Things we've learned

Last night, we slept in Breckenridge! The last week has been a whirlwind of activity – leaving our jobs, fun parties, saying goodbyes, packing everything that wasn’t going with us into a storage unit, packing everything that was going with us into a Honda CR-V, driving 1400 miles, looking for a place to live in Colorado.

Things we’ve learned:

• Saying goodbye is no fun at all, but the going-away parties that precede saying goodbye are a whole lot of fun
  
• Human resources won’t conduct your exit interview over the phone while you’re drinking wine at Firenze – you can just show up later in the day to sign some forms and turn in your badge
  
• When someone tells you you can’t fit everything into a 5x10 storage unit, ignore them
  
• After the storage unit is full, you can still fit three more large boxes of stuff into it if you’re creative
  
• You don’t have to be able to open the door to your storage unit – you just have to get it shut
  
• When you get a U-haul truck from Canada with a kilometer odometer, make sure you get charged for kilometers and not for miles
  
• Also make sure you fill it with diesel
  
• It’s much easier to sell a mattress when you offer to deliver it in your U-haul
  
• A vacuum cleaner shuts off when the bag gets full
  
• Cobwebs grow on walls
  
• The need to ship 90 pounds of comic books to the Australian outback on Columbus Day could delay your journey, but not if you print postage online and drop said comic books off at a UPS store
  
• You don’t need to see out the rear-view mirror to drive, but backing up sure is hard
  
• You can unload two pairs of skis, two snowboards, two pairs of snowshoes, and six pairs of boots to store in a friend’s garage, and still not be able to see out of your rear-view mirror
  
• Tumbleweeds tumbling across the road aren’t just a thing of the Southwest
  
• When you feel like the car is going to blow over, keep driving
  
• Don’t expect liberal talk radio in Idaho, Utah, or Wyoming
  
• When you’re driving 80 miles an hour in the right lane, occasionally check your right mirror in case someone’s passing you on the shoulder going 100
  
• When five police cars chase after the guy going 100 on the shoulder, slow down and make way, but absolutely do not come to a complete stop on a highway with a 75-mph speed limit
  
• Don’t expect the high-speed chase to make the next day’s Salt Lake newspaper, even though it beats 90% of the news in said paper for excitement
  
• Fuel efficiency goes out the window when the car is loaded down with 300 pounds of passengers and 700 pounds of cargo
  
• Wi-fi hotspots are everywhere; free wi-fi is a rarity
  
• State park campgrounds in Oregon and Utah stay open well into fall, some year-round
  
• Act naturally when a work crew shows up at your campground with INMATE printed on their backs
  
• Breath a sigh of relief when you pass the “inmate crew at work” sign on your way out
  
• You can have an entire campground to yourself in Utah on a weeknight in October
  
• Interstate 80 across Wyoming is 400 miles of emptiness
  
• All the national forest campgrounds near Breckenridge are shut down by mid-October
  
• People you know and people you don’t even know can both be unbelievably generous