The Flights

On Friday we spent an hour and a half on the phone with our travel agent at AirTreks booking all of our flights through Istanbul at the end of May, 2013. She was great, and very patient with our last minute dithering on dates. And after everything was booked, we made a very large credit card payment.

And then I might have gotten a little teary and emotional. I'm still not sure why, but I'm thinking it's a combination of plunking down such a large amount of money, having a definite, set itinerary for the next ten months, and a healthy measure of fear about the future. All through this process, we keep saying, "We're really doing this." But more than almost anything, including giving notice at our jobs, renting our house, packing up all of our stuff, or booking other portions of the trip, this was the moment it all sunk in for me.  Everything is theoretical until you book the airfare. 

If you click on the "Where We're Going" link up above, you can see maps of our destinations and a rough outline of when we'll be where.  The road trip part is ambitious for six weeks, I realize, and we'll probably cull some things off there as we go, but I thought I'd be optimistic put it all up there.

Our fridge currently has four lists pinned to it, written in sharpie so that I can see the items that need doing from across the room.  They are: House, Move, Trip, and Things We Haven't Thought Of.  That last one is still blank, and hopefully it will stay that way, though I think it might become the overflow list when the other pages are full.

Although I buried this lede above, we did in fact get our house rented, which is a huge relief for me. No one else was worried that it would rent, so bully for them for being right. It was listed on a Sunday, by Tuesday our property manager had scheduled a showing for Friday, which apparently turned into 4 showings, with a "strong" application and a backup. The "strong" application checked out by Monday, and a lease was signed by Tuesday, I think. So yeah, a week. I was needlessly worried. The bonus on that is we think (hope) we've got a good renter. Single, veterinarian, one small dog, currently lives in the neighborhood, and really wanted to stay in the neighborhood.  We're schedule to be out, and for her to move in, on August 21st.

David's last day of work will be August 20th. Mine is August 24th. What this means is that we've got to be out of our house before I'm done with work. Thankfully I have a wonderfully gracious friend who has offered to let me stay that week. I think David will probably be staying with his mother in Loveland, trying to get things done and ready for our road trip, which will be helpful.

The next three weekends are a flurry of out-of-town visitors, trips to Home Depot and my parents' house, trying to get together with friends and family before we leave, and one chaotic weekend of furniture moving. We'll move furniture out on the 11th, and deliver it to my parents on the 12th, and then we'll be sleeping on an air mattress and painting for a week. I'll be happy to have all of the furniture out so I can go to town on the painting, but it'll feel very sparse and echo-y that week.

As far as trip stuff goes, we also went to the travel medicine clinic, and got the last of the shots we needed.  The yellow fever vaccine is actually a live virus, but there weren't any side effects other than a rash from ripping off the band-aid. We each got several prescriptions for malaria medications and traveler's diarrhea.  Whee!

We're really doing this. We really are.