ME: 7/30/07, 3:10pm odometer: 19733

When we planned this trip, I said I wanted to leave Monday after lunch. I wanted the morninig to wait for the Goodwill truck to come pick up the leftovers from the estate sale and some time to close up the house. Well, about the only part of that I got right was the part about leaving after lunch. The estate sale went really well, but I had so much stuff left over that I can have a whole 'nother estate sale. Fortunately, that meant there was no Goodwill truck coming and I didn't have to box everything up for the Goodwill truck. I actually just left everything where it was and will deal with it when I come back in a few weeks. By then, I will figured out with Cathy (who volunteered to take my leftovers to her house for a follow-up garage sale, but she has no idea how much stuff I have left over) how to handle the leftovers. So all I had to focus on between when the estate sale ended at 3:00 and when we were leaving (between 1 and 2 was the raget) was to close up the house and pack the car. I started on the car last night with Matthew. We got 5 crates of books into the car (3 across the back seat and 2 in the far back of the trunk). Then it took the whole morning to finish. I ended up with 2 suitcases filled with clothes in the trunk, plus a printer/scanner and a lot of little stuff to fill in the nooks and crannies (see the entry on Maine Keys for more details). It was 1:00 when I finally finished it all. Then I went back to Melissa's to take another shower before I ran 2 errands and went to Marty's. At straight up 2:00, I got a text message from Mark (our host for tonight) that said, "Left yet? Drive carefully!" Hmmm, I've known Mark since 1970 and he knows to ask if I've actually left. I gues I haven't changed much. I actually got to Marty's at 2:45, so that's pretty good for me. We loaded the car and waited for Frank to get home from work so he could say goodbye. Matthew and Adam just wanted the keys to Marty's car while she was gone. By 3:10 we were off.