Oregon…

We finally made it to Oregon! We got here on the 15th as I predicted. So far I like it better than Arizona, but first I want to cover other things.

Although I’ve gotten more sleep along the way than expected, I’m still pretty beat a lot of the time with the fixed schedule I’ve been on. I don’t want to get more and more backed up in my writing, so I’ll do some updating, despite being tired.

Before I left I ordered free address labels from the same people I got Maricopa labels from with our new address so we’ll have those handy. I won’t go for a new round of some of the other freebies I got down there until we get back online and that could very well be weeks from now. I know that the more I want whatever I’m expecting in the mail, the more I have to fight for it, so I’ll have to go to the library to see if there’s any email from Incense Galore explaining why I haven’t gotten the incense I should’ve gotten by now. We placed a tiny retail order the day before we left so I wouldn’t have to have such large quantities of the new scents I wanted to try and maybe end up hating half of them. Maybe I’ll just call them instead.

The cell phone provider we were using doesn’t service this part of Oregon, so they assigned Tom a new number. Still, it’s a real pain for him because he has to punch in the number twice. We got a new phone I’m going to activate soon, and eventually he’ll get a new one, too.

We got a hold of Miss Perfect for the first time since we got here. She got my letter and the Arizona postcard, but not the California one yet.

Tom also spoke to a friend of the guy who was supposed to show us how to get to our land (the guy’s out of town). We found the land ourselves, or at least we thought we did. The more Tom studied the maps, the more it looked like we were on the wrong lot and that ours was the next property over.

Anyway, backing up to Arizona – I am so, so glad that part is over! There’s still an overwhelming amount of work to do here and so little money with which to do it, but at least we’re here. Once we know for sure where our land is, we can begin making progress, even if it’ll be very slow.

There was so much to do during the last few days we were in Arizona. As usual, I was right and he was wrong when I said we’d run out of time to get rid of things and that he was foolish for waiting till the last minute. Same with how much space we’d have for packing things. I told him it wasn’t quite as much as he thought it was. We left behind 80% of our belongings, and that includes the tall bamboo palm I had. I ended up selling it. I had to go as low as $5 to get rid of it, but I’d have just left it if I couldn’t sell it, and to tell you the truth, I wish I’d left the others as well. Well, maybe not the palm, but there was so little room. It was worse than A Tower’s cramped cells! The poor big leaf plant got so beat up. That, the palm, and the spider plant are all outside right now. I don’t know if they’ll live, but I don’t really care anymore. There are more important things to worry about right now than plants, and I’m not going to buy any more. I vowed to not play the damn “starting over” game unless it’s in ways I absolutely have to.

I saw the big leaf plant planted by several houses and one of the motels we stayed in when we were in California. Someone I spoke to said it might be a banana tree, but its trunk sure looked like a palm tree on some of the ones that were between 10-15 feet tall.

We didn’t want to cancel the electricity down there until we left in case there was a delay, and there was. We got a late start taking off on Friday.

The day before that, he called Huey’s assistant to let him know we’d leave the keys in the lockbox on the side of the house and gave him the code.

We ran out of time and had to leave both the inside and outside of the house trashed, and as usual, Tom was paranoid about it. I reminded him how put out we’ve been by others and how much we’ve had to do on account of others and that someone else picking up after us a bit won’t kill them. Huey got a smoking deal off of us, so I wouldn’t complain about having to put forth a little elbow grease if I were him. I’d just be grateful to have gotten what I got. Also, some of the stuff we left was rather nice, and he can always afford to hire someone to clear it all out if he doesn’t want to do it himself. He’s rather loaded. I don’t feel bad about it, though. We got $5,000 and he’s going to get well over $100,000, so I say let someone else clean up and sweat a little for us for a change.

He did manage to sell the Ford Taurus at the last minute to a teenage kid in that Mexican family. He was originally going to ask $350, but when he discovered the heat-cracked windshield he dropped it to $250, then to $140 when he saw that the taillights were shot, too.

The Mexicans also ended up getting the airbed as the winner of it emailed us to say they couldn’t pick it up by Thursday. Also, as we knew was the case, the bedroom set winner was just playing with us, so that went to them, too.

We spoke to a few people who’ve been to Oregon and no one had anything bad to say about it, so that’s good.

It’s scary to know that if Teddy Bear had come around like she said she would and I had been foolish enough to dump love for lust, then broken up with her in time and tried to get back with Tom, he would’ve been gone. Long gone without a trace. And I’m sure his family wouldn’t have divulged his whereabouts either. But I was smart enough to know in the end that her looks would’ve faded while his love would remain forever.

In the end, Tom said he thinks it might’ve been better if he’d only taken his clothes, tools and computer and I’m starting to wonder if I should’ve taken just my necessities, along with my computer. As it is I’m seriously considering not buying any more dolls. Porcelain dolls can be hard to get, there are more important things to spend our money on, and I don’t want to have to move or sell them when we move again in 1-6 years.

That was the eighth car stereo to blast by the Motel 6 we’re now in in the course of 10 minutes. The car stereos are worse here and in California, but it makes sense, too. Oregon and California aren’t nearly as strict as Arizona, so when they started enforcing the damn things, the Arizonans were quicker to tone it down. Why tone it down here if they’re just going to frown upon you for it, whereas in Arizona you practically get executed for everything?

Anyway, I was a bit tearful the final night and during our last trip out the door. Upon completing the entry before the last one, I sat back, gazed around my office and realized it was the last entry I’d ever write in that office, reached forward and turned off my computer. Although it was a sad thought, I thought of all the sad, infuriating and frustrating entries I’d written in that house along the way, and reminded myself of all the reasons I wanted to move, despite how lovely the house was which I know I’ll miss for a while. Especially the shower! Tom was worried I’d regret leaving Arizona. I hope I won’t and I don’t think I will.

We first thought this move would be easier than the last because we were taking so little, but we both agreed it was much harder. It’s hard to cram stuff into such small spaces, for one, and we didn’t have a 5-day drive the last time, nor did we have to go longer than 4 months before we could get in the house. We’ll be playing RV for close to a year before we can move into the garage, and God knows how many years it’ll be before we get just the shell of the dome up. It’s going to be rough as hell for quite some time, so it better be worth it in the end.

Like I said, it’s been non-stop work, work, work. You’d think I’d have lost some weight, but I haven’t, since all the work in the world doesn’t matter when you stuff yourself at my age. I intend to stop that real soon. Not to lose weight, but to save money.

It’s hard for me to concentrate with all the bumps and bangs and the cruising stereos. See, originally we were going to spend one night a week in a motel to have a real shower and some space, but the “real shower” is crap. It’s just a little shower stall with no foothold to make shaving easier, no real water pressure, no nothing. So why pay $200 a month when the RV shower’s no worse, just to have space and listen to all the door slamming and whatever else it is these people do? Motels are just too noisy. I don’t know why, but they are. Maybe it’d be better if it was a hotel and it was winter. I’ve been to lots of motels and hotels before the noise curse was put on me and I never heard a thing. Now, they just can’t seem to sit still. They go in and out constantly as late as midnight, they have to stop and gab outside our door, they throw shit around their rooms, walk like elephants, blare TVs, slam doors and drawers, and so on and so forth. It’s just terrible! I’m going to be woken up by Tom as it is, though he says he can sleep in the back of the truck just fine until it gets really cold which is really sweet of him, but I wouldn’t make him do that.

I seem to be jumping around a bit, so let me get back to Arizona.

A day or two before we left I got a red T-shirt dress and a Trendy-Bendy Barbie at Walmart, figuring I could use a treat in the midst of all the stress I was going through.

Sometimes I wonder what the point of living really is when all you do is struggle to get ahead so much of the time, and when you finally manage to do so, you get kicked back down. Almost the entire trip was a nightmare. We broke down as I predicted, and the whole trip was spent just hoping we’d get to Oregon in one piece, and sweating like pigs till we reached northern California. I never could’ve handled the heat 12 years ago, and barely could this time around either since I had to spend so much time in it. I got a bad sunburn as well as sun poisoning, and Tom was also burned as well as miserable during the drive because the engine, which is between the two seats and has worn insulation between it and its cover, was really hot on his feet.

Our shit was also falling on and off throughout the trip. The scanner went down at one point and I’d be very surprised if it still works. It’s a good thing they’re pretty cheap and that I don’t use them very much. It chipped the big leaf plant’s pot when it fell.

Another annoyance was the flying dirt from the spider plant by the window that Tom was silly enough to leave open when we went to take off.

As I told Mary, we weren’t being gently led by the hand by whatever decided, along with us, that we were destined to live here. Yanked by the hair was more like it!

At 40’ long, riding in the city where the traffic was heavier was scary, and riding in remote areas was scary as well, for fear of being stranded due to the breakdowns we can’t seem to escape.

Getting back to the last day – Tom drove the truck up onto the trailer and strapped it down before loading its cab and the roof up. That was another nerve-wracking thing during the ride; fearing things would fall off the roof. It had a damn good trailer, though. It had a hydraulic brake to keep it from pushing into the RV when the RV would slow down. It also had a safety chain attached to a break if the hitch let go. We were probably 2-3 thousand pounds overloaded which is yet another thing that made the drive shaky. It was way treacherous and stressful. No doubt the hardest trip of our lives. It’s very hard to control any vehicle that’s bogged down like both the truck and RV were.

It took us hours to load up, and when we walked out the door that last time, I was in tears, though I got over it quickly. I may miss the shower and having a home to live in, but I don’t miss it in general. I’m looking forward to a better life and house here. Tom felt bad, though, which made me feel worse. I mean, I didn’t mean to worry him or bring him down in any way, so I assured him I’d be ok, and I was. Just tired and tense. Like I said, it was a hell of a trip!

So after my teary goodbye to our house, the saguaro and Joshua tree scenery along the way was gorgeous despite the sweltering heat.

Because we were off to such a late start, we stopped at a rest stop about 80 miles from Needles, California shortly before sundown as we did not want to be on the road after dark. I think it was somewhere between Buckeye and Quartzite. I wrote letters to Mom and Mary and did up postcards I got at a tourist shop/eatery we stopped at before we settled at the rest stop. I got Mom a wildlife postcard and one for Mary as well. Then I also got Mary one of a p-dog and one of a rattlesnake.

We got a pizza there, and for $16, I also got a way nice, way realistic figurine of a cocker spaniel. Then again, it’s covered with real goat fur, so I don’t know if it’d be called a figurine. I don’t even know what it’s made of. It seems too light to be plaster of Paris, so maybe it’s made of Styrofoam.

At one point Tom asked how it felt to be homeless and I had to admit that being homeless and being jobless sure did feel strange. He said it feels exciting. Yeah, in a way it does so long as it’s not too long before he gets a job. Like it or not, money really does make the world go ‘round. Besides, I’d really like some alone time along with money to live and build on.

The Arizona truck stop was miserable because it was so unbearably hot. It usually cools down nicely, but not that night. That night it was still a sauna come 4 AM, and I got very little sleep. We had a huge truck running next to us which acted like a sound machine or a fan, so that was good, but its airbrakes would hiss rather loudly from time to time.

I’d love to keep writing, but I’m just way too tired. So, despite the bumps and bangs going on around here, I’m going to try to get a little sleep.