Blog

  • Gueydan, getting oriented

    It took two full weeks before we were in circulation again.

    Weather Shocks

    Having spent months in gorgeous, stable eighty-degree weather in South Florida, we suddenly had rapidly fluctuating weather, frequently going from warm spring-like days to bitter-cold and windy days overnight, then back again. It wreaked havoc with us, given how tired we were.

    Privacy Fishbowl

    Back in Delray we often joked that our social life was Craigslist and FreeCycle, except for Alex’s Improv nights in our last few months. Especially towards the end, we saw very few people, we did only errands, and even errands were pretty infrequent until the last mad frantic days.

    The sudden plunge from our situation in Delray, where we were very private, almost secluded, to being in the center of activity with no privacy except in the trailer, was another shock to our systems.
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  • Gueydan, tree frogs and trailers

    By the time we got back to Gueydan that Mardi Gras night, we needed to be alone. We’d been sleeping in living rooms and spare bedrooms for five days, with incredibly on-the-go days and very little sleep.

    So as tempting as it was to take the comfy bed in the house at Kenneth and Heuetta’s, we opted for setting up the trailer. It had a private bathroom, a heater, a kitchen sink, a hot plate, a bedroom with wall-to-wall mattresses and clean sheets. What more could we want?

    I was so whupped that all I wanted to do was sit, preferably in total silence with a drink in my hand and a book in my lap. Chelsea on the other hand was resolutely determined to “get things put away”.

    I simply couldn’t cope, so I did my level best to ignore her ongoing mutterings and mumblings and questions.
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  • Getting to Gueydan – Part Three

    Sunday

    There was no rest for the tired, even on Sunday. We were up at seven, on less than six hours sleep, breakfasting and chatting and getting ready for three back-to-back New Orleans Mardi Gras parades.

    The day was cold with biting winds gusting down the streets. Chelsea and I weren’t used to the bitter cold; we’d just spent months in pleasant eighty-degree days with the temperatures hovering around seventy at night. We weren’t dressed quite warmly enough for a chilly Louisiana February day.

    But the cold and wind be damned. We were in New Orleans at long last and we were watching Mardi Gras parades!
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  • Getting to Gueydan – Part Two

    Our driving adventures

    Settling ourselves into the comfy car with a big sigh of relief, we felt more stunned than anything. We’d had the week from hell, we were so tired it didn’t bear thinking about, and now we were tucked in a car for at least twelve hours with a perfect stranger.

    Getting to know Veronica, I’m happy to report, was very peaceful. Approaching thirty and single, she’s slender, dark-haired, a bit taller than average, and is graceful and willowy. Her manner is low key and soft-spoken. She’s well traveled, and has been to a number of exotic locations with her film industry jobs.

    The miles flew by softly as we gradually swapped entertaining stories from our lives. She shared fun, interesting stories about her career in the modeling and film industries, while we shared stories about our bike trips and time in the Czech Republic.

    Veronica’s currently in the midst of some major life decisions. Though she’d been headed in a very different direction, she received a call that day about a possible job offer with Warner Brothers in California, a job that could be perfect for her right now. She had a lot to think about.

    Chelsea and I talked about our major changes, how we’d gotten to where we are, and where we’re headed.

    The conversation was perfect.
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  • Getting to Gueydan – Part One

    With the economy sputtering near disaster and feeling the recession snapping at our heels, Chelsea and I returned home to Delray Beach in August of 2009 to close out our house and decide what to do with it.

    We also decided to downsize our personal goods significantly. Little did we know back then that our twin projects would take two and half years and would become our own personal Hydras.

    It didn’t take too long to figure out that we needed to do a short sale on the house, but actually accomplishing the short sale was a whole different animal. What an experience it was! Stories kept changing; bank procedures, staff, and policies kept changing; programs kept changing; paperwork ebbed and flowed with all the changes.

    We couldn’t possibly predict when we’d be able to leave, but hanging over our heads was the possibility of being out in thirty days time from any point in time. It was nerve-wracking.
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  • The pannier packing adventure

    You may be wondering why I, who am ordinarily organized to the nth degree, had so much trouble finding things in our bags during our packing and leaving Delray phase. It’s very unlike me. Bear with me while I backtrack a bit to fill you in.

    When we first decided on our many-years-long cycling trip, we had the burning question of how to carry our gear. After a great deal of research and discussion we chose to use Burley trailers. Overall we were very pleased with our decision.

    However, once we knew we were leaving the country, we also knew we wanted to switch to panniers. Again, we researched and discussed everything thoroughly, because using trailers had very compelling pluses. We decided on panniers.

    So we bought our Ortlieb panniers, bright yellow with black trim, a year ago. Then during the summer we sold our trailers, feeling some distinct anxiety about it.
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  • Leaving Delray – Part Two

    Thursday Feb 16, closing day
    Thursday slipped from hectic into frantic early in the day.

    From seven in the morning until we collapsed at Jose and Carmen’s at ten-thirty in the evening, we worked without a break, under the gun the entire time. It was tough just remembering to breathe. We didn’t remember to eat.

    We worked through breakfast, we worked through lunch, we worked through the afternoon, we even had the title company owner come up to bring me the closing papers, working right up till he came at one, then starting again immediately when he left.

    We packed the final, final boxes, got a load to storage, broom-swept the house, and continued working right through the lengthy walk-through of the new owner and his workmen, steadily assuring them we’d be out that night.
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  • Leaving Delray – Part One

    If we thought we were tired then, we had reached a whole new mind-numbing level of tiredness by the time we left Delray.

    A few days before closing I called Denise one last time to see if we really were going to close. “Nothing’s left, right Denise? Nothing’s left? We are really and truly closing? ‘Cause I don’t want to be in such a panic if it’s not really closing.” Not that I was cynical by then, oh no.

    Denise reassured me that everything was fine, but she’d check with the title company. Within the hour I had an email from Ali, the title guy, letting me know that the buyer’s title company had unearthed a twenty-five-year-old building permit that was still open. They were requiring that it be settled before closing.
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  • Alex and Improv, making it all work

    Our two-and-half-year downsizing saga was a tough go, requiring a lot of stamina, determination, focus and discipline on our part. To make it work we needed to stay happy, or least appreciative of the way things were going.

    Laughter was always a good thing.

    The timing of Alex’s recent decision to begin his stand-up comedy career was perfect for us. Not only were we able to follow him through the opening stages of something that’s been in his plans for a long time, but attending the Improv nights and watching him perform was a welcome break from our tedium.

    Alex begins his comedy career

    In late September last year, while we were in the throes of downsizing, Alex wrote his first stand-up comedy set and arranged to appear at the open mike night at the West Palm Beach Improv, his first appearance on stage.

    We loved it, and he got a great audience response.
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  • Update on leaving – closing date approaching – Part Two

    So much was happening in our lives during those weeks that our idea of long range planning was “what’s for dinner tonight?” It was exhausting just reading and tracking our to-do lists.

    We gave up bike rides in order to get things done. We were living on five to six hours or less of sleep a night. We started having “sleep disturbances”. Night after night we weren’t able to fall sleep until two or three or four in the morning but we still had to wake up no later than eight and keep on going.

    We did so many errands that our neighbor Ivar stopped asking us if we needed to borrow his van. Instead we fell into a shared custody arrangement.
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