If you've been following along, you know we traded in our small-town country lifestyle for life on the road in 2015. We sold the house, shipped essentials to my brother in FL, loaded up the car and drove to Florida with 2 Beagles and cat to purchase our new home on wheels.
We were rewarded with nearly 5 glorious years traveling the US, basking in each new experience, making lasting friendships and relishing our time together. We left the road due to health issues, and settled in San Antonio.
After I lost my partner in November 2021, I stayed in TX for awhile. I love my in-laws, but I wanted to be near my only family, my kids, so I decided to keep only what I could ship or pack in my car. For months I packed boxes, sold furniture and donated everything else. What a cleansing. Back in 2015 before we traveled, we did the same thing, selling all but some keepsakes.
It was a daunting undertaking but I'm thankful for the help from relatives, my daughters and many neighbors
Before I left, I managed to take a few pictures of the "ribbon roads" of TX. I never saw sky roads like this anywhere else and believe it or not, my vertigo is so severe I couldn't wait to get off them! Yet I still think they are graceful and unique.
My daughter Carla flew down to TX to take Cole the cat back up north so he wouldn't be cramped in the car on the drive to Pennsylvania. It was a great help. She let him out on his leash going through airport security and he was such a champ!! He's a travelin' cat and loved the attention.
Nina then flew down to San Antonio to co-drive with me back to PA. We closed up the apartment, spent the night with my SIL and left early the next morning on our journey north.
We spent the first night in New Orleans. I was physically unable to explore the area, but Nina walked around and came back with coffee and beneighs from Cafe Du Monde. Oh the best!
The next 3 days we continued our journey to Pennsylvania, sharing the driving.
As we got closer, we stopped at Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum and Candy Emporium near Caledonia State Park. Oh we loved it! It was so trippy and interesting! We bought some candy and went on our way for the final leg of our trip.
As we got closer to Lancaster, the landscape changed. It's so peaceful and laid back.
On the fourth day, we pulled into our new home and life. I had only seen pictures of the apartment so it was amazing to see how open and roomy the space was. The living room is huge, the bedrooms are at the end of the hallway and there are massive closets and a storage locker in the basement. The kitchen is small but has an incredible gas stove!
This is what greeted me. You can see only a small portion of boxes to unpack. There were about 40, and each box was numbered and a list was made of each box's contents. Unfortunately, I lost half the list (it never turned up), and as I unpacked the boxes, I didn't keep track of the numbers as I opened them. I naively thought everything was there, but some boxes went missing. Everything of value was packed in the car, so it's not worth trying to track down the missing boxes.
They weren't insured anyway.
Within days of arriving in Lancaster, my car died. It's all electric with push buttons, and couldn't be towed because we couldn't put it in Neutral so it had to be skid loaded onto a flatbed. I thank the stars above we made it to Pennsylvania before it died!
So I made it to Amish Land.
See you real soon!
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