The last two weeks we were in Tucson quickly landslid into chaotic oblivion, despite my best efforts to start the sorting and packing months (and I mean like a year and a half, when I first moved in with Ray and started paring down our belongings) in advance, and I didn’t get a chance to write about the madness and awesomeness of pre-trip packing and departure that is such a big part of such a journey. How do you prepare for possibly up to 3 years away, with no home to stash your belongings while you’re gone?

If I had it to do over again, I would do some things differently. Unfortunately, the beauty and bane of a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” is that it is, well, once-in-a-lifetime. But nonetheless, should time travel ever become possible or should anyone chance upon this who might be doing the same thing or might be inspired to do the same thing, let me impart some wisdom.

Things done right: getting rid of a ton of our stuff.
Things could have been done better: No, seriously. GET RID OF A TON MORE OF YOUR STUFF

Things done right: starting sorting and sorta-packing months in advance
Things could have been done better: FINISH sorting and REALLY-packing months in advance

Things done right: get a storage unit
Things could have been done better: get a storage unit WAY before one week before departure, get an AIR-CONDITIONED unit if you live in Arizona, and get it in TUCSON if you live in TUCSON and not in PHOENIX, two hours AWAY, if you live in Tucson!!!!

In addition to the hours and stress-cells mom burned with us in the heat and heaps helping us get packed up, packed in, and moved out, her biggest contribution was probably to tell us to get a storage unit. Sure we’d considered – and dismissed – it, long ago. We, perhaps foolishly, thought we’d be able to pare down our stuff to a few small boxes that would be easily farmed out to friends and family, just one box to each place, should be no sweat off anyone’s back.

But we found for as much as we DID get rid of (Craigslist patrons and the Goodwill sure made a killing that week with bins and bins and bins and bins of stuff), we still had too much to reasonably expect to farm out with only days left on the countdown. While we could have done better (you can always do better), to our credit, it IS pretty hard to maintain a functioning life if we packed up a lot of it any sooner. Hockey playoffs, for example, would have been hard to play without hockey skates and gear. Work would have been challenging to finish without a desk or computer. Etc., etc.

We also found that friends and family, dear and supportive as they are in some regards, some in many regards, are either not keen or willing to adopt even one of your boxes for three years. Or as was the case with many of our peers, they don’t even know where they’re going to be by then. Most people are already so stuffed to the gills with “stuff” of their own they simply don’t have the space or sanity to spare to take on our junk – er, treasures – as well. (Btw thanks to Peter Walsh’s audiobook “It’s All Too Much” which I played on endless loop while going through my stuff, I am now a HARDCORE GET RID OF STUFF veteran – I would HIGHLY recommend the purging process of junk that I went through, even -and especially- if you’re not doing it with the ultimate aim of a giant trip. It’s extremely liberating and freeing of the body and the mind. Seriously.) The bottom line is, we should have planned to bite the bullet and pay for a storage unit. It sounded like too painful a wasted expense though, back when we had enough time to naively think we might get our stuff down to maybe six boxes between us, and when we weren’t, well, freaking the heck out about departure – and now add a no-nonsense mom to the mix who has a tendency to helicopter as only mothers can when they see their little chickadees are clearly entering the realm of completely dysfunctional, sleep-deprived, and basically running around in circles mentally and physically as Ray and I ended up doing at the end.

So in the end, Hover-Mom not-too-difficult-ly convinced us to get a unit. She knew a cheap one that was half the price of what our minimal searches (the best we could muster with the time crunch – are you getting a sense of things yet?) had yielded. Half the price – that is, $24 a month instead of $50 – goes a long way stretched out over 3 years and thinking in terms of “hmm $24 can buy me two weeks’ accommodation in a BEACH HUT on the white sparkling sands and turquoise waters of THAILAND… or it can buy me a month of storage for stuff I’m not using.” Catch was, it was in Phoenix. And “air-cooled”, not “air-conditioned”, which means pretty much nothing when we’re talking melting Phoenix temps in summer – which, B.T. Dub, of course we were gearing this whole operation at the END of JULY. This again might not be *that * big a deal, to not have A/C in the unit, if we weren’t talking about one of the world’s greatest own-life historians, who has boxes and boxes and boxes of photos and videotapes from childhood on and innumerable awesome life adventures that she’d just assume preserve. And coupled with Ray, one of the world’s greatest walking tech-stores…well…suffice it to say maybe shelling out for an A/C unit –in Tucson, so as to avoid having to worry about car space to haul it the 2 hour drive- would have been worth the dough after all. But it was too late for that now. At least the bulk of it went to our 5×5 unit and Ray’s parents relented to take the rest and stash it under the beds for us. (Thanks, Ray’s parents!) Lessons learned. Useless for us now, but maybe helpful for you!!

But while it was all a whirlwind of chaos at the end, it wasn’t all a bad one. Despite the stress, tempers didn’t flare too much and we all emerged more or less friends. All the pets got good homes – the frog went to a Craigslist buyer who had come for shelves and left with the shelves as well as with “Flipper”, Coby my sweet Betta went to a family who was super excited to get him which made me very happy, and the ratties (sniff) who live to about 2 ½ years old, went to a family who has, um, a 5½-YEAR-OLD one!! The roommate got basically cleaned out with us gone, and even though she says the house is lonely now, probably is relieved to have our explosion of mess finally vacated from her living room, laundry room, garage, etc….

The highlight of the madness was definitely the amazingly sweet and generous going away party that our friend from hockey Jessi organized for us at Bladeworld, the rink Ray and I had been playing at for the past year and a half. She sponsored the entire thing – free beer and rink time included, AND went around to every person who wanted to partake with her very officious clipboard and stern business demeanor and somehow extricated about $600 from some 30-people for our trip – and then on top of that, matched the proceeds herself! Wow. Just…wow. The generosity from all the people who have contributed to this trip has been so heartening and awesome and basically incredible. That support and encouragement already more than once has kept us going forward with this trip instead of turning around and getting right back on the next plane out of Asia before we even give it a chance! The party was awesome because we got to chat some, drink some (not too much because we wanted to play hockey and G’s health insurance had just expired the day before!), and sweat some. I’d never seen the benches so full – 10 people on each side. Somehow I don’t think most of them were there for sentimental reasons to see us off, and more like for the free hockey, haha but that’s all right. Billie from our team christened us on arrival with some cool hemp necklaces that she had made which we are still wearing through all the sweat baths and definitely add to our traveling-hippie look; the backs of our hands were immediately emblazoned with a Sharpie-drawn “G” like everyone else to denote that we were part of the party and therefore entitled to the holy red plastic cups; and Shannon adorned our upper arms with some of the temporary tattoos she had brought with her. It was a good time and a great commemorative event to mark the end of our stint in Tucson. THANK YOU, JESSI!! And thank you to everyone who helped support and encourage us in our pre-trip days, it was so much fun to look forward to even before we began! Never did get a chance to contact local businesses or news stations to tell em about the trip (bummer), so if you think you know of any other group, school or classroom project, organization, or media outlet that might like to partake somehow, please let em know for us! I’d still love to get us on Letterman and/or Oprah, or at least KGUN9 On Your Side lol, but for now that will have to take a backburner as communication of any sort is hard enough just to our immediate friends and family now with these electricity and internet woes!

So, in the end, we did somehow (thanks Mom!!) get moved out of Tucson more or less intact and actually got on the plane on the date scheduled. I know this entry is a little out of order, but hey I’m in India now where EVERYTHING is out of order, so that’s how I get to roll.

So “Goodbye Tucson!” and, at long last, hello Trip!!

Ok. NOW we can really begin the trip posts!! :)