10 days to go!!!

Well, here we are with 10 days to go before the adventure begins! This last month was EXHAUSTING! We have run into a few bumps in the road this month, mostly business related, but have managed to find ways to overcome them. I'm not going to go into detail, because it's exhausting thinking about all that we have accomplished, but the important thing is that we have worked things out and we are on schedule to depart on May 30th!

Here is a recap of a few of the things that we have done the last 4 weeks:

A couple of weeks ago we made the transition of moving most everything that we are not taking into the room and moved ourselves into the game room area. The cats loved having the empty room for a bit and they loved it even more after we filled it with bins for them to climb and hide in! We've been spending as much time as possible with them and the reality of leaving them behind is starting to hit us. The original plan never involved leaving any pets behind, but life happens and these kittens came into our lives for a reason. They will be in excellent hands while we are gone and we installed cameras that will allow us to check in on them from time to time, and even talk to them. Daniela will also be setting us regular Skype sessions with us so they can actually see us as well. Both of them have been spending mornings watching Minions with me on my PC. They are absolutely fascinated with Minions and will sit and watch them for 30 minutes or more sometimes. I will post some videos on our Facebook page. They are very used to watching video and TV now so this should make Skyping with them a little better (I know, we are crazy cat ladies)!

We visited De Soto National Monument and got a few souvenirs for our van as well as my Access Pass. As a disabled Veteran we are able to visit National Parks for free and can use the campgrounds and other amenities at a discounted rate. If you are a disabled Veteran or if you have a permanent disability, you should look into this pass ​https://store.usgs.gov/faq#Access-Pass.  The Rangers at De Soto were awesome and I really enjoyed my conversations with them regarding the future of our National Parks and Monuments! If you have concerns as well, we recommend you follow Alt National Park on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AltUSNationalParkService/. 

Toni came home with a nice Road Atlas the other day so we can start converting our route from the big map to the Atlas. Of course, everything is subject to change on this trip, but we do have a general route planned for the U.S. & Canada leg of our trip. 

The final touches of the van are being worked on this weekend, though we just decided to install a ventilation fan in the roof, so hopefully we can get that done this week. We have also been spending some time with our friends and getting all of our goodbyes in. Our neighbors at our old house threw a block party and made us the honored guests. It was a great time. We will be head back over there after our final event on the 21st for one last BBQ with all of them. 

Daniela has been learning so much these last few months and is doing a great job for us. She has been a great friend and an awesome personal assistant. This trip wouldn't be possible without her! I am looking forward to giving her some fun projects to do with our photo and video footage!

Our friend Brett owns HJs Handy Man Services here in the Tampa area and he, and another friend of ours, Mark, managed to get several things off of our to do list last week. They were efficient, the work was excellent, and the price was fair. They will be coming back this week to finish up a few more projects for us, which should be the last of the big projects on our list, as far as the Investment Property goes! This saved us a ton of time and headaches. 

With 10 days left we still have some big stuff that needs to be sold or rented. Both of our cars and one of our older work vans are still for sale, though we have received a lot of interest. One of our commercial rental properties is also still available for rent. These are all things we were hoping to have off of our "To Do" list by now so that's a little disappointing, but we will see what this week brings. Other than these things, the rest of the things left to do are all related to the trip and the website. We have some really big plans for the website and Facebook page. We even started our first giveaway!

This week I will be learning about the Samsung 360 camera and Virtual Reality Headset and how to take the best footage possible of the amazing place we go, so you can be with us Virtually! I also will be practicing with the Drone this week so I don't crash and burn! 

It's crunch time so I'm going to end this BLOG here for now. We are now Blogging weekly from this point out and we will be posting on Facebook almost daily, so make sure you are following us! We will be posting on Facebook anytime a new BLOG is posted as well, so you don't miss a thing!

Thanks for following & we will check in Memorial Day weekend, days before our departure!