The Great Migration has Begun!

Our trip did not seem like it would ever begin, but finally...at 11:44 pm on Friday night, the Boyd's began their migration south. We had a very difficult final day in Oak Harbor... not just the emotionally difficult task of saying goodbye to our friends and the physically taxing loading of the moving truck and cleaning the apartment...

...we also were hit other challenges. A beloved family pet, Kacey, passed away in New York. He had had a good life, but we just weren't ready to lose him. He had been having difficulty breathing and just slipped away. On top of that, when putting our bulkhead into the moving truck one of the brace bars (they are steel bars with cranks so they can be extended to tight across the truck) fell on my right hand and crushed my index finger.



It isn't broken, but fairly squished... with dents and lumps where there shouldn't be dents or lumps. :-)

Finally, after much appreciated help from our friends (and the Potters bought the Beast! Woot!), we hit the road with our cats in tow. They weren't too thrilled with being in the car, but finally settled down; Titai on my lap and Obie in his crate in the back seat (although he would wander up to the front and MRAOW plaintively every 20-30 minutes).



We had originally planned to stop about 2 hours out of Oak Harbor and crash at a hotel for the night. We both were exhausted physically and emotionally and just didn't want to drive far in that state. We stopped first at a Motel 6 in Everett, but were told they were full. We received that same message at the next SEVEN hotels we tried between Everett and Tacoma. Finally one of the ladies looked at her computer and told us that according to the systems she could access EVERY HOTEL was booked from Everett all the way down to Portland! By this time, it was 3 am and we were failing fast, doing all the nasty tricks you can think of to keep ourselves awake. We found a dark corner of a parking lot and crashed out in our seats for 2 hours. It wasn't GOOD sleep, but boy did we need it before driving again! We woke up around 5 and felt we were able to continue on. Hubband drove the whole way, and as hard as I tried I kept falling asleep on the way south. We finally hit Portland around 7 am, and C-mom's at around 720. The first order of business was to take showers, immediately after the cleanlineses regimen, I ate my first meal in 36 hours and then we both CRASHED on C-mom's bed.

We're now getting ready to meet the Pooleyatici for brunch. The rest of the weekend will consist of repacking everything so it will fit better in the car and meeting our friends and relatives to say "goodbye".

Goodbye's are the hardest... Im going to miss all our friends in Oak Harbor...our wonderful neighbors, Mattie and his Jen, Dwight and his adorably snotty kitty Bulldog, the Potters, and Tammy..... but I particularly am sorrowed at leaving Queenie and her HubUnit and little Anni. In just a single year they have become engraved on our hearts and inmeshed in our lives. They took me in while Hubband was away, lifting my spirits when they were low... we shared good food and good conversation and I hope that I helped them in their times of need as much as they helped us. We know they will always be our friends, always be in our hearts, but its still hard to realize that we won't be able to just run over to their place or call them up for a impromptu barbecue...

For the last week, Ive had that Take Three song in my head...

"Its friends I leave behind me, just touching as they pass.... take me home to heaven where we'll meet again at last...Take me home to the Glory, I know its only then, that I'll never have to say goodbye again..."

Goodbye Oak Harbor. You've been good to us!