Final packing....living out of boxes, Gorilla Tape, leaving Trumpland and the countdown begins!

Well the train is pretty close to pulling out of the station. We leave Arizona on the 28th…and we’re mentally ready to go. Physically….not so much. Moving and packing is hard, no two ways about it. Particularly with a still-healing back full of metal rods and screws. We’re sad to be leaving some great friends we’ve met, but we know with Tuck along, we’ll meet many new ones in Florida. He’s the magic ice breaker.

What we’re not sorry about is leaving an area we now begrudgingly call “Trumpland”. Old, rich, white men. Who knows, in the area of Florida where we’re headed, maybe we’ll even meet some people who actually watch something other than Fox News. Miracles do happen.

Anyway, I digress. We’ve packed up pretty much everything that isn’t essential…which is to say we’re now using paper plates, plastic cups and trying to empty out the freezer (Yikes….how long have we had that salmon in there?). Lots of trip to the local Goodwill store (I even gave up my last remaining business suit…good riddance!). Boxes are stacked up everywhere. Shrink wrap and bubble wrap rolls in every room….and my new favorite packing tape….Gorilla Tape. If you haven’t packed anything lately, you might not realize how poor the quality of packing tape has become. It’s basically really wide Scotch tape. Nice for wrapping really large Christmas presents, but pretty much useless for anything else. But Gorilla tape, on the other hand, is a rock star. This stuff is hard to tear and sticks like super glue to anything it touches. It comes in black and camo (I guess the military asked for that…and I’m pretty sure they use it).

We made a final hike the other day up to Overlook Trail (located in Fountain Hills) just to take one last good look at the Verde Mountains and the town. The desert is amazingly green right now after a really wet (for Arizona) Winter. The cactus fields are amazing….but dangerous. As Claudia was walking on the trail, she felt something poke the bottom of her foot. A cactus needle had punctured all the way through her tennis shoe sole. That’s 1/2” of rubber folks….which makes we wonder how in the world the mountain bikers around here finish a ride. They must carry a lot of spare tubes.

That’s it for now. Time to wander through the maze of boxes and take Tuck for his morning walk.

Cheers!