Bon Voyage

All packed and ready to go

It was a wet, miserable finish for me in Fort Montgomery. I moved out the last of my stuff over the weekend, packing the storage garage to the rafters. One casualty: a pastel from 1937, which I'd purchased a few years ago on eBay. It slid out of the pile of my junk, the glass frame shattering, the rain seeping in and turning the pastel to a watercolor. Appropriately, the drawing was of a woman bathing. Picture this, though: me, standing under the shower of rain dripping in the storage garage doorway, screaming at the top of my lungs. I won't say what I screamed.

My departure from the house was bittersweet. Even as I was finishing moving out, I found myself visited with memories of moving in---how happy I'd been to be the proud owner of a new home. But it was a relief to be done with the place. I said a final farewell to my chickens and slung them a couple handfuls of oats. They were good hens, who kept me fed with breakfasts. The new owners will be keeping them.

Aptly, the sun broke through yesterday morning, just as I was packing the last of my stuff in the truck. Guster wasn't sure what was going on, and it wasn't until he was safely secured in his seatbelt harness in the backseat of the packed truck that he seemed to relax a bit.

We had an uneventful drive north and east to Rhode Island, where we surprised my mother for her birthday. The rest of my family came, too. I also caught up with Jim Dowling at The Coffee Exchange in Providence and got to spend an hour or so with him.

It's a cool morning here in Rumford, and I'm enjoying my last cup of good coffee. It's road coffee from here on out until I'm installed at the cabin! My destination for today is Buffalo. I'm hoping to stay at the Batavia Holiday Inn, where I'll rendezvous with Kevin Costa for dinner. Sharen has a training at that same hotel tomorrow, so maybe we'll meet for breakfast.

Eager to begin.