Goodbye Asheville
We left Asheville on the first day of spring as the trees were budding and flowers were blooming. Driving through Warren Wilson College campus to visit our friends Shaun and Tash before hitting the road, we were reminded of how beautiful western North Carolina is and why we've stayed as long as we have.
The process of moving has been hard. Not just emotionally. We had a lot of different things all happening and needing to be finished at the same time: Downsizing from a 1,200 sq. ft. house to a ~200 sq. ft RV; deciding what items we were going to keep and store with my parents while we are away; selling, donating, finding new homes for the things we no longer wanted; finish working on the WVO system in the truck; putting final touches on the RV; emptying, cleaning, and working on my house for renters that were lined up to move in with no extra day to spare; driving to NYC and back to store our belongings; trying to figure out how to pack the RV; and then actually leaving.
The one date that was set in stone was the date we had to be out of the house because of the renters. But our actual departure date kept getting pushed back. Nothing went as planned or smoothly for us. Our initial plan was to go to NYC before we had to be out of the house. But that timing didn't work out, so our friends Dolly and Bill were kind enough to let us stay at their house after we got back from NYC to finish the things that had to be done before we could hit the road, and they dog-sat for us while we were gone.
Dolly and Bill have a super cool house. The original house was just the cabin portion of the house, but in the late 1980s Dolly added the rest of the current house onto the cabin. We stayed in the cabin.
We had a great going away party at Oysterhouse Brewing Company, one of our favorite bars and just two blocks from our house. We were too busy chatting to get more than these three photos.
Our original plan was to leave the day after our get-together. But as we were putting our bike racks on the truck before heading to Oysterhouse, we realized we were missing hardware for the tracks that need to be drilled into the truck roof. Without the racks installed we can't bring our four bikes with us. We couldn't find the hardware at any of the local shops or any shops within 100 mile radius from us, and Thule couldn't get the hardware to us until 6 days later. Andrew suggested we check to see if any of the bike shops in Jackson, WY might carry the rack so that we could get the hardware from there. Luckily it worked - Hoback Sports in Jackson carried the same tracks as the ones we have. I purchased the tracks from Hoback, Andrew went to pick it up and overnighted us the hardware. The plan is to have Thule send the hardware to us in Kansas City where we'll be hanging out with our buddy Chad, and then include that hardware with the tracks from Hoback to return once we get to Jackson - Hoback said that they are cool with that. Talk about going around your ass to get to your elbow!
We think our truck looks pretty sweet with the bikes on it. Goodbye farm truck, hello bike truck!
As we packed up the final things inside the RV and truck on that first day of spring, I realized how it didn't feel like we were leaving town for good. It just felt like we were taking the trailer out for a long weekend trip. I know we should've felt excited but to be very honest we (mainly me) were terrified. Not about leaving Asheville or the uncertainty of what our new life is going to be like but terrified that our trailer would fall apart and the truck wouldn't make it while pulling it! I could feel the knot get bigger and bigger in my stomach as we hooked up the trailer to the truck and started to drive away. Yes we've taken the trailer out for a test run after building it, but not with it fully loaded. I kept picturing the trailer tipping over as we're driving down the road or the truck breaking down. I was worried that the hype about us leaving would be for nothing because we wouldn't even make it out of town. And that everything we've been working toward would just fail.
Boldly and even slightly reluctantly we drove out of town. On our way out we stopped to meet up with my girlfriend, Abigail, and her sweet family. Sharing a last round of hugs and happy-sad smiles we took off for real.
