Anniversary
Exactly a year ago (New Zealand time) I was sitting in an aeroplane that was about to take off, starting this traveling adventure. Since then I've been to Australia (beautiful surf beaches, admiring the wildlife), Germany (one cold, rainy day), Spain (hot summer, wining and dining, techno raves, new friends and loves), England (cold and ... British), America (meeting the family, discovering with amusement how stereotypically Texan Texas is) and Mexico. For this coming year, we plan to spend a few months in Vancouver, BC followed by going to Burning Man in late August - and we're still unplanned after that.
We had a really hectic departure. There was so much to do at the end. We moved, moored and "mothballed" the boat a couple of days before we left. We were processing about 100 items at a time on online auctions. We had to coordinate many of those things to be picked up, and I took 2 big boxes full of parcels to the Post Office every day, including that last day (with no return address on them - we weren't going to be there to sort it out). Everyone who visited us during the last week was asked to help us get through the wine (picnics on the floor), and take as many household items as they could, because we no longer had time or energy to deal with it all. I also took a carload of things we no longer needed to the local charity shop on the last day (as well as a carload a few days before). I delivered several boxes of our good books to the library. We had carefully planned having somewhere to sleep until the last night, and the mattresses were picked up on the last morning. We used old linen and clothing the last few days (after the washing machine left us), which went into the trash on the way out. There were a dozen trash sacks outside waiting to be picked up (the weekly collection was the next morning). The landlord came to inspect the house - he said we'd never get to the airport on time because we still had so much to pack. A friend came over and washed the car, which we dropped off at an auction house on the way to the airport. We also dropped off a couple of boxes with papers we'd needed until the end at my brother's house on the way to the airport, and took some unsorted mail etc with us to process later.
I can still remember the stress. We managed to get onto the plane 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time. It felt good, freeing, to leave it all behind.
We've had a year to perfect the art of traveling in a way that we enjoy, but I'm still learning. This feels like a good time to have another look at the "bigger picture" of how we want to live, and how to achieve it.
We had a really hectic departure. There was so much to do at the end. We moved, moored and "mothballed" the boat a couple of days before we left. We were processing about 100 items at a time on online auctions. We had to coordinate many of those things to be picked up, and I took 2 big boxes full of parcels to the Post Office every day, including that last day (with no return address on them - we weren't going to be there to sort it out). Everyone who visited us during the last week was asked to help us get through the wine (picnics on the floor), and take as many household items as they could, because we no longer had time or energy to deal with it all. I also took a carload of things we no longer needed to the local charity shop on the last day (as well as a carload a few days before). I delivered several boxes of our good books to the library. We had carefully planned having somewhere to sleep until the last night, and the mattresses were picked up on the last morning. We used old linen and clothing the last few days (after the washing machine left us), which went into the trash on the way out. There were a dozen trash sacks outside waiting to be picked up (the weekly collection was the next morning). The landlord came to inspect the house - he said we'd never get to the airport on time because we still had so much to pack. A friend came over and washed the car, which we dropped off at an auction house on the way to the airport. We also dropped off a couple of boxes with papers we'd needed until the end at my brother's house on the way to the airport, and took some unsorted mail etc with us to process later.
I can still remember the stress. We managed to get onto the plane 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time. It felt good, freeing, to leave it all behind.
We've had a year to perfect the art of traveling in a way that we enjoy, but I'm still learning. This feels like a good time to have another look at the "bigger picture" of how we want to live, and how to achieve it.