Travel Blog

Phil: The Culling
Where did all this stuff come from?

When we first decided to move from a 1300 sq ft house to a 30 ft fifth-wheel trailer we knew we would have to get rid of a lot of stuff. I just didn't realize how much stuff we had.

After selling our house almost furnished, two big garage sales, selling hundreds of dollars of stuff to friends and acquaintances online, and more trips to Goodwill than I care to remember I figured we were done. But I was wrong.

We spent all of yesterday going through clothes, books and miscellaneous junk figuring out what we could do without in order to get everything to fit in the RV. After that last cull, we are down to a livable amount of stuff and have a little room left over.
This was actually the second time in my life that I have sold off all my material possessions before a long journey. So you'd think I would have less to get rid of, but it wasn't the case. With all my massage tools, table and books I probably outweigh Sue's things by several hundred pounds (weight is a major issue on the road because your RV can only carry so much on the axles before you are dragging your rear end down the highway, not to mention the more things weigh the less mileage you get down the highway).

So a big thank you to Sue's sister for letting me store my junk at her house. Thanks to all the people who bought or took our stuff, and we hope you will put it to good use.

Sue: So Long, and Thanks for All the Pics
My coworkers at AccuWeather gave me a generous amount of money as a going-away present. They told me it was to pay for some gas along the way. Well, when they gave me this money, the tank was full. So I decided to spend it on a new digital camera.
I bought a Sony CyberShot 5.1 megapixel- a little honey of a camera. I'm talking sweeeeeet! Make sure to check out our Photo Gallery to see some pictures we took with it.
So a big thank you to my pals at AccuWeather for their thoughtful gift, and don't be too mad at me for not using it for fuel. I'll make sure to take some nice pictures of the places we're stranded in when we run out of gas.

On a side note, my sister went to post some comments about some things we wrote in our first entry, and she called me to tell me, with some indignation, that she couldn't post them because of some restrictions we put on comments. I was told that I HAD to give her privileges to post her sarcastic responses as soon as she writes them. I'm going to go ahead and try to make it so - don't ask me why. But the reason we put such restrictions on in the first place was because I'm a very sensitive soul, really, who may be emotionally scarred by negative comments.

But please, if you wish to comment on anything we've written here, feel free. We may even let some negative comments go online, even if you're not a relative. I'll just make sure my more stoic hubby reads them first so he can shield me from emotional bruising.