Our Move: Riding Low, Catching Cats and Arriving Lost

I’m writing this post from my mom’s house in California which means...we made it. Barely. Anyone who saw us leave Missoula (or Portland on the second leg of our journey) can tell you that our prospects of arriving safely in Sacramento weren’t great. But before I share the crazy details of our departure let me tell you how we had *wanted* to leave Missoula. A few weeks ago when Matt and I were mapping out our plans for the move, we decided that on moving day we’d wake up early, hike up Mt. Jumbo one last time, perhaps snap a few photos, and then return to our house, take showers, eat breakfast, and then leave, all the while enjoying our last views of our beloved Missoula as we drove off into Montana’s famous big sky. Yea, that would have been nice...

All I can say is that on moving day there were no hikes and no showers, just a whole lot of chaos. After a very nice breakfast of plum pie with some friends (the calm before the storm), Matt began packing up the car, or maybe I should say packing *down* the car. With every box and suitcase the back of the car sank lower and lower. Matt attached the fabric Thule (that we affectionately referred to as our "Foolie") that our friend lent us for the trip, to our car windows since we didn't have the required racks. So along with all of our stuff practically hanging out the windows, we also had the excess rope from our Foolie get-up. But that was just the outside. One glance at the inside of our car would reveal a solid block of "stuff" from floor to ceiling: "The Joy of Cooking," a litter box, a 50lb sack of flour, one hiking shoe, a large Tamale pot, some underwear....and on and on and on. And the car just kept getting lower. Aside from the primary drama of the car, there was the cat drama. In order to travel with three cats, we had to first find the three cats (who like to hide in the mountains when they sense some funny business going on), trap the three cats, lure the three cats into the car and then make sure the three cats didn’t escape. We assumed this would take no longer than 10 minutes. Suuuure....

All of this seemed even more chaotic given that we had had only 4 or 5 hours of sleep and had a whole list of chores to do on our way out of town (close bank accounts, get an oil change, use a few gift certificates we had been meaning to use for three years....). And yes, we did take the car, fully packed, and super precarious, to get an oil change. Matt wanted to have the spare tire checked so he unpacked the entire trunk right there on the floor of Super Lube. When I saw our dirty towels, a pillow and a box of my mom’s china in the middle of the mechanic’s garage I had to look away. Had it come to this? Are we really *this* disorganized?!! I guess we are, though we really did try to plan ahead. I swear.

So while we meant to leave Missoula at 8am (9:00am at the latest) we ended up dragging (literally) out of town, Foolie and ropes and three drugged-out cats and all, a little after 1:00pm. And we were off, a caramel bar from Posh Chocolate (thanks to the gift certificate) melting all over our supply of napkins. We were so distracted by such an exhausting morning and serious worries about the state of the car that we didn’t really feel sad. We had too much on our minds. It wasn’t until the second leg of our journey two days later, at nightfall as city lights were appearing somewhere between Redding, California and Sacramento that it hit me. We left Missoula. And all our friends there. And I kept saying to myself, "What have we done? What on earth have we done?" Matt and I have been so sure that going to Guinea is what we must do and I haven’t had many (or any) doubts about that until now, until going to Guinea meant leaving our friends and life in Missoula.

And now we’re here in California, two months away from our departure to Guinea. While we’re enjoying time with family right now, we’re still walking around in a daze, not quite sure what we’ve done or why. I don’t really have any answers or insight about any of that right now, leaving Missoula still seems too recent and raw for that. What I do have though, is a whole lot of people in Missoula (and Portland) to thank for making possible a move that, left to ourselves, would have been a disaster. We didn’t think we needed help. We had it all covered. Thank God you guys didn’t buy that! While our departure from Missoula wasn’t smooth or pretty, it was possible because of all the help and support we had from our friends.

So thank you for:
all those amazing good-bye dinners when our kitchen was packed and our hearts were sad, a last carousal ride with our god kids, taking away our dining room table, offering to let us spend our last night at your place (an offer we didn’t accept only because we were up all night scrubbing our shower and fridge and therefore didn’t actually need a bed to sleep in), a goodbye email, an article to read in the car, our last breakfast of plum pie and a pep talk, lending us a Foolie for our car, the cat bed (that served as an excellent cat catching device) and cat carrier (oh my god, what would we have done without the cat carrier?!), all the good advice people gave us about traveling with cats, the tarp, sitting with me and telling me funny stories when I was a super stress case while waiting for Matt to come back with drugs for the kitties, taking all of our perishables and office supplies and stools and plants and extra toothbrushes, your plans to plant my rose bush, taking the book I borrowed and agreeing to track down its owner, opening up your home to us in Portland when we showed up at 1:00am with three cats (!!!)....and on and on and on. Thank you for all of this and for three amazing years. Please know that it broke our hearts to leave all of you.