We have finally said goodbye to Minnesota.  For the days leading up to packing the UHaul trailer, we stayed up well into the morning.  We were shocked at how long it took to pack and clean the house.  On the final night before we left, we were up until 5 am getting everything into the Tahoe and trailer and cleaning the house.  We slept for four hours and by the time we did the final loading and cleaning we left at noon for our 1748 mile drive to Ft. Lauderdale.  First stop:  across the St. Croix River in Hudson, WI for Starbucks frappucinos to keep us awak. 

We were very organized until almost the end, labeling all the boxes, storing things carefully in the outbuilding garage which the renter/buyer won’t use, sorting items to give and throw away...and then came the bitter end.  Our minds were mush and we could barely put coherent sentences together.  The last few hours, we ran out of boxes and those items went in black plastic garbage bags, unlabeled.  That should be fun when it comes time to move the household goods to another storage facility or land-based house/condo.  We left two cars in the garage and  the SUV is packed with winter and summer clothes for trips back to Minnesota.  When we arrive, it will hopefully be a simple matter of pulling out the seasonal week’s worth of clothes and be ready to go.  Huge amounts of thanks to Emily and Steve and Eric and Julie, Mark’s daughter and son and spouses, for all of their help.  Eric and Julie brought us multiple meals, ran errands, brought us needed supplies, and offered tons of moral support.  Julie brought a carful of clothes to the Wayside House for me, and Eric will be taking care of a number of tasks for us after we left.  We’ll miss them and Zora and Luca immensely, but have Skype all set up to communicate regularly. Emily helped Mark for months, clearing out the basement and taking things to Goodwill and for garage sales.  In the last week Emily, Steve, Cecilia and Vivian Rose spent many hours helping us pack, load the garage and UHaul, clean, etc.  They were with us until the bitter end and we would not have left on Monday without their help.  We will also miss them and hope they get Skype set up soon.  Joanne and Jim, close friends, came over and took four vans full of household items to sell at their periodic garage sales for the Pope County Humane Society. I’ll miss meeting Joanne for our periodic W,T & S (Walk, Talk and Shop) excursions around the Twin Cities. 

We’re sure we took too much clothes, not knowing exactly what we’ll need.   Mark’s son Eric told us that when he and Julie spent the first year of their married life sailing to South America from Annapolis, there were weeks when all he needed was a towel.  (We hope he also had some clothes on.)  Their trip, however, was an adventure.  Ours is our life.  Still, we suspect that we’ll be bringing boxes to UPS to mail back to Minnesota to store when we discover we don’t have enough storage on Seas the Day for what we brought.

Being a gadget freak, it was difficult for me to leave behind all the things I had in the kitchen.  The new polycarb blender we have now will do the job of food processor, smoothie maker, chopper,  mixer, etc.  Mark was a bit amazed (to put it nicely) at how many boxes we stored marked “kitchen” but there are still quite a few  marked “galley”  loaded in the UHaul trailer,

We made good time yesterday, even though we got a late start.  The first few hours, however, we couldn’t drive faster than 55 mph as the trailer kept swaying.  We noticed other trailers of the same size were whipping by us at 70.  Finally, we called UHaul and a very patient lady told us we should have packed 60% of the weight in the front half of the trailer.  When I looked at the contract sheet from UHaul, at the bottom in HUGE letters it gave us those instructions.  Also, when we stopped to move boxes forward, I couldn’t help pointing out to Mark a big sign on the side of the interior of the trailer reading “Pack 60% of weight in the front half” with a line marking the front half.  Well, Mark does have that sweatshirt that says, “Real men don’t read instructions” and I guess that has worked for him in the past.  After we redistributed the weight, we were able to keep up with the rest of the drivers, nine miles over the speed limit.

A big help in our preparations has been the contacts we’ve made through Lagoon 420 online forums and websites.  In particular, Jen, who lives on Mirasol now at a marina in Maryland, was most helpful by giving measurements and ideas for “must haves.”  We left a microwave behind because it was one inch too wide for the counterspace where we’ll put it.  Also, she gave me information on the blender, waterproof shoes that have worked well for her, storage bins, sailing gloves, jewelry not to wear, etc.  Daisy needed a soft side crate and she measured the companionway area between the guest cabins so I could get the correct size.  Steve, owner of  Dignity, has given us excellent information as he is outfitting their boat to live aboard also. We bought the Canary wifi finder he recommended and when we e-mailed him with various questions he responded with a long detailed answer.  His suggestions will guide what we purchase once we move aboard Seas the Day in a few days.

For communications, we’ll by using Skype, Magic Jack, and while we’re in the States our Sierra Wireless Aircard and Sprint account will give us Internet access.  Right now we’re in the car, somewhere in Tennessee (we just passed Goreville and we thought we were missing all the politics this week).  Our Internet speed and access is great.  Last night, we checked out dog friendly motels when we were ready to stop.  Just before we left, we got a router which works with our Sprint card, so now we can have wireless wifi with our two laptops and password protect it. 

Of course the big news is Tropical Storm Fay.  While it is not hitting Ft. Lauderdale, and has just been downgraded to a Tropical Storm on the Gulf Coast side of Florida, it is affecting the weather in all of Florida.  It is raining today in Ft. Lauderdale.  The plan was to meet our broker and a CatCo rep who will take us out on Seas the Day and explain the various systems.  Then they’ll drop us off at Las Olas Marina where we’ll stay until at least the end of September.  That was originally scheduled for today but postponed to tomorrow due to our late departure from Minnesota.  However, we may now need to delay it until Thursday, depending on weather conditions.  Our planned class with Blue Water Sailing School starts Saturday and we are supposed to sail to Bimini and back.  Hopefully that will be OK.  As of today, it is still on.

I have the names of three dog daycare facilities for Daisy to stay at while we’re gone for a week:  Central Bark, Merryfield, and Camp Canine.  All three look great and are 3, 6, and 7 miles from Las Olas.  Daisy is doing fairly well on the drive, considering she’s not a car lover.  She waited until we stopped to redistribute the weight in the trailer and then coughed up a little food.  When we got to the motel and 10:30 pm, she drank about four smallish bowls of water after panting all day - not from the heat but from nerves.  She was so worried when the packing started and as things disappeared it got worse.  The morning we left, the last thing to go in the Tahoe was her bed.  She refused to get off it and Mark literally had to pull it out from under her.  I wonder if she thought the motel was her new home. More Daisy details will appear in her blog later.  Right now, the computer battery is down to 32% and I need to save it to search for motels tonight. 

I have read other blogs from people who moved out of their houses onboard their boats.  I can concur with them that it doesn’t really hit you until you are done with that part of your life and on to this next one.  Intellectually, we knew what we were doing, but now it’s real.  It’s still a bit hard to conceptualize that we will really be living on Seas the Day, and I’m sure it will take stepping aboard before it becomes real.  Incidentally, Jen from Mirasol had information on their website about christening the boat, and we have our wine bottle ready to do that in a few days.

The English teacher in me wants to go back over this entry to edit it, but I have to conserve the battery so that will have to wait.