The DAY is at Hand

Friday, 30 November

This is what was on my blog when I took a peek at it this morning. Yes; the day has arrived! By 3:00p today, I will be officially retired ... or, since I am below the official retirement age, I will at least be out of the workforce.

Mui's official last day with DHS is not until the end of December, but he turned in his badge and keys yesterday and is on what is called terminal leave ... they could have a better description of his status, but what matters is that he's out of the daily work routine and doesn't have to go back into the office to complete the formalities.  That's a good thing since we will be flying the coop and heading south on Tuesday, 4 December.

Tonight we will have the first of the many sleeps of our fulltiming gypsy lifestyle in our rolling condo.

Update:

Had to come back and post a link to the retirement tribute my friend MBZ put up for us on her blog.

Six Days and 10 Hours … Call it a Week

Friday, 23 November

As I write this, the countdown clock says we have just over six days to retirement.  Seems to me it’s off by a day, counting down to the morning of November 30 instead of the evening.  That’s OK; I can live with that discrepancy.

First of all, I hope all those celebrating Thanksgiving had a wonderful day yesterday.  This was our first Thanksgiving since moving to the US in 1982 that we did not have a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  Even plans for having turkey wraps for dinner fell by the wayside, but no biggie … we still gave thanks for all that we have to be grateful for.

We spent T-Day at the motorhome continuing the rough settling in process.  Mui had a few things he wanted to do — like hanging up an over the door towel rack in the bathroom, and a few quick storage mods that I will blog about in a separate post.  The picture to the right hints at one of the mods Mui made … and no, I’m not talking about the bottles themselves ;-)

We’re on track for the permanent move into the Phaeton a week from today; first stop — a few days at Bull Run Regional Park.  We will probably go out to the coach both days this weekend to do some fine tuning while we’re still in storage.  We figure whatever time we spend there now will speed things up and perhaps we can leave Bull Run earlier than planned and head to warmer climes that much sooner.

With so little time left in the stix & bricks, I thought I would post a few “then and now” photos to remind us of our living conditions after we got down to the serious business of moving stuff to storage and donating what we didn’t want to keep.  All I can say is that camping out like this is nothing like camping out with the motorhome — we much prefer doing the latter.

The “then” photos were taken after we sold our townhome and moved into our temporary digs in May 2011; the “now” photos were taken yesterday.  Whatever furnishing you see in the latter set of photos are either things we plan to leave behind/donate; or stuff borrowed from the coach so that we have a place to eat and a place to sit.  There are a few things — like the TV — that will be going in storage; we plan to make a last trip up to Winchester before we leave the area.

Then … first floor living spaces.

Now … the table and chairs go back to the Phaeton; what boxes that aren’t used for
stuff going to storage will be recycled.

Now … Storage bins re-purposed as coffee tables; you use what you’ve got!

Then … the spare bedroom that served as my office and the guest bathroom.

Now … the laptop on the left is going back to my work office on Monday; which means
I won’t have a need for the external monitor anymore; my Mac is going on the road
with us — I just can’t give it up; Mui designed a nifty way to keep it safe when we’re
rolling down the road in our quest for new adventures.

Then … the master suite.

Now … not much left; the box springs and mattress will be put in the
trash room on Friday to be hauled out to the dump.

Yes, the condo looks pitiful; but we don’t mind.  Seven more days and we’ll be in the coach to begin our gypsy lifestyle.

Blast from the Past: Modeling Career

1969

It wasn’t a long career … if I recall correctly, it lasted all of one day :-)

I have no recollection of how mom’s hairdresser convinced this essentially shy girl to be a hair model, but here’s proof that I agreed to a short stint on the catwalk!

İzmİr, Turkey

Poğaça Anyone?

Wednesday, 14 November

In the midst of packing, and moving stuff to storage and the motorhome, Mui has been practicing making a Turkish savory pastry called poğaça.  This pastry, sometimes made in bread form, is popular in most of the Balkan countries.  It can be leavened or unleavened; and can be made with a variety of fillings, though feta cheese is probably the most popular in Turkey.

We’re freezing this batch to eat with our four o’clock tea when the urge hits on the road.

The problem with every poğaça I’ve ever eaten — and I’ve eaten a good number of them — is that they are soft and taste great the day they are made; not so much in subsequent days.  The solution we’ve found is to freeze them after they’ve been baked, and take out one or two as we need them.  If frozen, about 40 seconds in the microwave restores them to yummy perfection; if pre-thawed, 15-20 seconds does the trick.  They make a great treat with afternoon tea; and you can also have them for breakfast!

The unleavened poğaça recipe that Mui uses is in Turkish, and it only gives a list of ingredients for the dough (on the assumption that you already know how to make it).  So, if you want to try your hand at making a batch, here’s a similar recipe in English (with yeast) and another recipe (without yeast); a quick web search will reveal many other recipes. 

A few tips from Mui’s recipe:

• knead the dough with milk or yogurt instead of water;
• the dough should be the consistency of an ear lobe;
• add yogurt to the crumbled feta cheese filling to keep the pastries soft and moist for a longer period after they have been baked.

As they say in Turkish, afiyet olsun … or bon appetit!

Phaeton Prep Well Underway

Tuesday, November 13

Can’t say that we’ve settled our stuff into the Phaeton, but we made considerable headway these past 3½ days.  I’m much too tired to write a proper blog post, so this is going to be a quickie entry — after all, wouldn’t want to leave the story of our fulltiming prep incomplete.

(We were too busy working; what photos we took were usually an afterthought.)

Phaeton Prep Day 1 was focused on the basement.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather during the long weekend that saw us working at the Phaeton.  We had beautiful blue-sky days with temps reaching into the 68-72F (20-22C) range through mid-day Monday when the clouds started moving in.  It was perfect weather to work outside — empty and vacuum the basement, sort through what was already there, and reorganize the compartments.  It was also nice to have good weather to unload the toad and carry stuff inside.  That we didn’t have to run the furnace to stay warm was an unexpected bonus for this time of the year.

November days that are warm enough to sit outside for our snack breaks — what a treat!

This morning, the temperature was at 40F (4C) and falling, and there was rain, sleet, and hail.  But by then, the work outside was done and we had just a few plastic bins to carry from the toad to the Phaeton, so it didn’t matter.

Prep Days 2 and 3 found us working inside to organize the living space.

Our goal was to move most everything we plan to take with us into the Phaeton.  We accomplished that.  We even managed to get most of the cabinets and closets organized; that was a bonus.  The good news is that we’re not bursting at the seams as I feared we might :-)  There’s still plenty of room in the cabinets and basement compartments.  We anticipate that our load will lighten further as our fulltiming lifestyle evolves and we become more comfortable discarding some of the things we feel we can’t live without at the moment.

Perfectly sized storage drawers make using the overhead cabinets in the bedroom much easier;
we can use the space between and on top of the bins to store rolled up spare towels and whatnot.
mounted on the back wall of the closet, one of Mui’s old tie racks is perfect to hang my purses.

The Phaeton has a lot of storage space, but not all of it is easily accessible.  Our My frustration challenge was to organize stuff such that what we think we’ll be using regularly will be handy, and put nice-to-haves and spare items in the less accessible places.  I think I managed to do that, but time will tell.  I see “settling into the Phaeton” as an ongoing process.  I’m sure we’ll find that we need to make some changes to what is stored where.  So be it!

16 days and counting!!!

Over a Big Hurdle

Monday, 5 November

This past weekend saw us put a big hurdle behind us — several large pieces of furniture slated for donation were picked up and almost everything we plan to store while we’re on the road was moved to the unit we rented in early August (post here).

Mui picked up the U-Haul truck Thursday afternoon.  It was a day earlier than we planned, but finding convenient street parking for a 26-foot (8 m) truck (plus the loading ramp) isn’t easy in our subdivision.  So, when we saw that the space near the front entrance was empty, we decided to take advantage of it.

Thursday, the truck and driver report for duty!
The 26-footer is more than we need, but this way we won’t have to stack things high.

On Friday, we moved some of the things that were on the first floor of the duplex down to the truck ourselves.  In particular, Mui wanted to have the donation items in the truck so that he could put them curbside first thing Saturday morning for pick up by the Salvation Army.

Bundled up against cold temps, we move some of the stuff to the truck on Friday.

Having majorly downsized when we sold the townhouse last year, we had a lot less to sort through for the move to the storage unit.  But we still had some heavy pieces that needed to be brought down from the second floor of the condo.  Neither one of us wanted to deal with maneuvering those things down the narrow staircase, so we hired a couple of professional movers to deal with this phase of the move on Saturday.  Between the two of them, the guys had everything in the truck by 2:00p.  Salvation Army showed up at about the same time to pick up the donation pile.  By 2:30p we were done for the day.

the movers load the truck with storage stuff and the donations get picked up on Saturday.

A chilly Sunday morning found us on the road at 6:30a.  There was hardly any traffic en route — most people were probably taking advantage of the extra hour of sleep from the overnight fallback from daylight saving time to standard time.  With our speed averaging 45-55 mph, we made the 96 mile (154 km) drive to Winchester in two hours.  As expected, there was no one else at the storage facility, so we pulled right up to the hangar door and started unloading the truck.

That our ground-floor unit is the first one down the hallway made our job that much easier.  Keeping track of what went where on a quick and dirty site plan, we made sure that the things we don’t anticipate needing until we get off the road were placed in the back. A couple of breaks to replenish our energy with healthy snacks, and by 12:30p the truck was empty.  Wow!  Only four hours to do something that I thought was going to take us all day!  I guess Mui and I make a good moving team after all ;-)

Moving stuff into the storage unit goes much faster than I anticipate.

For those who commented on my footwear when I was carrying some small items into
the storage unit back in August (post here; scroll down for picture), I’ll have you
know that when there’s serious work to be done, I do dress appropriately ;-)

Tailgating in the sunshine is fine for a short break, but for our longer lunch break,
we move into the truck’s cab where it’s warmer.

A job well done!
We’re keeping clothes that we will need for non-Phaeton travels in the white cabinets.
There’s still plenty of room in the unit for anything else that needs to be put into
storage before we get on the road in December — like our TV!

We were back on the road by 12:45p.  Without our stuff to weigh down the truck, the ride home was a little less smooth, but we did gain speed and made it back in 1½ hours instead of the two hours it took us to get to Winchester.

With the storage move completed, Mui’s a happy camper.

Just as we were parking the truck where we’d been told to leave it, the manager of the U-Haul store drove by.  Seeing us, he stopped to collect the keys and accompany Mui to the office to complete the paperwork.  Since we were only an hour past the Sunday drop off deadline, not only did he not charge us the additional day’s rental, but he gave us a hefty discount on the per mile rate.  Why?  Out of the goodness of his heart, I guess.  It’s what Mui calls the brotherhood discount … treat people right and with respect regardless of their race or religion, and you will receive the rewards ten fold.

Mr Dinosaur wants to know: “Where will U go Next?”
Isn’t that the eternal question of all fulltime RV’ers?

The condo sure feels desolate now that all the stuff that made it a home has been taken to storage.  But we don’t mind — not only has the place always been a temporary residence for us, the nearly blank slate is a sign that we’re on track for our early December departure from the area.

Next up is the Phaeton.  The plan is to take advantage of the upcoming long weekend to organize/inventory what we have in the coach.  That done, we will transfer anything else from the condo that we want to take on the road with us.

Continue to wish us luck; it’s working!