{"id":152,"date":"2014-10-12T20:03:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T02:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=152"},"modified":"2016-09-07T15:25:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T12:25:51","slug":"more-packing-and-cleaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/more-packing-and-cleaning\/","title":{"rendered":"More Packing and Cleaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve somehow managed to fill two of the three days the postal delay forced on me. A good chunk of the time has been spent organizing and cleaning Miranda. A super deep clean didn&#8217;t make sense to me last week, not when it would have to be done again in the spring. But now that I had three days to kill, why not?<\/p>\n<p>The back bed is loaded with more bags that need to go out of the truck and my laundry basket, sitting on the desk, is coming, too. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/IMG_0216.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-153 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/IMG_0216-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_0216\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/IMG_0216-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/IMG_0216-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/IMG_0216.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> I have a similar staging area in the living room for kitchen things.<\/p>\n<p>It looks like quite a lot, especially with what&#8217;s already in the truck, but I shouldn&#8217;t have any trouble fitting it all in. It&#8217;s rather like packing for an evacuation. What can I absolutely live without? I don&#8217;t need everything I&#8217;m bringing, obviously, and not everything I&#8217;m leaving behind can be replaced. This picture shows three things that I would miss and which are irreplaceable; my framed Egyptian papyrus, my soapstone mule, and my aquarium glass paperweight. But do they need to come to Mexico with me? Absolutely not.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve made my peace with leaving for what will now be closer to seven rather than eight months, but still the better part of a year. What I come back to is what I come back to. It is just stuff even though this RV is the only real home I&#8217;ve ever had and I would be devastated if I came back to find it inhabitable. I always knew that this day would come. While I&#8217;m still reeling from the shock of it happening at 35 rather than 40, the day is here (or almost) and I am marching forward!<\/p>\n<p>I am so excited about what lies ahead. The US portion of the trip down will be considerably shorter now and I have made the decision to tighten up the budget considerably in case next month&#8217;s cheque is late, too. But Zion National Park beacons and that is more than enough for right now. I should be there in ten days or so, maybe a little more if I get the work I want for this coming week. It will be a wonderful place to stretch my legs for a bit.<\/p>\n<p>And then, Mexico&#8230; I am so mentally prepared to go that I&#8217;m not even nervous about the border crossing hoops anymore! I have my paperwork and the necessary funds and plenty of tips for the Nogales crossing. Come what may! I can already see myself at the restaurant in San Carlos <a href=\"http:\/\/croftsmexico.blogspot.ca\/\">Croft<\/a> told me to visit on my first night, sipping a cold beer and eating fresh seafood, with a freshly stamped 180-day tourist visa and a shiny holographic sticker on my truck windshield proving its legal temporary import status. This is how real my adventure has become in my mind. I&#8217;ve been talking about it for many months, but it&#8217;s only in the last ten days or so that I&#8217;ve gone from disbelief that I am really doing this to this being an absolute inevitability.<\/p>\n<p>I do wish I was in Billings or points south right now, especially since we&#8217;ve had a few warm nights that would have been perfect for sleeping in the truck. But it&#8217;s also nice to have had these last few quiet days at home to make sure it&#8217;s shut down properly and to enjoy the peaceful evenings listening to the mad band of coyotes out there in them hills. I know that this delay happened for a reason, whatever that reason is, but enough! I&#8217;m ready to roll out of here by noon Tuesday at the absolute latest!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve somehow managed to fill two of the three days the postal delay forced on me. A good chunk of the time has been spent organizing and cleaning Miranda. A super deep clean didn&#8217;t make sense to me last week, not when it would have to be done again in the spring. But now that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,14,635,5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haven","category-homemaking","category-mexico","category-north-america","category-rving","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}