We're heading out the door to begin the drive to Cape May where we'll catch the ferry to Cape Henlopen.
Deb and Jason took us for a delicious and memorable dinner at Al Di La in Park Slope last night.
This is probably the last post before we start walking.
Cheers.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
the missing goodbye cake
Our good friend Scott Galin, who lives in Lexington, MA was kind enough to buy us a goodbye cake. His is a family of legendary sweet teeth (sweettooths?). Chocolate lovers in particular, but he was thoughtful enough to remember that I prefer my sweets with fruit, so it was a lovely apple cake he bought. Unfortunately, he "forgot" the cake. I hear it was very, very good. At least we got pictures...
Departure day minus 3
It's raining on the Cape today in anticipation, I suppose, of our beginning to hike.
Sticking with our ethic of not really preparing for the walk, we're going to spend the day reviewing our pack inventories and making last minutes trips to EMS and Trader Joe's for whatever items we think might be good to have along such as food for the first few days.
Tomorrow we'll hop the bus to NYC with nothing but the packs on our backs, various digital telecommunication devices, some credit cards and our hopes and fears and other assorted emotions.
Sticking with our ethic of not really preparing for the walk, we're going to spend the day reviewing our pack inventories and making last minutes trips to EMS and Trader Joe's for whatever items we think might be good to have along such as food for the first few days.
Tomorrow we'll hop the bus to NYC with nothing but the packs on our backs, various digital telecommunication devices, some credit cards and our hopes and fears and other assorted emotions.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wondering why there's a goat in our URL?
The blog is called "in route...". The URL is dudewheresmygoat.blogspot.com which is a reference to our ongoing discussion regarding the pros and cons of having a goat along for the walk.
PROS
PROS
- the goat can pull a cart with our cats and other amenities
- smaller than a horse
- goat milk!
- goat milk!
- spending everyday with a goat
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Waiting for the men
The truck's backed up to the front of Charlie and Brenda's waiting for the movers to arrive. Thought I'd take a minute to update our itinerary from here.
We'll be in Falmouth at Jenny's parents' (the aforementioned C & B) home until Monday the 30th. We'll be taking care of some last minute items from the old life like shutting down our utility accounts as well as some items for our new life like cutting our groundcloth to the size of our tent's footprint.
On Monday, we'll hop the bus back to New York where we'll stay over night with Deb and Jason in Park Slope.
On Tuesday, the four of us will pile into D & J's car for the ride down to our starting point. We'll leave the car in Cape May, NJ and take the ferry across Delaware Bay to Lewes which is just north of Cape Henlopen State Park.
View Larger Map
We'll be camping out that night in the park.
On Wednesday, April Fool's day, we say goodbye to our friends and we start walking.
We'll be in Falmouth at Jenny's parents' (the aforementioned C & B) home until Monday the 30th. We'll be taking care of some last minute items from the old life like shutting down our utility accounts as well as some items for our new life like cutting our groundcloth to the size of our tent's footprint.
On Monday, we'll hop the bus back to New York where we'll stay over night with Deb and Jason in Park Slope.
On Tuesday, the four of us will pile into D & J's car for the ride down to our starting point. We'll leave the car in Cape May, NJ and take the ferry across Delaware Bay to Lewes which is just north of Cape Henlopen State Park.
View Larger Map
We'll be camping out that night in the park.
On Wednesday, April Fool's day, we say goodbye to our friends and we start walking.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Jenny and Rick don't live in NYC anymore
For the first time in a total of 50 years Rick and I do not live in NYC. This past week was quite a whirlwind of frenetic packing, eating, hugging, crying, drinking, listening to jazz (thanks Tomo) and facial twitches.Yesterday we loaded up the u-haul to its very gills. For a moment or two we thought the loading would never end. Even the courteous, odor-free gentlemen whom we hired to help were impressed by how much we had fit into our small apartment.
With Calisto as his noisy co-pilot, Rick drove the truck while Jenny, assisted by Humfry, followed in the Saturn. We hit the BQE in the midst of a traffic jam, but fortunately, that soon lifted and we had an uneventful if windy drive to Falmouth.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
stimulus impact
For anyone wondering when the recently passed stimulus package (ARRA) will take effect, let me announce that we were recently stimulated in the form of an offset and subsidy to our COBRA payments.
We've been on COBRA since November when I was laid off. Paying >$800 a month for a crappy health plan. ARRA provides a tax refund for what we've already paid and starting next month will cut our payment by 65% through a subsidy. This represents a huge cut to our projected monthly spend for the walk.
Now, in our case the subsidy will not be stimulative since we are unlikely to spend the surplus. Half the point of the walk is to drastically reduce expenses afterall. However, for the vast majority of people who are eligible, the subsidy will mean the difference between keeping or losing health coverage which is indirectly stimulative in itself. More importantly, most COBRA recipients are by definition recently laid off and will therefore be spending their subsidies on living expenses, etc. while they look for work.
So, let me say thank you to Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration. And a bigger thank you to the kind hearted generosity of all you taxpayers out there. Cheers.
We've been on COBRA since November when I was laid off. Paying >$800 a month for a crappy health plan. ARRA provides a tax refund for what we've already paid and starting next month will cut our payment by 65% through a subsidy. This represents a huge cut to our projected monthly spend for the walk.
Now, in our case the subsidy will not be stimulative since we are unlikely to spend the surplus. Half the point of the walk is to drastically reduce expenses afterall. However, for the vast majority of people who are eligible, the subsidy will mean the difference between keeping or losing health coverage which is indirectly stimulative in itself. More importantly, most COBRA recipients are by definition recently laid off and will therefore be spending their subsidies on living expenses, etc. while they look for work.
So, let me say thank you to Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration. And a bigger thank you to the kind hearted generosity of all you taxpayers out there. Cheers.
moving again
Before setting out on our walk, we're moving out of our apartment of 5+ years.
Today's schedule is disassembling a giant bookcase/wall unit and packing up the kitchen.
On Monday we will load everything but our backpacks into a u-haul truck and move our stuff into storage (in this case, that is a room in Jenny's parent's house). We don't know where we'll resettle next fall -- or earlier. Maybe we'll just end up somewhere...
I hate moving.
Today's schedule is disassembling a giant bookcase/wall unit and packing up the kitchen.
On Monday we will load everything but our backpacks into a u-haul truck and move our stuff into storage (in this case, that is a room in Jenny's parent's house). We don't know where we'll resettle next fall -- or earlier. Maybe we'll just end up somewhere...
I hate moving.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
