We did not rush out this morning, but we also got moving sooner than yesterday. After breakfast, we drove the pickup over to Marysville and the transfer station to dump the mattresses and other sundry junk. This went reasonably smoothly, and only cost the minimum $13.20 fee for the roughly 130 kg of stuff. We returned to the hotel, where I dropped Lisa off and headed for U-Haul fairly quickly because we were coming up on the 1 PM deadline for returning the truck and only paying for one day. Including a stop to put in a bit of fuel, I made it with two minutes to spare (and there was apparently a one hour grace period as well, so it wasn't quite that close). Lisa arrived at U-Haul just as I was getting the receipt for returning the truck.

Then it was back out to the locker for the third time this weekend. The battleship desk was already loaded into the minivan, so we just packed a few more boxes and odd bits around it. We also finally have enough room to start sorting things out into what we will eventually keep and eventually throw away. Lisa was also pleased to discover several boxes of books and other things that she thought we'd left in Mehama or otherwise lost. But wow, what a lot of dust there is in that locker! I'm glad that I've kept brooms and brushes there all along to try and dust things off enough to find out what is there, at least.

It's my guess that we have between 2 and 4 more minivan-loads of stuff remaining in the locker. It would be less, but most of the remaining boxes are odd-sized or have collapsed sufficiently under the weight of stuff over them that they're not going to stack easily. There will probably be one more trip to the dump to toss dead boxes and other junk we decide not to keep.

With my van completely full (our luggage will all go into Lisa's pickup tomorrow morning), we returned to the hotel. Later we got take-out food again and went for a long walk around Yuba City's neighborhoods, walking from our hotel near CA-99 clear down to Plumas Street and back, which was good exercise and more fun than knocking around all of those dusty boxes in the locker. We also refueled both our vehicles so we're set for the trip home.

Tomorrow morning (not too early), we'll head home to Fernley. In retrospect, we could have done this three-day job in two days, but it's a lot less stressful this way.

Lisa was sufficiently fretful over being able to get to our assigned meeting place by Noon today and about the snow over Donner that she couldn't get to sleep last night and instead left at about 4 AM. The Small Orange Pickup has snow tires and 4WD and did not need chains even though R2 conditions were in force. (She says that she never actually engaged the 4WD but that the chain-up check point waved her through.) Accordingly, she got there more than two hours ahead of me. I was there just after Noon, delayed a bit by rain driving from Tracy and Lodi.) We dealt with our business (I'll say more about what that business was next week sometime when the paperwork matures) and went to the hotel to check in. It's the Holiday Inn Express Sacramento Convention Center, which once again completes another goal in the IHG Big Win promotion. (Only two more goals to go, which we'll complete in a multi-night stay near the end of April for the final Big Win bonus.)

After checking in to the hotel and moving my stuff either to the hotel room or to Lisa's pickup truck, we piled in to my van and went to Yuba City to evaluate the situation at my storage locker. We put another load of boxes into my van, bring the locker below 50%. Furthermore, it looks like the only thing left in the locker that won't fit in my van would be the sofa, which I've agreed to give to my sister. Lisa and I talked it over with my sister and nephew and decided that at the end of April, we'll come to Yuba City, rent a U-Haul pickup truck for a couple of days, and my nephew will help Kelli and me extract the sofa and take it to my sister's house. They'll have to bang on it with brooms and a vacuum cleaner for a while to make it usable again, but it should still be an improvement on what they currently have.

Lisa and I will spend the rest of that weekend deciding what to retain and what to discard and probably taking at least one load to the landfill — there is a derelict box spring & mattress set on which I slept for a year or so twenty years ago before moving everything into that locker, for instance, and a whole lot of empty boxes that I'd been stockpiling "just in case" and for which we now see very little likely future use. There's also a large heavy steel desk that Lisa wants for her workshop in the garage at Fernley House; however, it breaks down into pieces small enough to fit into the back of my minivan, so we can take it home with us. After that, it will only be a matter of time before I can get the last of the boxes out of the locker and close it out. I've had that locker now for nearly twenty years, as I opened it in 1994 when I first moved to the Bay Area. I hope to get it closed sometime this year and stop spending $60/month on storage space.

After a brief stop at my sister's house to discuss the plans for Moving Daze with her and her son, Lisa and I drove back to Sacramento. Lisa, who hadn't slept in about 36 hours, finally fell asleep, and as soon as we got back to the hotel, we got her tucked away to try and catch up on the missed sleep.

Because the Amtrak California Zephyr is on a temporary schedule that runs three hours later than usual, Lisa and I didn't have to rush about to make an 8 AM train on Monday. Instead, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast at the Eldorado buffet, took her luggage back to her pickup, and made our way down to the Amtrak station where the CZ was running another hour later than the revised schedule. We met an expat Australian woman now living in Reno who had her father (they're both from Sydney) in for a visit, and we chatted amiably with them on the platform until the train came. I said goodbye to Lisa, who headed off quickly and didn't even see the train off. (She later explained that she was feeling as though she was almost completely out of power, having slept maybe five hours in the previous 60, and she still had to get groceries and head back to Fernley, so she had to get moving.)

( By Train through the Sierra )

I really enjoyed the train trip, which was a nice restful end to an otherwise very stressful weekend of moving. There's one more high-stress period left, which is the final cleaning out of the Fremont apartment over the rest of this week. I feel a bit like I'm in Zeno's Paradox, for every time I fill up boxes of stuff and move them, there still seem to be as many boxes left to move, while the Atrium apartment (which has very little room) gets more and more full. I rather expect I'll end up having to use my van for overflow storage while I make more decisions about things I just can't keep down here and will either have to take to Nevada or throw away completely. I hope Lisa is able to haul some of it back in her pickup truck when she comes here this weekend.

When I started the rental truck in Sparks, I could see that I was down to less than one-eighth of a tank of gas, but figured that I should be able get out to Fernley and we could refuel there, where gas is substantially cheaper.

( That Darn Engine Light Came Back )

Lisa had me go ahead and pull the truck around to the garage on the other side of the property, as many of the boxes will be stored there initially. I was too tired to do anything else after a much too long, much more eventful day than I wanted. At that point, all I wanted was sleep, which was what I got.

Those of you who follow my Twitter feed know a fair bit of the story I'm going to be posting here, but here it comes for the record. It's long enough that I'll be posting it in multiple parts.

( The BASFA Displacement Committee Cometh )

The BASFA Displacement Committee did a fantastic job, moving the entire contents marked for removal in only about 90 minutes. I thanked them all, offered everyone their pick of things from the shelves in the kitchen with stuff that I'm not moving and will discard if not claimed, and was able to get the truck buttoned up and ready to go before 11 AM, more than an hour before I'd originally hoped. (In retrospect, I was to need that time desperately.) Thank you, everyone!

As people left, they wished me a safe trip. I thanked them and hoped for an uneventful journey. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to be the case, but that's another story to follow shortly.

The arrival of my current PG&E bill reminded me that I needed to schedule turning off the utilities at my apartment, which I did. I do very much hope they don't expect me to be there when they do this on May 1. They don't need access to the apartment (the meters are on the side of the building), so all they need is to get through the gate, and there's sufficient traffic into the complex that tailgating someone else should be sufficient.

I mailed a new voter-registration form this morning. As of today, I am once again a resident of Santa Clara County and the City of San José.

I'll still be staying in Fremont for a few more days working on more move-out stuff.

I made it to Fernley without incident yesterday. I'm now looking nervously at the weather forecast. There's a 100% chance of snow today over Donner with "accumulations of up to 6 cm" forecast. Tomorrow there's a lesser chance of snow, and I'm hoping that I can get over the top tomorrow without having to chain up.

This morning, I unloaded the van with what may be the final van-load of stuff I move up here to Fernley before the move is done. Looking at the calendar, I may not be able to come up here next weekend. The Wednesday after that is the day I take possession of the new apartment. The days after that will have me moving stuff from Fremont to San Jose daily, with particular emphasis on the weekend. (That reminds me that I need to start the wheels turning on getting internet access at the new place.) The weekend after that is Heavy Lifting Days, where I'll move the large furniture to Fernley along with whatever else I can fit into the moving van. The weekend after that is Cleanup, where Lisa is planning on coming down to help me clean the Fremont apartment prior to turning the keys in to the owner.

Once I take possession of the new place — a furnished studio that will be like living in a long-stay hotel — I'll be able to make some final decisions about what can or should stay in the Bay Area and what will have to go to Fernley. There's a chance that I might decide to upgrade the moving truck from the small to the medium size. Also, I need to remember to take the rope and hand truck from here in Fernley back with me if Lisa will let me. OTOH, Lisa needs that hand truck to move bottles of propane to the propane place down the road. Decisions, decisions....

While confirming a points rebate on my Priority Club account, I discovered that I'd not realized that Budget was a partner with Priority Club. Had I realized this, I could have used their discount code for 20% off the cost of the two moving truck rentals (thus saving over $200) and earned maybe as much as 5000 PC points (about one-third of a free night at the less-expensive Express locations). No retroactive credit or discount is available, however. Phooey! I was so focused on getting the move done that I forgot to check for discounts and point opportunities.

We set off from the hotel in Sublimity this morning with no drama at all. We confirmed that the running lights still worked. Even with a bunch of stops, we made good time. Indeed, after we refueled at Chemult, I realized that we might even show up at Klamath Falls too early and not be able to check in. Lisa proposed that we stop at the Collier Memorial State Park Logging Museum. I readily agreed, as I've wanted to visit there every time I've passed it but never had the time. Today, we had the time, and we spent about two hours at the museum.

( Tourism while moving )

Technically, we could probably have pushed hard and driven the entire 500-plus miles to Fernley today, but I think we would have been dangerously exhausted had we tried it. As it was, I had to ask Lisa to drive us from Oakridge to Chemult because I found myself starting to fall asleep at the wheel on OR-58 this morning. Taking the trip in two 250-mile relatively easy chunks is safer. And besides, I have the Priority Club points; I should use them for something useful like a nice comfortable hotel room.