Preparing to head home

It's mid-day Thursday; by this time tomorrow we'll be well on our way back to the Bay Area. I am home now, starting to organize things to pack as well as keeping an eye on the Airstream out front. Yesterday we received an abandoned vehicle notice from the town of Durango, warning us that we have 24 hours to remove the trailer or it will be towed. I was able to speak with the ticketing officer Dunlap, who explained that a "neighbor" had called it in and that he had checked the 24 hour box instead of the 72 hour one because he's also on duty today and didn't want to leave it for the other day officer for this part of town. I explained our situation and that we're leaving Friday morning and asked very nicely if we could leave it in front so we can pack it up. He said he didn't see much of a risk with that and would make a note in the file in case it was called in again. The officer also made a point of saying, "It's an awfully nice little trailer you have there; I was pretty sure it wasn't abandoned."

So we're a little nervous today and have decided that one of us should be here at all times, just in case. We assume if we make it to dark we're OK, but what a drag it would be to have the thing towed tonight WITH all of our stuff in it! If the paranoia gets the better of us, we may ask our friend Erica if we can park it on her farm tonight and hitch it up tomorrow morning on our way out of Durango. She's hosting the big bonfire tonight at 6:00 as well, so we'd take it with us then.

Right now Topher is warming up in a sunbeam after a bath - his first since we left SF on 10/16. He was getting pretty stinky so I bit the bullet and bathed him in the tub using our Paul Mitchell shampoo.

We've planned our route home and made all the reservations: Grand Canyon (at least we'll get peek tomorrow morning), Needles, Bakersfield, SF (via Los Banos, where we'll drop the trailer for some much needed attention at Toscano RV). It feels right to be leaving now; with the election over there's really no reason for us to be here and as we could see yesterday, life returns to normal here in Durango (including a few minutes of nasty snow flurries!)

I'm still getting used to the sound of "President Obama" and am already following the announcements of the transition way more closely than I have with any previous president. I am so excited to be this engaged in national politics and can't wait to see who he appoints to his team. The Audacity of Hope is now on my reading list, as I think it will lay a good foundation for understanding the decisions he makes. Josh and I aren't convinced it'll make as good an audiobook as Dreams From My Father did, so we've put The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (Bill Bryson) and Night Soldiers (Alan Furst) on my iPod to get us back to SF.

OK - time to get back to packing.