Remember our storage shed? It is WAY too full! Stan made the comment, “We came up here to live the simple life, and with all this stuff our life is more complicated than ever!” So we spent a week at the shed, taking stuff out, going through it and deciding what to keep and what to donate to the local thrift shop. We’ve made enough progress that now we can go back to Utah and get the stuff we left behind.

It was a long 14 hour trip back. It should take only 12 hours (only!), but we had to stop every 200 miles or so to fill up the pickup we borrowed from Keith and work with the tarp. We managed to destroy 2 of them on the way down!

Finally got here and crashed at Mary’s daughter Becca’s for the night. Saturday, we went to the storage unit here and were dismayed at the amount of stuff left. Again, lots of it went to the local thrift store. Then we spent the afternoon loading the firewood we left behind, installing a new trailer jack, securing the trailer sides with nut and bolt, and painting over some nail holes in the home that will soon belong to someone else.

But the best part of the trip so far has been spending a little time with friends who saw we were “home” and came over to visit or whom we went to visit. It’s wonderful to have so many good friends. The rest of the weekend will be spent loading and fixing and doing laundry etc., then we will close on the sale of the house on Monday and Stan will hit the road again back to the Bonners Ferry/Porthill area. Mary will stay here for another week or two to babysit granddaughters and attend her 40th high school reunion.