On my way!

 A few hours after this is posted, we'll start loading the U-Haul truck to trek out to Colorado (about 1800 miles). My son will do most of the driving, and my other 2 sons helped by paying for his flight here, as well as the U-Haul truck. Great family to pitch in to help the mom hopefully live where the air is dry and one son is just an hour away.

Mum will take care of the food and gas, and pay the motel bills for probably 3-4 nights on our journey. Such an adventure!

Back in 2019, I drove with a friend behind the wheel out to Albuquerque NM and then rented a car to drive to Cortez CO. I'm not sure if we'll be going the same route, but planning on going west on I-40 for quite a while this time.

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You need to know when I travel I have to have nebulizer (inhaling 2 different drugs) to use morning and night, as well as the C-Pap with distilled water. These two devices go into one carrying case. Plus a gallon jug of water and the breathing drugs.

Now I am sleeping with added oxygen with the C-Pap, which means having the floor concentrator version (on wheels) brought in from car, then pulled back out each morning. This was part of the reason I decided not to fly out to Colorado! All of these devices need electricity to run!

I am so glad Tai will be with me for some of the hauling each night in motels. I always use my handy little cart to carry my various packs and small luggage. Now that I can read blogs on the iPad, I won't bother toting the laptop in and out of motels.

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Here's the target of the journey, myself to move into an apartment in Durango (on the right on this map). We'll overshoot it when we first get there to go to my son's and his wife's home in Cortez, 46 miles further west along the blue line. That's because I won't sign the lease till Monday morning at 10 am, and then we can unload the truck. We hope to arrive on Sunday, while the office is closed.

So I started working backward from moving in. What will I sleep on, since I gave away my 11 year old bed? I've got a nice queen size blow up bed, which automatically blows itself up. I even have bedding that size, including a mattress pad. Hope to purchase a new real bed within a short time.

Food will need to be purchased for fresh things, but I've 5-6 milk crates of canned and packaged things to get by on. Including boxes of almond milk for my granola! The trick will just be finding things...but I've packed food in those black plastic crates, and have a few bowls, mugs, spoons left for last packing and hopfully first unpacking!

I've traveled to visit my three sons and their families often ever since they've lived on their own...since they had bigger homes and I only had a guest air mattress if that. So I'm used to packing for the motel stops, the frequent stretch legs and use facilities stops, and driving driving driving! It will be nice to be the passenger. I need to remind myself to wiggle my feet frequently so my ankles don't swell up from lack of movements.

The main new elements are the coughing which happens most when I get tired, and the need for oxygen for sleeping, or when working on things that strain me. (I am ok getting a little out of breath but not a lot!!)  I have an appointment with my new pulmonologist just 3 days after I move in! Nice!

Of course I will have to use oxygen most of the time while unpacking, especially since the altitude of 6500 feet will also give less oxygen. Will move very slowly! No carrying heavy things!

So that's the plan, Sam. Get on the track, Jack. No need to be coy, Roy...

do you know the next part of the song by Paul Simon?

Just set yourself free!!

by Deseria Price, near Silverton CO

There's a narrow gauge railroad from Durango to Silverton CO...which runs along down the hill from my new apartment. Sometime I'll take that ride with all the other tourists!

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OK what's a post without a quote?

Yes, this is Durango CO...not my photo, but excellent to consider those mountains! When I've looked at Google maps, they just don't show the elevations worth a hoot!

Motel Sleaze Factor

We've stayed in some lovely motels...and then Mon. night there was the worst imaginable.

Here's one example that took it to a 0 rating in a 1-10 sleaze chart.

After moving from room number one (as a non-smoking room it stunk!) I didn't have one that was on the first floor, but up an elevator along a balcony to the end of it...it was ok, especially since the manager carried half my luggage up for me.  But within a minute I noticed there were no pillowcases on the 3 pillows.  So I called Jerry (manager) who said he'd send his 'man' up. That 'man' said he was housekeeping...and wore latex gloves, and said he used to be landscaping, but got this job offer. He then proceeded to put the pillow under his chin with full beard, to pull on the pillowcase. I pointed that out to him, so the other 2 were done by just pushing pillows into cases.  But wait, there's more.

This actually puts this Rodeway Inn of Pueblo CO into negative numbers.  When I descended the elevator in the morning to check out...the elevator had a huge puddle of pee in the corner, including some streaks along the wall. I told the day manager, and he said lots of folks had dogs...and I told him about the wall. He sent another guy "housekeeper" to get a mop.  There were a bunch of other men hanging around.  Some women were going up and down stairs, carrying breakfast boxes from a nearby restaurant..and there was a man with 2 toddlers and 2 strollers, who used the elevator before it got mopped, so his wheels probably got some moisture on them. There was a man with mop going to the elevator as we loaded the car. This was not the only place that I got the feeling that people were living in motels...weekly rates were posted here. Another place had patio furniture and plants outside the doorway to one room.

We were really glad to leave that place...and decided to look more closely at what we were renting from then on. As 2 single women traveling across country, we rented separate rooms each night...and wanted quality at low costs.  But this time we decided there was a limit!

Unfortunately there was no way to tell by the name of a chain, we would sometimes get really nice rooms at low costs at one motel, then the next one of the same name would either be shoddy or higher cost.  I guess if we'd been using the same chain and knew when and where we'd be stopping it would have been easier (as well as knowing what the prices would be in advance.) But with traffic and construction along the interstates, we never could tell where we'd probably be at sunset (about the time we usually started looking.) I'd do the cell phone search, and start calling for availability, but usually wouldn't get information in time for us to drive into a driveway. So this has been an interesting learning experience.

Our decisions often were such that we wanted to sleep on the other side of major cities, so we wouldn't run into morning rush hour traffic.  That worked so well, we never (in our 7 days on the road) drove through morning or evening rush hour at any of the cities we went through.

Trip 2011 August, first night

More email notes tell me about my first night on the road, on the way to Connecticut for my 69th birthday.

I don't know about you, but once I find a reasonable motel, I try to use it again.
The trip was planned loosely that I would drive home a different route, and stay near DC, then spend a day looking at museums that hadn't even been built the last time I got to go to DC.  I was giving myself some art exposure as a birthday present.  It didn't work out that way.


<Saturday, August 20, 2011 8:33 PM
<Hi ladies...
<Yeah!  The motel where I'm staying, can't remember which chain it is, has Wi Fi.  Oh, it's Super 8.  Very reasonable! 

<Driving has been nice and easy today.  Didn't see any accidents.  Did have to stop with several personal "near accidents "from IBS almost hourly.  I'm so upset that this is happening, where I take exits and rush to the first bathroom holding it...barely.  I just don't like taking the over the counter stuff that stops it, cause then for days I won't go at all.  But I probably will go buy some in the morning so I don't have this all day tomorrw too.

<I will be lying down soon for the night.  It's kind of hard to believe I'm actually north of DC, though a ways west of it.  Oh, I'm in Winchester, VA.  It's been so beautiful, the Virginia countryside.  I'm really enjoying it.

Next day was the fun drive through  VA, West VA, Maryland, PA, NJ, NY and CT - yes 7 states!

I hit stormy weather at one crucial point where I ended up getting off the highway and getting a bit lost...see tomorrow's posting!