In the Motels, Econo Lodge…

I started to open my Oregon file, but then I said, wait a minute! I don’t live there anymore! Yes, I’m now in the right state, but not the right place. Oh well, at least I have the state and climate right, even though this is your typical annoying, bangy motel. It could be worse, though, and with the evening now setting in, it should quiet down soon enough.

After just 5 hours of sleep, we packed the truck from 8am-2pm yesterday. Because of a utility pole, we couldn’t park in front of the house without blocking Kim’s driveway, so we parked in front of next door. In front of their yard, that is. Kim was out during that last day. She might’ve seen we were moving and gone somewhere else to get away from the noise, although with her place being positioned as it was on the property, she wouldn’t have heard much.

We ended up leaving some stuff we didn’t have time to take to the dump, but since it was in a neat pile on the porch, hopefully they’ll still give us some of our deposit back after they take whatever they’re going to take for the carpet cleaners. We just left some old boxes and an old beat-up suitcase. I also left a $2 Baskin Robbin’s certificate we never used, and my dead date palm and dying ponytail palm on the porch steps. Maybe someone can use the pots they’re in. The bamboos rode by my feet to help protect us on the way down, and they did. No flat tires, no near-spills, nothing major.

Our feet were sore and we were tired, but we dropped off the cable box at Charter’s, turned in our keys, then hit the road. Actually, we hit the road after grabbing some munchies from Circle K where we met up with Kevin, the English guy Tom used to work with. He asked for his email address so they could stay in touch.

Twenty minutes later we were greeted by the Welcome to California sign with the California poppies on it. Tinkerbell rode between us in the cab of the rental truck but slept through most of the trip.

The GPS is way cool, but not always accurate. It’s still cool to be able to type in an address and have it tell you “turn left” or “stay on the road for 3 miles” and things like that.

For 3 hours we wound through giant pine-studded peeks and valleys. It was stressful driving for Tom because it was such a rollercoaster, though nothing compared to the trip up from Arizona. There were deer and bear-crossing signs everywhere. Mt. Shasta was as beautiful as ever, but once again, I didn’t get to take pictures of it. This time it was because I was dumb enough to forget to put freshly charged batteries in the camera. I’m just not meant to have pictures of it! We’ve both been forgetting and losing things like crazy amidst all the chaos. I misplaced the power cord to this laptop and now we may have to buy another one so we don’t have to tear through our stuff which is now in storage. He misplaced his passport, so hopefully he won’t need that for anything till he stumbles across it.

I’m about to lose my battery here. Gotta go!