On the Road! By Michael



All packed up and heading off to get the girls



Well, it didn't go as smoothly as planned, but we broke free. And after a totally traffic-free, Friday night drive up from D.C., we woke up this morning in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

No traffic? How is this possible, you ask?

Timing, Robertson timing.

Rather than show up to the closing on time at 4:00 p.m. (all packed and ready to go), sign papers, and hit the I95 at rush hour, we called our agent an hour before the closing to say we would have all of our stuff out of the house prior to closing, but we were still using the garage as a staging area and would have to return. I felt terrible. (Fortunately, the buyers are friendly, reasonable, and understanding.) We'd spent the previous 48 hours in a state of increasing panic as we realized how much remained to be done and how much would not fit in our tiny car and trailer.

The closing went smoothly and we arrived back at the garage at 5:30 p.m. to wrap things up. At 9:55 p.m. we'd packed, we'd left a lot of stuff behind (thank you Shawn!), we'd picked up the girls from our dear friend's home (thank you Kelly!), dropped off several boxes with her to mail across country for us (thank you Kelly!), and hit the road. At 1:00 a.m. we were checked into our Hershey motel, spent.

As we continue our journey to Mexico, it is clear the car is going to struggle. The temperature stayed in the normal range last night, but I had to downshift for every slight grade. I don't yet know what our gas mileage is, but it won' t be pretty. And unfortunately, we're not dropping off the heavy dining room table and chairs (this is a long story...) until Montana, and after we attempt the Continental Divide at 6,600 feet.

The girls were awesome, they've been real troopers throughout this whole transition. Today it's their turn as we give them more of our attention and spend the day in chocolate town.

--MR