Back to the beginning

I said that I would write more about how this trip came about. It was originally Jim's idea to take a long trip, and I reluctantly agreed, knowing that it was a big commitment to try to get our house in shape to rent. Plus, we still had two boys living at home, so we gave them plenty of warning that we intended to vacate. Not that they weren't ready to go! Well, maybe one of them was ready.
Our son Matt spent a good part of the previous winter cleaning out the basement- a Herculean task in itself.  Then we began to mess it up again. I insisted that I was NOT a hoarder! but was beginning to have my doubts.
Then it came down to the wire when we really had to get serious about cleaning out our personal belongings. After living in our home for 35 years, there is a lot of stuff! We hauled out mountains of garbage, gave away lots of clothes and miscellaneous items to charities and began the task of packing up our clothes. Just writing about it now brings back the feelings of stress during that process. Short of moving, we would never have done this work, and it was a good exercise for all of us, in spite of how hard it was. And it was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

By this time, the trip had taken shape - at least we knew that we planned to be gone around 4 months- one month for every decade we've been married - that was my idea. Jim started to let his work contacts know he would be away.
We still had not advertised the house for rent. I guess some part of me really didn't want to do that, so we put it off until a month before we left. We advertised in several places and got a total of two interested parties! One young couple needed a longer rental period. The other young couple had sold a house and needed temporary housing until they moved to the Midwest in June. The deal was settled, much to our amazement! They had three kids under 4 and a big dog. Wow, our house hadn't seen that kind of action in years.
A week before we were to leave the house in their hands, they wrote to say they got a job in a Detroit, and would only plan to stay for one month. Geeze. It had seemed so perfect. Nothing we could do at that point but move forward.,
We managed to finish cleaning with one hour to spare before handing over the keys, and stayed with friends for two nights before our flight.
I realized I had forgotten a few things at the house, so went back the next day to a house suddenly filled with kids toys and a big dog who barked at me when I timidly entered my front door. Time to go.