October, 2020

Less than 245 days til our planned exit from Florida.

The current plan:

1. The wife and I only making the drive. Children’s plans uncertain at this point, however, thankfully, they are planning on staying together in whatever they do. They are smart, tough young ladies, but the sheepdog in me wants to be around to do what a protective father does. They have an open invitation to join us at any time, but for now at least, they aren’t interested.
2. Only bringing what we can fit in a Honda Pilot with a roof rack, towing a 6×12 enclosed trailer.
3. Selling house mid-December 2020 and moving in with the wife’s folks until we depart. We refer to this part as our “Short Move” since we are only bringing our short list of for-the-move-to-Alaska stuff, the parents only live a short distance away, and its only for a short time
4. NOT moving anything to the parents that is not going with us to Alaska, unless we need it while living here, but it will be disposed of before leaving.
5. Selling my business interests around February-March, allowing me to sort out all the loose ends of the trip as well as saying goodbye to 25 years of living in a place and moving to the opposite corner of the continent.

Mostly this is settled into our plan. Some of it will change. I’m sure, however, the closer we get to departure, the less flexible we will become.

The current drive has been the selling of the house. We purchased it from family, and are passing along a similar deal to other family members. We love the area, and the neighborhood, and hope to have ties here for many years to come.

Selling a house can be simple. I’m hoping for that…we have buyers, that is a great help, obviously. The problem is the trimming down the belongings to a single car and trailer, while maintaining full time jobs AND all the things that are included in a journey of this magnitude – the extended goodbyes, binge eating at all the restaurants we will miss, sorting through 25 years of accumulated things, and the disposal of what we are not bringing.

…like our kitchen table. That, the paddle crafts we have collected over the years, couches, dressers, most everything is not going along. Clothes, “homesteader gear” and a few very sentimental pieces of furniture are all we have room to bring.

And wouldn’t you know, that one of the first things to sell was our kitchen table. In all my planning, I failed to plan for eating on the kitchen floor.

Luckily, one of the items in our “Homesteader Gear” is a folding camp table. Into service it went, and we are back to grinding on, without eating on the floor…with roughly 2 months left before we do the Short Move, every minute will be needed….but I am sure that many will be wasted.