.. over the brink, down the cliff, and out on the plains.

The worst part was Jennifer officially resigning from a well-paying, good-benefits, satisfying job as an expert provider in congestive heart failure care.  "What are we doing?"  But that was over in a flash and then we got so busy moving furniture, prepping kid's apartments, and pushing a 10 ton, 45-foot "road schooner", that we barely have had time to breathe, much less reflect.



The Road Schooner

The U-haul "road schooner" was loaded with the stuff for our hurricane-season hide-away in Massachusetts including our car on a trailer, and another apartment's worth of furniture and housegoods for a daughter in Vermont.  Pushing that along at traffic speed in and among the semis took both of us.  Jenifer to navigate in near-real time since it would not fit into any old gas station, and Royce driving.  We saw lots of near-miss situations with small "whipper-snapper" cars doing stupid things in front of speeding semis - imagine a ketchup packet stamped on by a large boot! - but no actual tragedies, thankfully. 


Looking out from Lookout Mountain

We got to spend a great afternoon/evening in New Orleans - sorry, what happens there stays there - and spent the night with friends on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga.  Who knew there was such an enormous mountain in the midst of this elegant city and that so much of the Civil War pivoted on it's control?  Then, after a thousand miles of schoonering, a frantic partial unloading at our hide-away, dropping off the car trailer and a few crazy hours maneuvering large antique furniture up narrow creaky stairs, we have had a wonderful long weekend with our daughter in Vermont helping her put together her first household. 

My cousin in Vermont asked us "How's retirement?" at dinner last night.  We both looked at each other and replied nearly at the same instant "We wouldn't know, we've been working too hard!"  But now we get to find out, finally, what we have been working for so hard, for so long.  A few weeks of decompression at our hide-away to sit out the remainder of the hurricane season, and then off to Cerca Trova! 

How long do you think we'll be able to stand it before we just have to up-stakes and head for the boat?

   

On the brink ..

Teetering on the brink of departure from San Antonio.  Our daughter is due in on Saturday night to load up with her share of the housegoods and then move in to Austin.  We are busy saying goodbye, trying to collect all the stuff going with us, running to see all the wonderful those-are-for-tourist things you never get to in your home town. 

 

It feels sort of schizophrenic, saying goodbye to so many close friends and so many people who seemed only peripheral in our lives, but turns out they were all pretty important. A little late on our part to have figured that out. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you're losing until it's almost gone?

 

And in limbo too.  We miss the boat and can't wait to get on the road.  We're killing time, a terrible crime, while we wait.  But we're having all kinds of fun at the same time.  Doing the Riverwalk, discovering restaurants we had heard of but never quite gotten around to going to, biking down the river into the Misison District, big brews and microbreweries. 

 

San Antonio is actually a pretty cool town (ha! take that Austin!)  and we will miss it here.  But the boat and the water call.  Like Tolkein's elves, having heard the seagulls, you are forever restless until you can cross west over the water ..