I still wake up lately, in a sudden jump and flash, startled, in the middle of the night, with this urgency I have to run and dash out of bed, to get to somewhere before a certain time.  That feeling haunted me for over three weeks in July as I realized no matter how much I planned, there was the moment where when I stepped out that door of my apartment, my street, my block, it was for the last time, and there was no turning back. It caused me the shaking when I woke up I experienced.

I went to the map a hundred times, reviewing the stops, the possible stops I would need to make, pet friendly locations of hotels, over and over, recalling the stops I made when I had done this trip by myself twice before to and fro, over and over and over – and yet this was so much different. 

Settling on the movers of AtlasMex, a date had finally been set for coming to pack.  As that day was one day away, the days leading up to this were filled with countless buckets of Pine Sol, detergent, cleaner, and tackling the walls of the apartment room by room, then letting those dry and I moved to others, went back and plastered spots, then brought out the paint can and matching.  This occurred over and over, and I became a Zombie cleaner for a week or so, always waking to urge myself to do at least one more wall, at least one more room, saving the last walls for the ones occupied by the items I was piling up against 1-2 walls for the movers to come in and wrap.

This all helped me prepare mentally, organize the plethora of items being sold, given, etc.. Posting big furniture items on the various Facebook sites helped…

…word of mouth to new hires coming in, all helped slowly, (though not fast enough in my mind) see items begin to disappear, literally up to the day/week of leaving. It seemed everything made me nervous this last week.

The day of the packers came, July 28th 2017, and all morning from 9:00 – 4:00 they packed everything, me pacing wondering if I had too much, lol not giving them enough that would fit into the car, etc.. and they almost finished that day, but not quite.  That was a Friday.  Saturday  July 29th and Sunday July 30th did not work out for them, due to complications with another mover.  

Luckily I had the amazing benefit of meeting friends, and having a night to chilax and have others new to ASF meet veterans one last time before many took off,

URL here for these pics! —

and we did so at Porco Rosso in Cuauhtemoc.  It was a great night and one I needed to happen to calm down.                  

and  Now I was nervous more so than others, my painting and cleaning was catching up with the items still in my apartment.  

Sunday brought some of the bigger items moving out, a breath of fresh air and relief happening.    Then Monday, (July 31st) more items moving out, space in the apartment, the movers came, they removed and finished packing the items to go on the truck, and it look like I had hit 10 cubic meters thanks to the way they packed on the mark.  All the while I am knowing I need to have space for the new tenants coming in and inside, I am packing all around the world,  Two days left (August 2nd) before I actually visualized myself leaving in my car, 6 animals later, on an open road, with unexpected events at the border and beyond.  I was quite scared.

The night before I left, I will never forget.  I ran around like crazy, stopping at ASF to grab my last minute checks, and trying to sneak into the welcoming breakfast and finding myself announced by the gracious Paul Williams and the entire Welcoming Staff AND new hires.  This was NOT the plan by the way, and was causing me slight panic as inside I was ( I am not sure I am going to get all done !!!!) , but it was bittersweet to be sitting at the very breakfast where I had met so many amazing people and this was an ending this day for me, it is difficult, if not impossible, to put how I felt into words at this moment).

I was off in the late afternoon, getting last minute papers for the cats and dogs at the vet, (and having the vet come to the house on Monday, to give the at who I could jot extract from the apartment his shots) – getting a tarp because I thought the bags I would carry on the roof rack might go through rain and having a tarp to cover them NOT such 

a bad idea, getting help adding a shelf to the large dog crate to make a mini condo for the cats,

 .  getting a second cat crate for the third cat, buying last minute grocery items to fill a cooler for my trek all the while FREAKING OUT INSIDE.

The night before, wow, does this picture freak you out?  it did me, ALOT.  How was I going to consolidate this into one vehicle with 6 animals, and leave and get sleep before heading out.  I had no idea. All night I kept cleaning items I saw i did not get to (the fridge, the kitchen, etc).

while picking up items and cramming into spaces that I would try to save space in the Mountaineer, all the while trying to calm myself down, and the mantra, there will be space, there will be space.  At midnight, I packed and packed and packed, and loaded the top of the vehicle, it was RAINING and I was like, no…  Are you kidding?  So the tarp came out and I tied it with bungy cords tightly knowing the wind and driving would make havoc with the tarp despite rain coming down.  2:30 AM, on the morn of leaving and my plan was to leave at 4:00 AM, I died into a sleep I do not remember, but I do remember waking up ay 5:30 AM, and knowing I had enough adrenaline to bypass sleep and to get started.

I put some last minute items out for the neighbor, grabbed the cats in the sleep mode and actually pretty easily each got them into the crates without a problem, the last were the dogs on the back seat.  I simply pulled out, my Explore PACKED TO THE HILT, literally to the front windshield, animals in tow, and simply pulled out.  It seemed to less dramatic but in my head I could picture all the crazy miles ahead of me.  I followed my last time for awhile towards the Angel, towards Polanco.  I had a new route that seemed to take more of a diagonal route,  and as everything made me nervous so did that but I plunged forward, knowing I had animals accompanying me and they were depending on me, lol.Yes the cats meowed alot at first but were completely scared enough to quiet down quickly enough, the dogs in fact did get bored and at first Dane wanted to eat the cats, so glad we had crates.  However all settled down with the music lightly playing, and the quiet in the vehicle, and we were on the the road…