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!

The trees are not there

 

This is the photo that shows with the rental information. Love the trees. Love the lawns.

Sure it's not all that private, but thinking how great that shade would feel.

It's a senior apartment complex.

Google Earth views as of 2003. Not very shady. Cute little fences for privacy. No shade.

It doesn't even look as if they've planted any new trees. It must have been quite a big venture taking out all those old trees. Makes me sad.

Well, with drought conditions, I guess this makes sense. The trees in the background? There's a RV park on the next property...so they can camp beneath trees still. 

These are the apartments where I'll probably be moving. The homes across the street do have trees, so I can take early morning walks and enjoy their neighborhood. That's the plan! It's located within walking distance of a grocery store, and various restaurants only a long block away.

I have been spoiled by living in a virtual forest in North Carolina. I will take lots of photos before I move! But having dry air to breathe means I will most willingly give up the humidity of these trees.

Last Monday we drove to Pisgah Mountain for lunch. Here are the beginnings of that trip to enjoy the trees and acclimate myself to higher elevations, my new home will be more than a mile high at 6191 Feet! 

Leaving Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway you can stop and see the French Broad River.

I will probably use my shot of the river as a header photo later on.

Before even arriving at the restaurant I was glad to have brought the portable oxygen generator (concentrator? whatever it's called!) I was coughing up a storm, and really out of breath at the restaurant, which they say is at 5000 feet. But Pisgah Mountain, right up the hill, is supposed to be 5721 feet, and it didn't look that much taller. who knows! Maybe that wasn't the actual mountain top...

More about lunch in a bit...