We started our day Monday, July 22nd full of optimism and believed we could start our journey a day ahead of schedule. Before breakfast Donna said, “10 hours from now we’ll be on our way.” I think I better get used to things not always going according to plan.

We buckled down and started packing things. It seemed like odds and ends kept multiplying – where was all this stuff coming from? It took me a couple of hours to finish moving things from the basement of the “sticks and bricks”.. home and find space to load it in the basement of the motorhome. Around noon I loaded a couple of amplifier heads and a 212 cabinet into my Touareg and took them over to Gerhard Rauch. Gerhard is a good friend and leader of the band “Backtrack.” I gave him the equipment but he insists that he’s just holding on to them for me.

From there I drove up to Romeo and collected the proceeds from our estate sale. This gave me the opportunity to see our new friend Nancy and mumble another goodbye. It also robbed me of about an hour of time I needed to continue loading the motorhome and trailer. Meanwhile Donna kept plugging away at the paperwork she was sorting through.

I made arrangements to leave my Les Paul guitar with Jeff Quartuccio, Jeff plays guitar in the band Planet of Fun and also taught me guitar lessons. I was supposed to meet him at the studio at 4pm. I also needed to return the Comcast DVR box and router but I wanted to hang on to them as late as I could for an internet connection. This wasn’t too smart. I have a Verizon Jetpack (which is how I’m online now) and should have returned the Comcast stuff earlier. I didn’t realize I would have to go all the way out Hall Road to Macomb to return it. Around 3pm I asked Donna where the Comcast place was. She only had a vague notion of it being on Hall Road. For some reason I thought it was nearby on Van Dyke. I did a Google search and it showed the nearest Comcast store in Sterling Heights south of 16 mile. This was no good, it would take me an hour to drive there and back. Donna was sure that wasn’t right, I decided to go down Hall Road and try to find the place she remembered. While I was driving she was on hold with the Comcast phone-bots.

Donna finally got a live person on the phone and got the address while I was driving back and forth through the usual Hall Road mayhem trying to find Comcast amid the endless strip malls there. She phoned me and gave me an address – now I can rant about street numbers. Building after building on Hall Road have business names but try to find an actual street number. I finally found the place – it’s not called Comcast, it’s the Xfinity store!

By the time I dealt with Comcast (Xfinity) and dropped the guitar off I’d lost a couple more hours and it was time to turn in my Touareg at the dealership in Rochester. Donna drove the Touareg there while I rode the scooter. Another hour lost.

We were home and back at it by 6pm. Once I loaded the scooter in the trailer I was able to finish packing the remainder of garage items fairly quickly but I knew there was no way we would be on the road today. We ordered a pizza from Dan Good pizza and finished loading, By 8 o’clock we were finished and showered. I was beat once again, settled down with a couple of cold ones and called it a day.

We’ll hook up the trailer in the morning and the journey will truly begin.