Prelude to Departure

I thought I'd take you all back to our last week in Washington before I started on the road trip to Virginia.   My last day of work was Thursday, November 10 as Friday the 11th was Veterans Day.  I had arranged with my sister and her family that they would visit us this last weekend before we left so they arrived on Thursday evening (my sister and her two boys by car and her husband by ferry as he had business in Seattle).  On Friday, we all took the ferry to Seattle for a day of fun and sightseeing - Vic had to go into work for a few hours so he joined us later in the day.

It was a grey day but thankfully dry

First stop, Seattle Aquarium

Monorail to the Seattle Center for a trip up the Space Needle

Lunch at a fabulous pie eatery

Exhausted from walking, we grabbed a takeaway from our favorite Indian restaurant and relaxed at home.

On Saturday, Sophia and her boyfriend arrived and we all headed to the ship for a guided tour.  It was pretty cold and really windy (especially up on the flight deck) but everyone had a blast and one of the sailors in the hangar bay snapped a group photo.  My sister and her family headed off to a soccer event back in Oregon so we took Sophia and her boyfriend to lunch and then headed back to the house for her to collect a few things before they headed back to Bellingham.  It was tough to say goodbye to everyone but that's the way things roll with military life.

 I now had three days to get things sorted in the house before the packers arrived.  I wasn't nearly as organized as I would have liked to have been so several totes marked Ebay came with us - things we don't use anymore but are a little too nice to just give away.  The packers arrived bright and early on Wednesday and spent two days packing before the truck arrived on Friday morning and just after lunch, the house was empty.  I had arranged with the landlord to have a cleaner come in so she (the landlord) stopped by the pick up the keys, thanked us for being such great tenants, and we headed off to the first of the ten hotels that would be our temporary home until we picked up the keys to our new house (which, funnily enough, is exactly the same house we moved from two years ago).  Nice to know the floor plan and the neighborhood; too bad I'd tossed all those old address labels!

Coming tomorrow:  On the Road Again!