Tired.

I thought that quitting my job would give me more free time, but it was been the opposite. We have been packing full-time in order to get our stuff stored tomorrow morning. As you can see, it's almost done.
















That's all of our stuff, minus three bikes and some furniture. The next project is the apartment sale next weekend, where we will get rid of everything else.

Whitney at Rotofugi gave me a stack of stickers. As you may have read earlier, we have a deal where I will post their stickers in cities across the country in exchange for store credit. I'll be sending photos to their website so that you can track the locations and find them in your town.

Gray morning.

As I write this, hail is bouncing off our apartment windows and the gutters look almost frozen. In less than three weeks we will be on the road with nothing but a tent, raingear, our ingenuity, and the kindness of strangers separating us from the elements.

The apartment is half in boxes, the walls are bare, and at the end of the week our valuables will be in storage. A week later, the rest of what we own will be sold or disposed of, and a week after that we'll be on the road with only forty pounds each. All of our belongings, distilled to forty pounds- it's a liberating thought- a little scary too. Looking at the stacks of boxes and the half packed apartment, it still feels like a long way off.

Welcome to the future.

Andrea and I bought cellphones yesterday. It is my first one ever, and I'm not excited about the prospect. I love technology, but cellphones have got to be the tackiest manifestation it has ever taken. From the formless hardware design to the annoying ringtones to the blabbing in public places to the stupid belt holsters, I've yet to see them as a benefit to humanity. We are going away for a year though, so it is a necessary evil and I will make the best of it.

I spent 3 hours mopping the floor today!

We have gained the dubious honor, over the past three years, of hosting some of the craziest parties in our social circle. Last night was no exception.



Andrea and Emily made food.



Andy and I worked on the camp stove. I found this stove in a dumpster a couple years ago but never used it. There is something goofy about the burner, so I'm trying to figure out if i can fix it or if the burner needs to be replaced.






We started out with 2 cases, and ended up going through six!



This is early in the night. Andrea's aunt Dottie and her friend Deborah stopped by. Deborah and Jonathan have a place in Montana that we will be visiting when we ride through Glaicer.




Val made cookies- she cooks awesome food all of the time and brings it to events.



The appartment was packed all night, with people standing all over the sidewalk, from around 9 till 3. It was fun, but also pretty tiring. I had a chance to talk to a lot of people and actually stayed in good shape for the whole night.



Kat Raz started it out right. Andy had some mysterious Kerouac-esqe polaroid ready for a photo op.



I shot a lot of photos last night so email me if you want to see more... I didn't post most of them because after 6 hours of partying, pictures can be kind of unfair...



3 am and still going strong...



Thanks everyone who came over, as always I wish I could have talked to you all longer and hope we can hang out again before we leave.

Our going-away party is tonight! Andrea's sister Emily is in town! It will be lots of fun, I'll take some pictures if I remember(err- if I am not wasted).

We had "Eggs in a Basket" this morning- yum!

Tech update: Crucial card reader

One of the main reasons for this blog is to show off our travel pictures. We are not bringing a laptop so all of the updating will be from libraries and internet cafes. Our Powershot A610 camera requires a driver and software to transfer photos, which would complicate things considerably and lead to less updates. I bought an SD card reader that requires no drivers. It was $9 from Newegg and is super fast. I decided to get all meta with this picture of the device uploading pictures. Wow.