Farewell to T.G.O!!

We were home from two months in Australia and New Zealand and faced with the task of packing up the house and getting ready for yet another move. Fortunately, this time, we gave ourselves enough time to do it without driving ourselves crazy. Even with all the time, it still was a ball-breaking move. We had two movers arrive on the 19th to pack all of our stuff in the van, drive from the east coast to the west coast of Florida and unload the van into storage. We cut it very close- arriving at the storage unit at 3:00 – with a closing time of 5:00. These two guys literally ran the boxes into the storage unit. No telling if my careful labeling of “Fragile” and “Top Load” made any difference in the placement of boxes. Oh well, it’s just “stuff”.

We had 7 days left at TGO after the official move to get the motorhome ready to function as our new home. That meant not only moving everything in and re-organizing, but also getting all of our PC/cell phone updates, etc. The time went by all too quickly. Bob and Janet had us over for a farewell dinner. It was an interesting evening. We arrived to hear the latest discussions of TGO politics. Seems that even after the last election, the political bickering and hostility has continued. After about 40 minutes listening to the discussions, I felt John’s hand under the table shaking my hand….we were making the right decision to leave.

The closing – on April 26th- was painless- especially since the new buyers weren’t in attendance. They had signed the paperwork and Fed-Ex’ed it in advance of our closing. We signed the papers and took the check to the bank immediately for deposit. Unlike the sale of our house in Boston, there were no second thoughts or sad thoughts at leaving. We had left a few things in the house so we had the VW packed to the gills and boxes all over the motorhome. We looked like true gypsies when we left TGO for the last time. We decided to take the motorcycle and motorscooter up to John and Brenda’s, so we picked up a U-Haul trailer and I drove the VW behind John to my mom’s house.

We dropped off our last few things in storage and took Mom and E.D. out for his birthday dinner at Margarita’s. E.D. reciprocated the following night with a German dinner to celebrate John’s upcoming birthday. It was nice to spend a few days relaxing with Mom. (although, we did have the challenge of setting up her new cell phone).