Day 0

Monday, June 23: Day 0

I'm calling today "Day Zero" because we did a lot of driving, but did not make any progress westward. You see, when you do a one-way rental of an RV (which is what we're doing -- picking up here and dropping off there), you don't always get to choose your exact pick-up or drop-off points. It all depends on where the various RV's in the company's fleet are, and where they need to get to. Luckily for us, the national headquarters of CruiseAmerica.com is in Phoenix, so dropping off there was not a problem since lots of vehicles are headed there. However, picking up on this end was a problem. There weren't any RV's near us available that needed to get to Phoenix. The closest available RV was in Mentor, Ohio. Mentor, Ohio is 256 miles from from East Lansing -- EAST. So we had to drive our rental car (rented because our two vehicles were shipped to AZ on Friday) 256 miles east to Mentor, Ohio, pick up the RV, then drive both it and the rental car back to East Lansing. So 512 miles later, we are absolutely no closer to Arizona than we were at the start of today. Hence the name "Day Zero."

The RV is pretty cool. I've never used one before, always been a tent camper myself. But I think it will be both comfortable and convenient to make our long trek to Arizona. I'm a little worried that by the time we arrive on Friday night, the RV won't smell too nice, given the presence of so many animals in a confined space (of both the human and the pet variety!). The cats have to have a litter box. The guinea pigs start to smell if their cage isn't cleaned regularly. We hope the dog lets us know when she has to go so we can stop the RV and let her out.

I am looking forward to getting started on our journey, but that isn't a feeling shared by everyone here. Rosie and Emily, the older two (17 and 15) are not happy about moving, and are cramming all they can into their last night in East Lansing. Emily and her boyfriend Nathan have spent all day together, and are out getting coffee now (at 11 pm!) so they can stay up even later talking. Rosie is out with friends, and told me she doesn't plan to go to bed at all tonight. She wants to make the most of her last 24 hours in East Lansing, and doesn't want to "waste" time by sleeping. She said that's what the RV is for -- sleeping.

Of course, that's not true for me or Mark. We plan to take turns driving and navigating, so there'll be no sleeping for us, at least not while the RV is moving! Our driving plan is as follows:

Day 1 (Tuesday 6/24): East Lansing to West Lafayette, IN. There we'll stay with friends and pick up our additional passenger, Krystal (age 16). 276 miles. We plan to get a late start from here because we have a LOT left to do on the house before we can take off. Our goal is to leave by 4 pm.

Day 2 (Wednesday 6/25): West Lafayette, Indiana to Joplin, MO. Stay in a KOA campground in Joplin. 558 miles

Day 3 (Thursday, 6/26): Joplin, MO to Tucumcari, New Mexico. Stay in a KOA campground in Tucumcari. 586 miles.

Day 4 (Friday 6/27): Tucumcari, NM to Gilbert, AZ. Stay in our new house! 582 miles.

Day 5 (Saturday, 6/28) Return RV in the morning to Mesa, AZ. 7 miles.

So we have a lot of driving ahead of us. It's a long time to be sedentary, but at this point, I'm looking forward to it. These last weeks here have been a frenzy of work on the house to get it ready to sell. We've spent hours and hours carefully painting walls (in many cases after struggling to remove old wallpaper), ceilings, woodwork and trim, in multiple rooms (3 of 4 bedrooms, two bathrooms, the kitchen, the dining room. I've spent days working in the unfinished part of the basement, removing old paint and waterproofing the walls, scrubbing the floors, getting rid of junk. I've worked in the yard, pulling weeds, trimming the ever-creeping groundcover that would take over the patio if we let it. I scrubbed all the kitchen cabinets with Murphy Oil soap, then waxed them with Old English oil and buffed them up to a nice shine. And boy do they look nice! I scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors on my hands and knees so I could do a super-thorough job, getting along the baseboards and in corners. I fixed a cracked and peeling ceiling in the bathroom and re-caulked around the tub. Mark has focused on painting, because he's so good at it. He has a steady hand and can edge along the ceiling or baseboard without using painter's tape. He's also added a lot of trim, including quarter round, outside corner, and chair rail, and repaired/re-painted air duct vents, outlets, and door fixtures. The rooms he's done are totally transformed.

Basically, I'm exhausted. And so is Mark. Yesterday, for example, we got up at 7 am to begin working on the house. We finally quit for the day at 11:45 pm. There's a kind of bone-tired that seeps in after so much physical labor. I have a desk job. I'm used to sitting for most of the day. I'm not used to 27 hours of hard physical work!

And the sad part? The house looks so much nicer now than it ver did when we lived in it!

So I hope it's worth the effort we've put into it. I don't expect any of the work we've done ourselves, or the work we hired out (a brand new roof and gorgeous refinished hardwood floors) to add to the monetary value of the house. The market is just to bad right now. But I hope the work we've put into it will help it to sell faster since it now looks move-in ready. And I really don't want to be saddled with this house for a year or two waiting for it to sell. I just want to be done with this hose, once and for all.

So, off to bed now (on a borrowed air mattress since our bed is in transit to AZ already) so we can get an early start finishing up around here and then get on the road for Day 1 of the Voyage of the Land Ark.

Kathleen