Today we knocked two things off our pre-travel TO DO list. We sold Andrew’s Subaru Outback (more on that later), and bought our new home: a custom built replica teardrop trailer, modeled after the style first displayed in Popular Mechanics magazine during the late 1940s. It is siiiiiiick. (I picked up that turn of phrase from my skater husband and his little brother. Sometimes, it really is the best adjective for the job. Sorry Dad!)

This little trailer is awesome. It fits behind our truck without obstructing our view at all. It weighs almost nothing, and is about the size of our futon mattress. How convenient! The hatchback flips up, revealing a cute kitchen galley complete with a pump sink and propane powered range. The trailer was built by two artisans, one who specializes in metal work and one in wood, so the carpentry and construction are quite nice. A few minor things will be tweaked to make it ours, but overall it’s ready to roll.

These past few weeks have been a flurry of activity. We have started organizing our stuff into sell, toss, keep piles, and have made a mess of our house and garage. My last day of work was yesterday, so I’m looking forward to spending my time cleaning and organizing, selling more stuff, and working on my sister’s wedding present (a custom painting).

We have sold most of our things on Craigslist, and this is also where we looked for the teardrop trailer. One thing I have learned through all of this: you meet really awesome people via Craigslist shopping. Sure, you get flakes and the occasional weirdo (or a roommate who turns out to be INSANE, but that’s a story for another day), but for the most part I have been really impressed. In fact, it’s a bit sad. I have met some people over these last few weeks that would probably have made great friends if we weren’t about to jet out of here.

We sold one of our refurbished wine barrels to a really cool young couple who just bought a house in Vista. We sold our Subaru to a very sweet French girl who is here for 6 months to study jewelry design. She might even foster my cat! And we bought the trailer from Jamie, the artisan mentioned above who makes furniture for a living (!!!), and also owns a tequila company (!!!!!!!!). His girlfriend is an interior designer (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) The gods are apparently messing with us for leaving San Diego. Since Jaime is so awesome, I will plug his companies here because I think he deserves the shout out. Furniture: http://surfacefurniture.com/. Tequila: http://www.montalvotequila.com. Rad.