Here Goes Nothing

It’s so hard to come here and write, because there’s just so much happening. I’m totally overwhelmed and don’t quite know how to process everything. But, all of that changes tomorrow. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve done.

We stayed in Winston-Salem with my parents from September 21st - 24th, then went to Charlotte until the 26th, to visit my brother and his family. We spent all day on the 27th repacking and getting ready to head across the country. We still had too much stuff, so we had to do another round of purging and repacking. We ended up sending another 3 boxes to Honolulu of stuff that we should have put in the Pod, but didn’t. I’m not going to confess how much that cost. But needless to say, we won’t be doing that again.

We left Winston-Salem on Monday, September 28th. We drove 24.5 hours straight and arrived in Denver at around 8am on Tuesday, September 29th. We stopped every 4 hours or so to let the dogs out and drink some water, but I don’t think we stopped for more than about 30 minutes at a time. It was a rough drive since we couldn’t put our passenger seat back because Rigsbee was behind it. sigh

It was a small car for a long trip. 27 hours straight in the car!

We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Denver with my sister, Lillie, and her husband, Patrick. Chris had to work on Wednesday and Thursday and Lillie and I…. did something. I’m honestly not sure what we did, but we always keep ourselves busy. On Thursday night, my cousins in Fort Collins came down and had dinner with us as well.

While we were in Denver we also had to take the dogs to the vet to get their final health certificate so that they will be allowed to get on the plane. Everything went well and they were cleared!

Rigsbee was NOT amused that Lillie & Patrick’s dog was allowed on the couch but he wasn’t. He complained about it. A lot.

Friday morning, October 2nd, we drove an hour south of Denver to Monument, CO, to Chris’ parents’ house. We got to see his Mom, his aunt, and his Mom’s 185lb Great Dane, Finn. Chris had to work on Friday, but we stayed there through the weekend as well. On Sunday night, Lillie came down from Denver and spent the night with us, so that she could bring us back on Monday.

Chris with close to 300 lbs of dog. Finn is Chris’ Mom’s Great Dane and He. Is. Huge.

On Monday morning, October 5th, we left our car in Monument (Chris’ brother, Scott, is going to pick it up) and rode with Lillie back to the Denver airport so we could pick up our rental car. We rented the biggest car we could, a Suburban, which is a far cry from the Kia Optima that we drove to Colorado.

We went back to Lillie’s house and packed the Suburban and then had our final goodbye. It was brutal. I’ve gotten very emotional during every goodbye we’ve had, but since this was the last one, it felt like we were saying goodbye to everyone again, all at once. As we pulled away from Lillie’s around 8pm with me sobbing, Chris suggested that I call my Mom (I think so he wouldn’t have to deal with me). I told her that I felt like I was leaving most of my heart behind.

The Suburban was MUCH roomier on the drive from Colorado to Los Angeles.

Luckily Chris was driving, and he drove straight through from 8pm to 5am. He was trying to get to Las Vegas, but got too tired. I took over at 5am and drove through Las Vegas and California. We got to LA around 11am and I have never been so happy to get out of the car, especially knowing that we don’t have to get back in for a long drive anytime soon.

We checked into our hotel (LA Airport Hilton) and brought the dogs up to the room. PSA - Hiltons are pet friendly! There is a small fee, but they cut it in half for us because our dogs weren’t actually spending the night, just the afternoon, in the room. We took them out on a couple walks, and then at 8:30pm it was time to take them to the cargo airport, which was right across the street from our hotel.

Getting them loaded up was quite the experience. We had to put the crates together at the airport because once the crates were together, we couldn’t fit them in the car (even a Suburban!). So we put the crates together, got the dogs loaded in and then watched them get carted away. Another piece of my heart I felt like we were leaving behind. Calli looked nervous, but not super panicked like we were afraid she would be. Rigsbee looked a little freaked out, but not nervous or scared. We left them there around 10:30pm and their flight finally left at 3:15am (it was delayed about 45 minutes). We came back to the hotel and FELL into bed. We were so unbelievably exhausted. We slept HARD and when we woke up this morning, we found out the dogs had landed in Honolulu around 8:30am Pacific time. They both did fine and after a couple hours, they were settled in at the boarding facility where they will stay until they get delivered to us on Friday morning.

Calli in the crate on the left and Rigsbee in the crate on the right. It was HARD watching them be carted away.

We slept late today, ordered food and had breakfast and cocktails in bed, then napped a little more. We then got up and showered and drove to the beach. We ended up driving down to Manhattan Beach, about 5 miles south of LAX. We finally found a place to park the Suburban and walked down to the beach to put our feet in the ocean. I won’t lie, it felt a little surreal. Knowing that we were at the Pacific Ocean and that we’re about to fly 6 hours into the middle of the Pacific to live on an island that we’ve never been to and that our dogs are already there. Holy crap. And while somewhat overwhelming, it was incredibly exciting. We found a place to eat a late lunch that overlooked the beach and it was absolutely wonderful.

Finally, FINALLY all of the hard work is done. The dogs are there. Everything is set up and ready to go. We have been working so hard for so long and now it’s all done. I honestly don’t even know how to put into words how we feel right now. Just overwhelmed and in awe and so incredibly grateful that we’re getting this opportunity.

Tomorrow we have to return the rental car and then go to the airport. We are flying First Class to Honolulu and have passes to the United Lounge, so we will be getting there pretty early to enjoy that. Our flight leaves LAX at 1:15pm Pacific time. It’s an almost 6 hour flight to Honolulu and we land at 3:45pm Hawaii time.

The next 2 weeks will be rough. We have a 2-week quarantine mandated by Hawaii that is intense and strict. It means we can’t leave the property, period. All of our food has to be delivered. We can’t take the dogs on a walk, we can’t go for a walk on the beach, and we can’t go drive around the island. We’ve been trying to plan our time so we don’t go completely nuts. But as Chris keeps saying, we’ve worked towards this for the last 2-3 years. We can wait another 2 weeks to really enjoy it.

So that gets you caught up with where we are in this journey. Emotionally, this journey has been a total roller coaster and I want to write about it, but it’s Just. So. Much. I’m guessing I’ll be posting almost daily blog updates while we are in quarantine, since I don’t have a job and can’t leave the house. So that should be plenty of time to start processing all these emotions that have been swirling around.

So thanks for sticking around, even in my silence. I have been posting a good bit on Instagram and Instagram stories, so make sure to follow along over there on @ournextthing. We can’t wait to share this next part of our journey with you. You know, once we’re allowed to leave our house again. But be prepared to see LOTS of photos of our rental.

Talk to you next time from the middle of the Pacific Ocean!

With apologies to McCartney, Lennon, et al…

Unemployed & Houseless