Greenville, TX: 5.7 gallons of gas at $2.69/gas
Well, let's see. How many engineers do we know that are reading this blog? Waaaay too many . . . even if we just start with Marty's dad, Marty's husband, and my dad. So for all you readers that really care about this stuff, we'll be tracking mileage, and the price of gas. I'll even do the math for you and calculate the gas mileage.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
ME: 7/30/07 Good timing . . . or bad timing
As we were driving north on US 75, I noticed 3 helicopters in the air to the east. That seemed unusual. Then we heard all kinds of sirens on the southbound side of the freeway. Hmmm, they must be related. Then every few minutes another police car would speed by on the southbound side. We knew something big must be happening, so we turned on KRLD. Sure enough, the top news item was continuing coverage of a police chase that had been going on for over an hour. It started in Garland, went north on 75 to McKinney, then south on 75. We heard the live coverage of his exiting near Campbell Road where two police officers threw down tire spkes (or whatever the right name is) that blew out his tire when he drove over them. He eventually stopped his car between Harrigan's and "a law office" (Kondos and Kondos) . . . that's right by my house. That's the exit I take coming home from UNT. Wow. Praise God I left when I did so it wasn't going on when I was still home and that we left late enough that we weren't caught up in it when the guy was northbound on 75. Shwew.
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.
ME: 7/30/07 Emergency CDs from Melissa
Melissa, former flutist in our choir and current neighbor who lives across the alley and down 2 houses, let me crash on her couch for the last 8 days while my house was in an uproar getting ready for the estate sale and move. We had estate sale items in both bathrooms and on top of my bed, so there really was no place to sleep. It was very fun for me because we got to spend more time together chatting and laughing. We're both pretty sure that we've spent more time together in the past 8 days than we have in the 10 years that we've known each other.
She made 2 CD compilations for our trip. One is titled "Road Music: Songs about Cars, Roads, Traveling, . . . Plus Some I Just Like." The other is titled "Emergency Music". On that CD cover it says, "Directions: Listen to CD when you just can't keep your eyes open or have nothing to talk about. Warrning: •Beware of mixing with caffeine and sugar. •If you do not sing, bop, or smile, it's time to pull over."
Thanks, Melissa! Hopefully, we won't need it for emergency purposes, but we'll probably just listen to it anyway and enjoy it and think of good friends we are blessed with, like you.
She made 2 CD compilations for our trip. One is titled "Road Music: Songs about Cars, Roads, Traveling, . . . Plus Some I Just Like." The other is titled "Emergency Music". On that CD cover it says, "Directions: Listen to CD when you just can't keep your eyes open or have nothing to talk about. Warrning: •Beware of mixing with caffeine and sugar. •If you do not sing, bop, or smile, it's time to pull over."
Thanks, Melissa! Hopefully, we won't need it for emergency purposes, but we'll probably just listen to it anyway and enjoy it and think of good friends we are blessed with, like you.
ME: 7/30/07 Keys
I have 2 sets of keys right now to worry about, but it should be 3. I can't find my keychain of keys to things in Maine . . . my house, my office, and 2 other rooms at work. I felt certain it was in the purse that I put on the top shelf in my closet that I dubbed the "Go To Maine" shelf. Now, I've been back in Texas two and a half months and I've touched every item I own once to decide whether to store it in Texas, take it to Maine, or sell it in the Estate Sale. And I still haven't seen the keys. I emptied the closet and re-filled it only with things to go to Maine . . . no keys. I called MRM back in Maine hoping that when I left her the key to my post office box that I had left it on the key ring with all the Maine keys. I knew I hadn't, but I was hoping. But alas, I hadn't. Then I began to wonder where I could've lost them. Were they in the Town Taxi that I used to drive me from Farmington to the airport on that last day? Did they fall out on one of my flights I took to come back to Texas? How much would it cost to replace all my work keys and how much trouble would I be in for losing them? So many questions.
Fast forward to today when I was packing the car. I knew what the big pieces were to go in the car (3 crates of books across the backseat, 2 crates in the back of the trunk, 2 suitcases, a garment bag, and a printer in the trunk) and then I would just fill in the nooks and crannies with "little stuff". Shoes in a shoebag were my favorite little thing to tuck in . . . that and stuff wrapped in canvas bags (one can never have enough canvas bags . . . but I was a good girl, I only kept 6 and put 18 in the estate sale). I had pretty much filled in the trunk and had one little spot left. It was perfect for one more pair of shoes. Hmmm, I'm looking in the closet and there are no more shoes. I look high, I look low. What will fit in that little nook? I notice a pair of hiking boots wrapped in a grocery store bag that I had put up on the top shelf pretty early on after getting back from Maine. We had just finished mud season in Maine when I left and I remembered that I wished I had these boots. Well, they were a little too big for my nook but I decided to take them out to the car and try them. And of course, you've already guessed what was under the boots. Shwew! There were the Maine keys. ☺ God is good!
How appropriate that the very last thing I pack for the trip to Maine is my key ring of keys to Maine.
Now the question is, when I get to Maine, where should I put my keys to Texas??
Fast forward to today when I was packing the car. I knew what the big pieces were to go in the car (3 crates of books across the backseat, 2 crates in the back of the trunk, 2 suitcases, a garment bag, and a printer in the trunk) and then I would just fill in the nooks and crannies with "little stuff". Shoes in a shoebag were my favorite little thing to tuck in . . . that and stuff wrapped in canvas bags (one can never have enough canvas bags . . . but I was a good girl, I only kept 6 and put 18 in the estate sale). I had pretty much filled in the trunk and had one little spot left. It was perfect for one more pair of shoes. Hmmm, I'm looking in the closet and there are no more shoes. I look high, I look low. What will fit in that little nook? I notice a pair of hiking boots wrapped in a grocery store bag that I had put up on the top shelf pretty early on after getting back from Maine. We had just finished mud season in Maine when I left and I remembered that I wished I had these boots. Well, they were a little too big for my nook but I decided to take them out to the car and try them. And of course, you've already guessed what was under the boots. Shwew! There were the Maine keys. ☺ God is good!
How appropriate that the very last thing I pack for the trip to Maine is my key ring of keys to Maine.
Now the question is, when I get to Maine, where should I put my keys to Texas??
ME: 7/29/07 Getting Ready
Matthew has been helping me pack and purge. He's not only manual labor, he's been a great listener and a very patient young man as I hem and haw and try to decide what we need to do next. He doesn't say much when I must outloud wondering how to tackle this insurmountable challenge of reducing 23 years worth of packratted treasure to what will fit in a 10x12 storage shed in Texas and the back of my car to go to Maine. I try to remember to feed him at the appropriate times.
Sunday afternoon, he came over at 3:00, as scheduled, when the estate sale was over. I almost wish he wasn't so punctual so I could put off what was inevitable, but he was there and I was paying him, so I got to work and put him to work, too. We started by clearing up the estate sale and getting everything into the house that was important and cleaning up the backyard. Then we took everything off a card table and put it somewhere so that we could take down the card tables and return them to their rightful owners. Next, I wanted to start packing the car but decided we should really work on the shed while it was still light. The car is in the front yard where there's a streetlight and a porch light if it came to that, but the shed gets dark pretty fast. We actually came to a good stopping point on the shed and were headed to dinner at Arby's when I saw the estate sale sign in my front yard and remembered that we needed to take down all the signs. So we delayed dinner long enough to go pick up all the signs. When we put them up, Matthew was driving and I was the runner. Now, I was the driver, so Matthew got to be the runner.
At Arby's we were enjoying our sandwiches and discovering that we both preferred our French fries without catsup when we saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile pull up in the parking lot. How fun is that?! It really aroused our curiosity. It's such a funny shape with that big back end curving up out of the bun . . . what's inside in that part? The writing was all in Spanish on the side of the Weinermobile that we could see. Was it bilingual and in English on the other side? Did they have Spanish Weinermobiles and English ones? Inquiring minds want to know! After we finished eating, we investigated (BTW, it's English on one side and Spanish on the other) and took photos.
Sunday afternoon, he came over at 3:00, as scheduled, when the estate sale was over. I almost wish he wasn't so punctual so I could put off what was inevitable, but he was there and I was paying him, so I got to work and put him to work, too. We started by clearing up the estate sale and getting everything into the house that was important and cleaning up the backyard. Then we took everything off a card table and put it somewhere so that we could take down the card tables and return them to their rightful owners. Next, I wanted to start packing the car but decided we should really work on the shed while it was still light. The car is in the front yard where there's a streetlight and a porch light if it came to that, but the shed gets dark pretty fast. We actually came to a good stopping point on the shed and were headed to dinner at Arby's when I saw the estate sale sign in my front yard and remembered that we needed to take down all the signs. So we delayed dinner long enough to go pick up all the signs. When we put them up, Matthew was driving and I was the runner. Now, I was the driver, so Matthew got to be the runner.
At Arby's we were enjoying our sandwiches and discovering that we both preferred our French fries without catsup when we saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile pull up in the parking lot. How fun is that?! It really aroused our curiosity. It's such a funny shape with that big back end curving up out of the bun . . . what's inside in that part? The writing was all in Spanish on the side of the Weinermobile that we could see. Was it bilingual and in English on the other side? Did they have Spanish Weinermobiles and English ones? Inquiring minds want to know! After we finished eating, we investigated (BTW, it's English on one side and Spanish on the other) and took photos.
ME: The Maine Expedition
I'm moving to Maine! For 3 years, anyway. I was there last semester but that was just for a 4 semester visiting appointment, so I left my car in Dallas. But now it's for a 3 year visiting professor appointment, so I'm taking my car. My friend Marty, who loves to drive, is going with me and we're turning it into a fabulous trip of sightseeing, visiting old friends, and having fun.
So I'm calling it the Maine Expedition....ME for short...which is also the abbreviation for Maine. So each entry related to this particular trip will start with an ME in the title.
Enjoy!!
So I'm calling it the Maine Expedition....ME for short...which is also the abbreviation for Maine. So each entry related to this particular trip will start with an ME in the title.
Enjoy!!
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