MIDDLE EARTH

We have made it out of our apartment here in Richland, WA. We are now hovering in a kind of no mans land I have dubbed Middle Earth. You know this place, it has all the oddities you forget about when you have your feet firmly planted in your Reality... we are now remembering uncomfortable beds, puffy pillows, intermittant internet connections, and tired to the bone.

We are staying in a hotel for the next few days as our rental here in Richland is all cleaned out and we dont fly out  for Ecuador until the 30th. In the mean time our brains are running through lists of things to do, we have given up writting it down, we just loose the paper. I have lost and found my room key, makeup bag, and various other items so instead of drving Randy nuts I am just subsisting on my intermitant brain power. Thank goodness for Barracuda Coffee shop! They have screaming free WIFI and great coffee and wonderful atmosphere! So I get to share all the gritty details with you!

I need to remember also that this is what we will be doing for the next month. Hotelling... A week in Quito, then the rest of the month in Cuenca until our apartment is ready for us.. hopefully on the 26th. At least that stress is off, no frantic apartment hunting!

I just realized that one of my perscriptions is about to run out so I 411'd the number called it in and discussed a larger amount. No problem, she would just do the 30 days that the insurance allowed and give me another 90 days worth for cash... wow who knew?This way we will have time to get settled and find a doctor for our onging perscriptions. Which I must say are pretty minor so we are very lucky!

We will close out the bank accounts today and then see about rearranging our 5 suitcases, to be sure we are within the limits.I may hang on to my cell phone until tomorrow. I only have 40 minutes on the "travel phone" that might be pushing it..

TRIFECTA

The last few days have been just a wonderment.  The weather here has finally decided to get with it and be warm with out the Seattle rain thrown in, we have noticed that we cant find a pen or other items that we usually had tons of becasue we are really narrowing down our stash in the house... also we had 3 things happen in the last two days that have really made us feel like the "stars are aligning".

Tuesday as we are driving up the road from something,... I cant even remember what we were doing, Randy says, "you know, I am going to stop at that Vintage Electronics place, I left some stuff there gosh, about a year ago...I will probably have to pay him money, but I should stop and see if he was able to sell that stuff".
I went into the antique store next door and putdz around, well he was not done so I went next door and he said... we are almost done here.. we walked out, Randy had this astonished look on his face..(he is the half empty part of the team remember)..he says look... I got $780..omg I almost didnt stop cause it had been so long! Windfall #1

While packing and parcelingout to family, I  went though all the jewelry in my case and weeded out stuff that was junk, broken chains, old gold crowns pieces of gold jewlry that was just not usable. I had this little bundle of "scrap", Randy thought  I was funny...(half empty remember). So I called and found a place in town that bought "scrap gold", (did you know that pure gold is going for over 1200 an ounce?) So as we waited I was hoping for maybe 8o dollars... the fellow said... well these are just not gold at all, and these. well I can give you $430 for... (ok, suck the air back into my lungs)... sure that will be just fine.. Randy is just stunned. We climbed back on our scooters and I treated him to a wondeful Mexican lunch.Windfall #2

I have been haunting this poor family in Cuenca, they have an apartment that I want. Well we were hoping and hoping that this one family would move out. I know its not nice to wish others to have issues with their Visas, or travel plans, but lets just say that we were hoping something would open up for us around July.
Tonite as I was on online, I saw that the people who own the apt were on line so I did the bop in and Chat thing. The owner responded and well one thing led to another and lets just say that the stars were aligned, and the people who were renting JUST gave notice, and we are IN yes, we got MY dream place in Cuenca.
3bd 2 1/2 bth,  2k+ sqft., totally furnished, internet and all utilities included less than 500 a month. So this makes our month a Trifecta, and its not even over yet...I wonder what other wonderful things will align for us on our journey?

PARTY, PARTY, REST, PARTY

Ugh, am I too old for this or what? It seems we have all these events to go to, and people dropping by and then there is the "rat child" who is still moving stuff out of the house. Maybe I better explain, well this really says it all... we are running out of time.

Today according to the calendar is Fathers Day, Happy Fathers day! Kelsey our daughter stopped by to give Randy two father's day cards. Both were so perfect and sweet, I think I detected a tear in his eye, or was that me blubbering over there..?

Also according to the calendar we only have two days that something or someone is not written in for us not to forget about doing or seeing. Last Thursday we had our friends little boy over for a visit. He is Randys buddy.

As you can see he is not camera shy at all!

Also on this day we had a great time with the kids. We hadn't seen Adam for quite awhile so it was a wonderful opportunity to get a quick family photo taken. Thank goodness our friend Don had come by to take his purchases of yard furniture, so we got a great picture of us together!

Friday we got to listen to Felicia sing at Casa Vino, Kelsey went with us and took pictures. Unfortunately it was artistic photos and not one of people! I am hoping someday to be living off her avant garde photos...Keep up the good work Kelsey we love your bubbly water photos!

Saturday we had our "Going Away Party" at the Leslie Groves Park. That is something I think I will also miss is the park system that following along the whole of the river, it really is a nice feature of this area!

But I digress, the party, OMG how fun, and how sweet, and well I am speechless. Our friend Jennifer and Dori put out the word, and everyone came together to get a license so we could have live electric music and alcohol in the park! How fun, and what a hoot when the guy came over and PEEEEERRRRRRed at our permit, then sulked off.. Hey lots of people came by and stopped to listen, and applaude, JD Kindle and  the Eastern Oregon Playboys are great!

We topped off the night by going over to Tammy & Rob Hastings house to continue on as it was not even dark yet... ugh. I gave out about 9pm. I was so happy to lay my head down.  Randy was up by 5am I slept until 9. I am thinking I am getting the hang of this party stuff!

I will take more pictures and try to update as we go, there is a BBQ pizza later today, now those are incredible. So after we pick up Glenda at the airport we will zip over and partake of those! Monday and Tues are open so we will probably go around and start closing out our internet (thank goodness for the wifi across the street), telephones and closing out our other utilities. Then its back to Party, Party, Rest, Party!

THE LAST DAYS OF OUR LIVES IN RICHLAND WASHINGTON

We have managed to get our last days pretty planned out, or is that our friends have planned out our last days here in Richland.?

Besides the normal refrain of "Why Ecaudor?" or "But what will you DO there?" we are now hearing... I can't believe its already time for you to go! It went so fast! It always makes my heart warm when someone calls and says, what do you have scheduled for this date...? Our days are filling up, and it means so much to us that our friends are squeezing in time to hang out with us before we leave.

I thought I would share some of our fun times with friends that we have had this last few days.
I think I have mentioned that Randy rides his scooter (Vespa ET4) to a local coffee hotspot called Barracudas. They have a designated smoking spot way back on their deck and you can find Randy there each morning enjoying his coffee and cigars.

The story behind this place is that the original owner sold his "baby" Cuda to start the business, He later  sold it to a young couple with the stipulation that he gets free coffee for life.  Here is Jake & Michelle the cute owners!

Some other things we enjoy is going to Yard Sales... well we do usually go to buy but now days we go to commiserate with those having the sale and generally reflect on how glad we are that we aren't doing it ourselves. This is our "scooter trash" friends Jennifer, John and Hattie Jane.

My officemates and supervisor had a nice going away dinner for me on Wednesday. We had a nice time at
 3 Margaritas. I was surprised with a beautiful arrangement of longstemed roses and daisies.

Kelsey came to move her things out and I just have to show you her idea of helping to pack. Its pretty indicative of things to come dont you think?

Later in the week she came back and packed up her car again with even more things. I am still waiting to see pictures of where she is putting all this in her little apartment.

Our friends Robin and Jim just bought a Party Barge. Well I guess the real name is a Pontoon Boat, but its really going to be a party barge!

 The weather had turned really warm, and the day on the Columbia River was a real nice way to relax after work.

We followed up with a South American Wine tasting in Prosser on Thursday. There is our friend Glenda, she and Randy were terrorizing me with bad wine tasting etiquette, knowing that I am a total rule follower!

This Saturday my friend Tawnee who had moved to Seattle about 10 years ago came down to visit before we leave. She brought a friend and of course, girls just want to have fun so we went wine tasting!                              

Monday is my last real day at work. So check in later this week and see what new last minute excitement we can get up to!