Focus on the final day

 

          FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. – The final night for the move is in this city, just outside of St. Louis. Maggie, Coolidge and I are ready for the drive to end. We’ll be in northern Ohio by the end of the afternoon tomorrow.

          The Focus gave us really strong fuel mileage today, better than 39 mpg for the first stint. I’ll get today’s second stint’s stats when I fill the tank in the morning. We’re over 2,200 miles for the trip right now, so we’ll finish at just under 3,000.

          Amy got the word today that the moving company will show up Sunday morning, so I should arrive long after the unloading work is complete. Finally, something goes right.

          We finally got some cooler temperatures today. It was the first time on the trip that the ambient temperature in the afternoon was below 85 degrees. It was not above 72 degrees anyplace we went today.

What an odd thing to happen: It was cool enough that I had to don a sweatshirt when I walked Maggie this evening. I wonder if I’ll have to do that in Ohio as well. Anybody know?

Coolidge the plant continues to give me the silent treatment (see yesterday’s blog), but Maggie the dog was very sociable today. Maggie tried to peer through the front windshield while I was driving by placing her paws on some of the stuff I have jammed behind the front seats. She raised herself up to look several times. I had to make her get down in order to keep the rear view mirror clear.

Tomorrow’s drive is one I know well: Into Indiana, get stuck in a traffic snarl near Terry Haute, drive around Indianapolis and then into Ohio. Pass through Dayton, go around Columbus, head north and finally get to the Akron area.

One day back in 2004, my wife looked at me and told me she realized that we could not continue to live in California after she retired. The process we began that day ends tomorrow when we’ll both be in our condo (along with Maggie and Coolidge) and we’ll start listing it as our residence.

Hard to believe.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your support.

Focus on the backseat

 

          OKLAHOMA CITY, Ok. – Maggie (she’s our dog) and I rolled into this city today without much trouble and even less fanfare. I expected a marching band to lead us into town, but that might have snarled the highway worse than it was.

          Amy’s plane left Albuquerque at 6:15 this morning and she got to Ohio safely, despite the sudden blare of the emergency signal in the Atlanta airport during her layover there. It seems someone allowed a flame to get too high in one of the many, many kitchens at the airport (or something like that) and the result was the jarring announcement that there was an emergency. A few moments later there was an all-clear announcement, so it was kind of like the fire drills Amy worked through so many times as a teacher.

          After a return to the hotel from the airport for a brief attempt to doze off, I loaded the car and headed out.

          I really like the drive out of Albuquerque. The rare combination of mountains, boulders, greenery and desert sands is a joy to see. The trip took us through Amarillo, Texas and then into Oklahoma. No mountains here!

          This trip was supposed to be a fun, sentimental journey for Amy and I. We imagined ourselves cruising across America, heading for our new home. Amy brought a movie trivia book/game and we expected to listen to music, play the game and chat our way through four time zones (Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern).

          But instead of my beautiful, loving wife next to me in the front seat, I’m stuck with a dog and a plant in the back. I’ve never driven a dog across 2,500 miles of country, let alone a plant.

Coolidge, The Green Sphinx of the Backseat.

          My companions don’t talk much, let me tell you. Have you seen the commercial where two children sit in the backseat of a car and have a contest to see who can be silent the longest? Well, that was Maggie and the plant today. No noise from either.

          I stopped twice during the drive to let Maggie out of the car for exercise and the occasional bodily function, but the plant has adopted an attitude and wouldn’t get out of the car for any reason. I had to forcefully carry the plant into the hotel room after we arrived. I set the thing down on a table here in the room and you’d think it has taken root or something. I’ll have to carry it back to the car in the morning, I’m sure.

          This from an organism that lives in dirt!

          For the duration of the trip, I’ve decided to name the plant ‘Coolidge,’ after Calvin Coolidge, the 30^th president of the United States. President Coolidge’s nicknames included ‘Silent Cal,’ and my very favorite presidential moniker, ‘The Sphinx of the Potomac.’

          The perfect name for a plant with an attitude.

          The Focus achieved 37-plus miles per gallon today. That’s really very good, considering the 75-mph speed limit and the mountain climbs during the first few hours. I backed away from 75 mph a few times during the steeper climbs and, as the morning temperature was very comfortable, I didn’t use the air conditioner until the middle of the second hour of the drive. These things helped the mpg, no doubt.

          Tomorrow, Maggie, Coolidge and I head for St. Louis. Sunday we are scheduled to arrive home.

 

          Thanks for reading.

Focus on Albuquerque

          ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – We made the run here from Tucson today, stopping a few times to give our dog a chance to drink some water and walk a little. We spent about eight hours on the road, including the stops.

          The Focus averaged about 34 miles per gallon but the speed limit was 75 mph most of the way and we sat on cruise control at the limit.

          We’ll be here two nights before we make the big switch: Amy will take a plane to Ohio while Maggie and I drive across the plains.

          The moving company somehow botched the contract and, although we signed paperwork that should have resulted in one arrival date, our belongings will probably get to our new condo three days earlier. Thus Amy’s flight after our visit with our son and his wife here.

          One interesting note: We did not get lost with the GPS device during this trip, we lost the GPS device. The total tonnage of stuff we have lost or misplaced within the last week is staggering but losing the GPS is pretty weird.

          This makes for my third trip across the country since June of last year. First, driving a Chevy Aveo (Oxnard to Baltimore, a five-day boreathon), then in my Mustang (Oxnard to Ohio, forget the mirrors and drop the hammer) and finally this trip (Oxnard, Tucson, Albuquerque and beyond with the dog in the back seat).

          The high desert here in New Mexico has a special beauty, a combination of boulders and greenery. I enjoy the changing vistas that roll by on a cross country tour and I found myself wishing I had time to pull out the Nikon.

          A few errands tomorrow and then my son will help me with some Photoshop issues in the afternoon before we all go to dinner.

          The Focus will be roomier as the dog and I roll eastward. We brought some things to give Sean, so that stuff is gone now. Amy’s baggage will go with her as she takes a plane over the plains, while the dog and I take a plain car planning across the plain states. Which is all plainly clear, I’m sure.

          I’m not sure where my next stop is from here. I guess I should get that information from Amy before she gets on her…well…you get the idea.

          Thanks for reading.

Focus on mileage

          You cram everything you can into the nooks, corners and flat spaces of a Ford Focus. You install your dog in the remaining corner of the backseat and you head off for the next segment of your life looking like a modern day dust bowl survivor.

          You have undoubtedly heard this before but I’ll say it again: Moving sucks.

          My wife and I have left California, headed off for our new home in Ohio. Aside from the whole crying thing (I admit that I cried like a little baby when we got on the freeway yesterday morning), the first day was a success. The Focus, which is overloaded, turned in a 41 miles-per-gallon performance on the first stint.

          This brings me to a point: The problem with the cars America turns out, in terms of fuel mileage, is not the cars themselves. The problem is the idiots that drive the cars. In other words, I have met the problem and it is us. The Focus is rated as a 38 mile-per-gallon highway car and we got 41. My Mustang is supposed to get terrible mileage, but I can get 32 mpg on the highway.

          Am I the greatest driver the world has ever seen? Of course I am, but that’s a different story. The point here is that the way to achieve significant mileage is to think about it first. Use your cruise control, don’t surpass the speed limit, leave early enough to get where you are headed on time, keep the proper inflation pressure in your tires and use good gasoline. Do that stuff and any vehicle will improve its fuel performance.

          Anytime I see some idiot blasting down a highway, whether in a big car or a small one, I figure that driver has forfeited the right to complain about gas prices. Not me. I don’t forfeit the right to complain about anything.

          Our first stop is in Tucson, where we’ll spend a few days with family. We’ll putter around and generate excellent fuel mileage before heading off to the next stop: New Mexico.

 

          Thanks for reading.

Focus on spending

 

          One thing you can depend upon: My wife and I can be counted on to recognize when we must limit our spending. We are both, by nature, careful people.

          Our impending move from California to Ohio is going to be expensive and we have been working very hard to keep our spending down to a dull roar. As we are not a government organization, we can’t spend more than we have.

          Oh, by the way, we bought a car last week.

          Yep, had to do it. Amy’s VW Beetle was due for a checkup prior to our epic drive across the country next week and it turned out the thing was leaking more fluids than it was holding. We’ve been losing oil out of the thing for six years (no mechanic we took the car to could find the source of the problem), there was a coolant leak and some other stuff was happening.

We could have fixed the Beetle. I wanted to sell it in Ohio, where a California car will do better in resale because it has never been exposed to road salt. But after a night-long discussion, we decided to test the used car waters and ended up buying a used 2012 Ford Focus.

We test drove a Ford Fusion and a VW Jetta before we choose the Focus. Amy liked another VW even more than the Focus (she liked the other car because it was red) and I saw some Mustangs I liked (one was red, too), but the Focus we bought gets very good gas mileage and has a terrific amount of trunk space.

We’ve driven the Focus extensively already and we both really like the way it travels.

Most importantly, we will be very comfortable as we sit in the car during the trip to Ohio because our wallets will be so much thinner.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

The moving story of championship boxing

 

          Yes, moving sucks.

          We are in the final stages of packing up our lives and moving from California to Ohio. That means tossing a lot of stuff we don’t want, giving more usable items to various local charities, trying to find local charities to take our refrigerators, unneeded furniture and our washer and dryer. At the same time, we are packing everything else, the stuff we want to keep, in boxes.

          Lots and lots of boxes. It looks like the Boxer Rebellion in here.

          We filled one room with boxes, then had to move some of the boxes to another room so we could remove some of the furniture we are not taking from the original box storage room. We have boxes in the living room, surrounding stuff we want to give away and we’ll have to shuffle some more boxes to remove the giveaways and then reshuffle the boxes.

          Then there is the middle room. Here you’ll find boxes. Some boxes are open and partially filled. Some are jammed with stuff too big to fit in any of the remaining boxes. You’ll find large pictures with old shirts covering them to protect the frames and glass during transit. We have no boxes for this stuff; the movers will box up what we can’t box ourselves.

          We tried to purchase some larger boxes to handle large pictures and the like but, alas, we were unable to fit these new boxes into our car, a VW Beetle. The VW has more storage space than our other car, my beloved Mustang and, anyway, the Mustang has been resting in Ohio since July.

          One of the first things I did ahead of the move was box up my books. I added some VCR tapes and DVD/CDs to the book boxes to lighten the load on many individual boxes. That was two months ago and now some of the book boxes are showing the strain of holding so much stuff and standing in long rows of multi-level boxing formations.

          Every once in a while we notice a box with fragile or delicate contents underneath heavier boxes and we have to move the box with the delicate stuff to the top of a pile. Call it a boxing promotion.

          Our son, Sean, moved with his wife from Maryland to New Mexico recently and he gave us a few tips about making sure the boxes are filled. So we have stuffed shirts, towels, sheets and blankets into boxes partially filled with heavy stuff.

          Amy’s brilliant idea to put some of the clothing we are taking into suitcases will soon be put to use. She has done a great job of organization and she is much further along in her boxing than am I.

          You have to be careful with these boxes. You can get paper cuts. I’ve had a few. Amy has been able to protect her hands with a strategy that has been fool-proof. She uses gloves.

          Boxing gloves.

 

          Thanks for reading.

Winamac

  

          This week’s travels took yours truly to northwestern Indiana for some family research.

          The MAC Tools US Nationals were scheduled for Labor Day Weekend, but we’ll have so see if Mother Nature allows us to finish the event as scheduled or if the National Hot Rod Association will have to delay the completion until next weekend. Isaac, the hurricane/tropical storm/rain mass, has already cost us one day of competition. I’m here for the race but I came a day early to conduct a little investigation into the previous generations of our family.

          Saw a lot of cornfields between the hotel in Indianapolis and Winamac, the center of government in Pulaski County. I thought about all those cornstalks while we watched the rain soak the racetrack on Sunday. Much as we wanted to get the racing going, much of the U.S. is suffering through a draught and the rain must have been good news for the non-racers here abouts.

          I searched fruitlessly for the desired birth certificate in the county Health Department’s offices. Next, stumbled around in the genealogy area of the local library without too success. Finally, I found my way across the street to another county building and got directed to the microfilm office where I met a marvelous woman named Janet.

          Janet has accumulated more knowledge about the history of Pulaski County than you could imagine. She is amazing. It turns out she is also very friendly and helpful. Her notebooks contain references to many of the family members I wondered about, including where they lived before coming to Indiana.

          After Janet’s office closed, I had a burnt pizza (tasted better than it sounds) and some delicious Sprite (worse than it sounds) for dinner before returning to the library. Armed with the lessons learned from Janet, I charged back to the library and made a more systematic attempt to find stuff.

          Sonuva gun, I located some old newspaper references to the family in the newspaper cross reference notebooks. Then I figured out the sorting system for the old newspaper microfilm and, through the magic of copiers, made copies of these old newsprint references.

          I left Winamac having gained ground in the research but without finding the exact piece of paper needed. This is usually the best you can hope for in research of this sort: Just finding anything is satisfying. Gaining a new direction to follow is even better and I managed to do both this week.

          Add to that all the rain the cornstalks got and it was a pretty good week, all-in-all.

          Hope you had a good week as well. Thanks for reading.