to Hawaii but some timeshare company is giving us three nights at the Luxor just to try to talk us into yet another timeshare. Okay, 3 or 4 hours of sales resistance for a few days in Sin City. Since we both consider gambling and the casinos boring, we'll probably walk the strip for a night trying to collect the full set of cards ( it seems the hookers in Vegas feel the need to advertise) then check out Red Rock Valley and revisit Zion National Monument. Then fly to Hawaii, stay in a timeshare for a week. Then it gets a little loose. We have a month in the islands and intend to spend as much time as possible seeing the usual tourist stuff without breaking the bank. Probably camping out and staying in hostels, which Hawaii has in plenty.

Then it's onto a cruise ship, the Celebrity Century (again courtesy of a bargain offered by Liz's timeshare company RCI) with four stops in French Polynesia and ending 19 days later in Sydney. We stay with Evergreen Bed and Breakfast memebers, Ray and Wendy Volpatti in Sydney for the first 2 nights we arrive. Then we rent a car and drive for another week in a timeshare near Batesman Bay, south of  Sydney and east of Canberra. Then we drive along the Great Ocean Highway and see penguins and Melbourne. We get on a train to Adelaide and then up to Alice Springs. We spend a week there, probably take a bus see Ayres' rock (Sorry, Uluru - the aborigines insist). Between Christmas and New Year's we fly to Auckland, New Zealand. We're not firm on what to do with a mere 2 weeks there. We want to see the fjords near Queenstown so there's not time to see north and south islands. We're leaning to a bus tour of the South Island.

From Auckland to Singapore, 4 days. Then fly to Bali for a week. Devil-may-care's that we are, we'll see about lodging when we get there. Back to Singapore. Train through Malaysia to Bangkok, then Chiang Mai (where the Thais go to vacation). We intend to find some sort of semi-permanent lodging there and find tours (bus, train, boat, whatever) through Southeast Asia. Then if we tire of that, and aren't homesick yet, a couple of weeks in India (Hell, I don't know where). We can't buy return plane tickets yet (six months out is max) so we don't have anything like a firm return date. April or May.
Liz promises that we'll be back before Mother's Day for mothers' sake.

We'll undoubtedly spend the rest of our lives defending  what we DIDN'T see. "What do you mean, you were only seventy miles from the biggest hornet's nest in Asia and didn't go?"  Well, it's our trip and there'll be memories aplenty.

The traditional retirement party

Liz disagrees - " It should be the Blessed Event". Whatever. Anyway, it is traditional and it was a damn nice party.  Several well wishers. I'd name them but there were just too many. Besides many of them mentioned too many names of others who'd love to have been there but for prior obligations. Therefore names will not be named to protect the guilty. Or something.

Had too many drinks bought for me. After the first hour, I asked the waitress for O'Douls in a mug. So all appearances to the contrary, I do not have a wooden leg. Should have gotten pictures of the waitresses. Cute.  I wish now to formally reprimand the members of my former crew. You were far too generous. You single-groupedly paid for this small extravaganza.

This morning I left the alarm on and set to its usual time, just for the pleasure of shutting it off and saying Never Again. At least I think it was a pleasure. Four and a half decades of  productive labor on my part and three and half on Liz's part and suddenly we're on the public dole. Sort of. "This is the first day of the rest of our lives". And the rest shall be rather different from what preceded it.