Somewhere in Eastern Wyoming

Mark and I are on our way to Deadwood, South Dakota. He has been jonesing for a visit to Deadwood since watching the HBO series about three years ago. We’ve traveled here from Palm Desert, California, where all of my worldly goods are presently stored.

Getting my apartment taken apart and all my things packed and transported to storage was a huge task, requiring a Herculean effort on both our parts. Terry helped too. Prior to the big move-out weekend, my sister came and helped me stage a moving sale, which was another huge effort, and had disappointing results, as I was unable to sell any of the larger items; furniture I did not want to store. Much of that stuff – sofa, armchair, 8-drawer dresser, TV stand, storage cabinet and shelf unit – ended up unsold, going instead to charity, along with an enormous pile of boxes filled with stuff I wanted to part with.

Even so, the sheer number of items to be packed and stored was overwhelming. At times, while Mark contemplated bolting for the airport and leaving me to my unwieldy task, and Terry complained and threatened to go home, I, like a robotic automaton, just kept stuffing things into boxes, one thing after another thing after another, thinking, I should just walk away from it all, forfeit my rental deposit and plan to live like a monk upon my return from the Corps. Such grief my materialism is causing me.

In the end, we did get everything stored, though my planned 10' x 7.5' space grew to 10' x 10' and then to an additional 5' x 5' space for a few remainders that just wouldn’t fit in the main space (though I’m quite proud of how little was actually left over once the larger space was filled). It will cost me about double what I’d planned to spend on the smaller space. There is no getting around the price I’ll be paying for my acquisitiveness. What is really shocking is, even though I got rid of so much, I still had so much left over! I admit this surprised me. I guess, when you live in a place for 12+ years, accumulation is the usual case. Acquisitiveness is an American disease; I think it would be safe to say that I have far less stuff than many in similar circumstances, especially in California.

In fact, it was partly my discomfort with living a life that is based on working to get money to acquire more and more consumer goods that predisposed me to look for radical change. I know my earlier cross-cultural experiences changed me; I can only hope that Morocco will effect a change in this aspect of my life.

So far the road trip has been pretty nice. The highlight was Prescott, AZ. We stayed at the Hassayampa Inn, a beautiful old historic hotel in the middle of downtown. Prescott is charming, with lots of nice restaurants and lovely old buildings. The Hassayampa was like a luxury hotel, but actually quite affordable. We visited my sister in Santa Fe and then made our way up through Colorado and Wyoming. Tomorrow we should be in South Dakota, then it's on to Minnesota to deliver the car to my mom. Hi, Mom!