#SoCalAdventuresBegin

“You have to trust in something; your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart.” Steve Jobs

After almost four years, two spent inside this crazy pandemic world, we head back to Southern California. A decision that took just minutes to embrace, happened in the middle of Thanksgiving week. Christmas decorations up. Presents half finished and spread through the apartment, we decide to move back down to Rancho. In THREE weeks!

Those three weeks pass by swiftly. With all of the chaos and confusion in finding a place to live, let's just say motivation ebbed and flowed minute by minute. After losing one apartment, three days before moving, Natalie and I went to Blackhawk Mall to say goodbye to our geese. A very unproductive day.

 

With just two days left before we leave the Bay Area, we finally get the apartment situation worked out. We end up getting a different type of apartment than planned, but at least we have a place to move into. Then, a quick trip down to Fremont to pick up the U-Haul, and we are set to begin packing it up. Oooops, too bad we aren't even close to being finished packing. 

One day before Move Day, the cats seem very unperturbed by the chaos surrounding them. Minutes later, the bed would be down. 

 

Yup, these photos are from the day before we leave! Things are not going well.

We left the front door open while packing up the U-Haul truck, and this rafter of turkeys comes right up into the door and gobble, gobble gobbles at us. Scared the bejesus out of us. Interesting moment in our last day of our #bayarealife This is four of them shuttering away! We passed a flock of at least thirty of these feathered beasts as we were pulling out of the apartment complex for the very last time. They could have eaten us alive. I wonder if they like white or dark meat? 😛

We work all day and well into the night packing that truck. At 2am, we give up and go to sleep on a pile of blankets in the middle of the almost empty bedroom. Up again at 5am, our original moving time, we are not even close to ready. By 9am, it is determined that Greg will stay and finish the cleaning while Natalie and I head down in Stormfly. If we are not here before 6pm, we cannot get into the apartment. The last thing we two girls do is help load up Reba onto the U-Haul trailer before we leave. 

  

375 miles south! With a short stop at the Love's Travel Stop, the halfway point, we are making good time. We grab a bag full of snack foods and head on our way. We hit fog in the Grapevine. Always interesting to drive through cloudy nothingness on a mountain pass, but soon we are driving past Six Flags in Valencia. Almost there! 

Then!! We hit Los Angeles traffic! Almost of third of our travel time is spent driving the last fiftyish miles.  

We also learn from Greg that we have to stop and get a money order to pay for the first month's rent. By this time, the day is running long and our chances to actually get into the apartment before the office closes is looking iffy. With money in hand, we arrive with just minutes to spare. Tessa and Adam are waiting for us at Homecoming when we arrive. In the back of their truck is a bed for our first night's sleep. 

After a short visit, Natalie and I head over to Target for some blankets, pillows and FOOD! A panicked Luci is not much happier to be in this strange new place than he was on the long trip down. He hides under the newly set up bedframe and refuses to come out. He definitely misses his big brother, Severus. 

With the sun setting just as we arrived, we don't get a real look at our new surroundings. Before we even make any of the food we bought, we crash in bed. 

Up early, we get our first real view of the San Antonio mountains. Snow covered mountain tops loom almost 9000 feet above us. The photo above is taken from our new patio. The apartment we had never seen before last night still feels strange. With very little to unpack from Stormfly, we take a quick walk around the Homecoming complex. Having lived in this very same apartment complex ten years ago, it feels like coming home.

Having left Livermore at 3am, Greg arrives with our U-Haul full of stuff just after 10am. Lifting and moving and stressing and unpacking, we get the living room in this brand new place set up and ready for guests.

 

Thomas and Zach, Tessa and Adam arrive to take us all out for sushi at my favorite spot ever! Sake 2 Me. We are home!