Marching orders at last - Day 670 (Yr 2, Day 305)

Asheville, NC

It's hard to believe, but in a little less than 3 weeks, the heading will change.  Mitch is finally being released from this assignment in Asheville on April 27th, and we are being relocated to..... Bismarck, ND! 

Assignment is supposed to start on May 2nd, but it will take us at least 2 days to get the rig and truck road ready (including bringing the truck to the mechanic for maintenance, inflating and torquing all 10 tires, repacking everything that's been out or thrown about, etc, etc, etc.  Since we won't travel on Friday afternoon or Saturday, the earliest we can leave is Sunday, May 1st.  It's a 1600 mile drive, so we're expecting to arrive by Thurs. May 5th.  I'm not putting together any kind of travel plan whatsoever except that we will each drive as much as we can (1.5 to 2 hrs a stretch), stop at a rest area or truck stop, take a break then switch drivers.  We may stop for the day around dinner time, or we may drive at night, all depending on the mood and the weather.  We're not going to push ourselves to do more than we can do, but we're not going to limit ourselves either.  A total PIBE (Play It By Ear) journey.  The only given is that (sadly) we won't be able to stop along the way to see any sights or visit any areas other than truck stops along the interstate, because time is of the essence.  The states we should be passing through from NC are , tiny bit of NE Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, tiny bit of NE Illinois (Chicago area, where I wanted to spend some time), Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota.  This would have been a great road trip if we could go when/where we wanted and not be limited to where we're being sent.  But alas, we still need to earn a living.  Hopefully some day we'll be able to retire and then have the luxury to travel at our own pace.  Or maybe we'll be fortunate to find another way to earn a living that allows us to be more spontaneous (i.e. if my business can carry the brunt of the finances so Mitch can go back to finding IT work as a supplement).

Passover also starts on Friday, so this week is going to be somewhat hectic in trying to get the rig koshered (the original spring cleaning!), as well as trying to start winding things down for the move.  And, of course, I predict my work schedule will be crazy busy (it's been very slow the past 2 weeks) because that's Murphy's Law (or as Mitch likes to say, "critical needs detector.")