Adios Austin

Things have been crazy the last few days. We’ve had so much to do on the house, so many people to say goodbye to, and so much preparation for our trip. I begin to work on one project, remember another I need to do, walk over to do it, and forget why I am there and what I’m supposed to do. It’s as if I had Alzheimer’s Disease. Thank God I decided to quit work a week earlier than I originally planned.

The handyman making the repairs on our house was a bit slow in getting started. Now he is in a mad rush to get it all done. It snowed on Tuesday and he was out all day working in the snow. I felt bad for him, but then again, he knew we had to have everything done by Thurs.

I guess we were in the same rut. We had movers come and take the last of our furniture on Tuesday. We didn’t expect to have much to do after the bed, washer/dryer, and chase were moved. Humm. We underestimated the work involved with moving all the dishes, food, and all the final cleaning.

On Wed. morning Adolfo and I picked up the trailer drove it to the house to start packing stuff in. Mom and Dad arrived Wed. at noon. I picked them up while Adolfo ran around getting more work done. I got Mom and Dad home and put them to work immediately. One vacuumed a room while the other swept a floor, dusted, or whatever was needed. We started piling things into the trailer without much attention to where they should go. At 4:30 we headed to McKinney Falls to set up camp before dark. We didn’t want to unhitch the trailer in the dark, since it was just the second time I’ve done it. We gave Mom and Dad the Queen size bed, Adolfo took the bunk, and I slept on the sofa bed. This first night we crazily tried to find everything we’d packed. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad. We even realized that we’d left a few drawers empty!

Thursday was closing day. Originally we were supposed to close at 1pm, but Leslie got it pushed back to 4pm. Thanks to Leslie the handyman barely finished the work on the house and we got out. Adolfo and Dad took off in the morning to take the vacuum to Goodwill, a few things to storage, and the Cable box to Times Warner. Mom and I stayed at home and finished cleaning out the kitchen. I emptied the refrigerator, moving what I could into the trailer and taking boxes of dry food and such to neighbors. The freezer had a lot of ice built up around the ice box and the bottom of the freezer. We had to get it out, but we didn’t know how. Mom suggested a blow dryer, but Adolfo had just delivered mine to Goodwill. So, Mom started chipping at the ice while I poured hot water on it. After about a half hour of that, I saw a visitor across the street drive up, and I ran over to borrow a blow dryer. With the blow dryer, that ice melted just enough to break off—all in less than two minutes. It was a cold, wet job, but we finished it, cleaned out the refrigerator for the new owner and started off for a pharmacy to buy Mom some cold medicine just before Dad and Adolfo walked in.

We took off for a late lunch at 3pm. It was fast because we had to be at the closing at 4pm. Luckily, there was a small café right next to the title company. We ate, closed on the house, and headed again for McKinney Falls. There we had a little time to see the Falls before going back to the trailer and preparing dinner.

We will have to go to the bank in the morning before we hitch the trailer and take off. Hopefully it won’t take too long. We’d like to make it to Big Bend in one day so we will have time there with Mom and Dad before they take off in my car for San Diego.