OUR NOV. 2018 to ??? 2019 TRIP STARTS HERE

Gentle Reader:

Thank you for visiting my BlogSpot. This is my effort to stay in touch with you, our friends and family, while Ann and I enjoy our extended trip to the Southwest. If you would like to be notified when new pictures are posted, you may “sign-up” for email notifications. It’s good to know that our “community” is interested in our travels. Likewise, we would appreciate hearing from you, from time to time. So, please send us an update on your life via email, or leave your comments (for all to see) on this blog. This will help us feel connected while we are on our “Big Adventure”.

As you probably know, from March through October 2018 we withdrew from most of our social commitments (hiking, recorder group, and social justice activities) to focus on selling our home. We dumped, donated, sold, burned, or otherwise disposed of 40 years’ worth of accumulations. Some items (hobby and sports related) were harder for me to part with than others (literally about 6 tons worth of construction cr#p, including a couple of trailer loads of rotten, old, tar-papered, cedar shakes). I also met a lot of nice people through Craigslist.

Last year we had our greenhouse rebuilt.

This year, I refurbished the rest of our “hobby-house” by removing a rotten balcony, painting inside & out, . . .

. . . and adding interior and exterior wood trim to all of the doors and windows.

Ann weeded and worked wonders on the landscaping and flower beds.

In the vegetable garden, I repaired many of the raised beds, caught up on years of weeding, and cleared, leveled, and covered some paths with cedar chips.

I reset the flagstones leading up to the front door.

Damage, caused by UV light, to the large sliding doors in the sunroom, and to almost all the window sills in the house, had to be repaired by hand-sanding and re-varnishing.

 

Luckily, just after Labor Day, before putting our home on the market, our former neighbor said she was interested in buying our home. At first she thought her son (who still lives next door) would move into our home. But, when he said he wasn’t interested in moving, she decided she would buy our home for herself, so she could be near her grandchildren. We are glad to think of someone, whom we have known for a long time, enjoying our home. And, we are grateful that she promised not to cut down our wonderful, old trees.

Our “Plan A” was to sell our home in June, to travel across Canada to Nova Scotia and then to follow the Fall colors down the Eastern Seaboard, to spend winter in the South, and to return to Olympia in the Spring. Well, we “missed that boat” but we a willing to be flexible. So, our current plan is to head south, to escape the rain, and to make up our itinerary as we go! Ann and I are grateful for our freedom, our health and for our mutual love. We are pleased to have you follow our adventure, and would be delighted to hear from you.