Change Is Never Easy!

Sprague Lake - Rocky Mountain National Park

June, 2011

It's hard to believe that less than one month ago, my plans had me likely taking in this very view (minus the snow) on Monday, July 29, 2013.  The Sprague Lake trail is an easy, flat one-mile trail around the lake just inside Rocky Mountain National Park.  It's a great way to start the altitude acclimation process while drinking in the incredible vista.  We have two regrets about having to postpone the Colorado trip.  The first being the chance to visit during wildflower season.  That will be easily remedied at another time.  The second regret, however, has some finality to it.  For the third time (2009, 2011, 2013), we had rented Riverbend Retreat in Estes Park for our two week stay.  This wonderful cabin just feet from the Thompson River and an easy walk into downtown Estes Park (yet far away from the crowds) became "home" to us and we looked forward to many visits over the years.  But we learned earlier this summer that the owners had made the decision to sell the cabin and it has been purchased by someone who plans to make it their permanent home.  Existing reservations were to be honored, but we knew when bought the condo and cancelled our Colorado trip reservations, that our days at Riverbend were now just memories.   We love Colorado and still have much to explore there, but not this year.  

Finding and purchasing the condo all happened so quickly, I think we are both still a tiny bit shell-shocked!  Don't get me wrong - there are absolutely NO regrets.  I'm not sure when either of us have felt so strongly that we'd made a great decision.  But in the midst of purging, packing, establishing the vision of what will go where and working out a plan to make it all go smoothly, yesterday we just needed a break!   Bill took a long, long nap and I spent the afternoon catching up on some much needed blog reading time.  We are so grateful for the gift of time in this move.  I have to be so very, very careful not to lift too many boxes or work to long at one interval or I pay dearly the next day either in the form of complete exhaustion or very painful joints.  I'm trying to pace myself and stagger the activity between packing boxes for awhile and then sitting at the desk handling the business part of moving which can be totally overwhelming all by itself!

So here is the moving schedule.   Closing is set for Thursday morning at 9:30.  The remainder of Thursday and part of Friday will be for painting, cleaning and carpet cleaning.  We will have Friday through Monday to move and hopefully put away the things we have chosen to move ourselves.  Electing to move dishes, hanging clothing, computer equipment/tv, pictures and lamps is saving us a bundle of money and I feel more comfortable moving those things myself anyway.  The movers will arrive bright and early on Tuesday, the 6th to move all the furniture.  We will then have one full week to get settled in before Bill returns to school on the 14th.  The timing could not have worked out any better and we are so, so grateful for that!

We have only encountered one glitch I was not expecting and that is the fact that our landline telephone number had to change.  I had my suspicions from the beginning because our landline prefix is associated with a particular area of town that is a long way from the area we are moving.  Yet I kept reading info saying that if you remained within the same area code, you should be able to keep the number.  But it was not to be....FCC just would not allow that number to port to the area we are moving.  We tried everything and I've accepted it, but you know how it is.  We've had this number since 1984 and it's going to be tough for this old bird to learn a new one.  Unfortunately, we just aren't quite ready to go the cell phone only route just yet.  So communicating my new address AND new phone number info to all our friends, family and business contacts should keep me at that desk for quite some time.  On the other hand, with a new number, maybe it'll take some of these goofball salespeople awhile to find me again!  Oddly enough, I actually LIKE the new number.  It's catchy and easy to remember!

It'll likely be a couple of weeks before you hear from me again.  Once all this gets underway, I may not even be able to FIND my computer, much less turn it on and have internet!    In the meantime, enjoy a couple of additional pictures of my new digs.

 From my sun porch looking to the left is a lovely forested area.  To the right is a large meadow that eventually slopes down to the road.  I like both vantage points and expect I'll be spending a good bit of time staring one way or the other!