Starting the journey

This is probably a temporary blog. Google put me through all sorts of hoops and apparently it has been too long since I accessed my other Blogger blogs to be able to log in there. I had to create a new gmail account that will only ever be used for this blog.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, "What's with First Exit?"

I'm about to start a long journey. I will be leaving Bellevue, WA on 10 August 2013. My Ford F150 pick-up will be towing a lightweight travel trailer, the Lance 1685. My direction? That way. I hope to see friends along the journey and where I don't have any friends, I hope to make some. I have no destination; it's all about the journey.

 

Back to First Exit. The truck has Ford Sync. That's a Microsoft product, so in order to get it to work it had to be registered and when you register, you have to name your "device." My truck. I thought about that for a while and decided to call it "First Exit" to which Google insisted that I add a number (0). If in my journeys I should happen to find myself on an Interstate highway, you can be assured that I will be looking for the first exit. I might not travel the blue highways, but I sure won't be on the freeways!

Soon, I'll be posting maps, daily logs of my journey, stories about people I meet and places I go. Right now, I'm trying to pare my life down to about 750 pounds that will fit in the back of my truck and in the trailer. That's been an interesting problem. Most recently, I went through close to forty-five years' worth of manuscripts, books, and even left over technical papers from businesses I've been in or involved with. It resulted in this pile of paper that is either headed for recycling or for Farenheit 451. This was what I thought to take a picture of after I'd already loaded two big black plastic garbage bags as full as I could lift them.

Of course, there were some items that I can't take with me, but that are still too valuable or precious to simply toss, sell, or give away. So this week I rented a 5x5 storage cubicle into which I've put things like my patent awards, Solstice decorations, archived manuscripts that I still can't part with, and old financial records that you never can tell when you might need. And a couple big file drawers of genealogical material that some descendent, cousin, or niece/nephew will probably inherit someday. To you I say good luck!

Well, I've been delaying getting this started, and I'll be updating it frequently, but for now it's time to quit delaying the other work I have to do.