Holy crud, this has been a long and stressful month! I can’t remember the last time I quit my job, sold all my belongings, moved back across the country, sold a house, and bought a plane ticket to Central America with really no idea what will come next in the course of 2 months. Oh yeah, that’s right, I have never done that before. Well, I am sure glad I did it now! Could you imagine doing all that twenty years from now? Me, neither!
I have been clearing out the house of everything. Nothing is going untouched. I have tons – literally – of things to take to the donation site and dump. I had a guy lined up to help with the hauling, but apparently, he is in jail… I did not ask for what. I guess that’s why he is not answering his phone. Of course, that is exactly how that was going to play out. Of course. Oh well, we just keep rolling with whatever comes our way. No point getting upset about it. it is a test of adaptability, right? Let’s harken back to high school basketball practice. Pivot!
I asked a friend of mine if she had any contacts that could help, but nothing yet. The real estate agent has volunteered to help me haul all of the piles to the donation site with her pickup truck and I am getting the trailer ready for a dump run. It will be a glorious dump run. A dump run to rival all other dump runs! Can you tell I have been watching a lot of Thor, Ragnarok lately?
My plans for the four weeks between the closing date and our flight have changed. We were going to stay in one spot and chill, but we are now going to three spots, and still going to chill. We will be spending one week with my sister and her fam, two weeks with Lydia in Bellingham – figuring out what to do for Thanksgiving since there is no meat allowed at her house due to the vegan roomie. We will have to find something open. And the last week will be for Axel to hang with his dad.
The last time I was in Bellingham, we went to a Greek restaurant and had moussaka. It was amazing. When I used to live in Florida – already becoming a distant memory – my sister, my friend, Mary, nephew Sam, and I ventured out to a Greek restaurant. It was pretty tasty, but the moussaka I had in Bellingham was better, the weather not so much, but the food was delicious. Maybe we can have a Greek Thanksgiving!
The trials and tribulations of the house sale have just about exhausted me. I knew there were things that needed to be done to the house, what old house doesn’t need something, right? However, there were things they found during the inspection that had me baffled. When we bought the house in 2006, we had an inspection done, as one should. Apparently, some of the issues that were discovered by this inspector should have been discovered by our inspector but were not reported to us. This makes one wonder what the heck we even paid for. There was some significant incompetence on the part of the inspector we had and the real estate agent who recommended him. I will be the first to say the agent we had when we bought this place is the epitome of a slimy salesperson – and I believe she is still operating under those principles. Would never recommend – well, actually, I would recommend you run away as fast as you can from her. Bad news. Anyway… the repairs were not small and were not cheap. We were very concerned we would not be able to continue the sale. We were calculating costs and timelines and things were just looking scary. I am happy to report we came to a mutually beneficial solution and we are on to close on the 12th as planned. I swear I am never doing this again. (ha! of course, this is not binding)
Our trip is coming together nicely. We have our plane tickets, travel insurance, and our first-stop reservations set. We have chosen two more places to stay for January and February – one closer to the coast and one next to the rainforest, but I am waiting for the trip to start before I make those reservations. Everyone is throwing wacky cancellation rules on everything now. I guess the days of willy-nilly canceling are behind us. I will miss you, reasonable rules for travel. Bonus travel plan – my friend Lawrence is coming to Panama, too! We will hang out in Santa Fe, Veraguas, Panama for a week or so. He is staying at a swanky B&B up the road and got new hiking shoes to hit the trails with us. It is going to be awesome!
We had our travel consultation with the pharmacist to determine what shots we needed. Turns out, we won’t be heading into yellow fever territory and will not need that shot. I had my typhoid vaccination when I went to Ecuador with Lydia, so that was set for me, but Axel needed that one. I also learned that I was due for my 10-year tetanus redo, so now I am good for another 10 years. Bring on the rusty nails!! When we come back in March, we will need to go back and see if any recommendations have changed for our next destination – which we have not decided on yet, but are leaning heavily toward Peru and Machu Picchu. I just ordered a Lonely Planet book to do some research and learn more about travel in South America, which according to Up, is like America, but South. HAHAHA!
20K and a Year Away 