We got word that the buyers of our house got their approval as well and now it was just a matter of getting a closing date. The complicated part of moving from one house to another is coordinating the closing dates of the house you are selling and the house your are buying. Having done this before, one is able to set these up to happen the same day. Go to the lawyers office, close on the existing house, hand over the keys, go to the other attorney WITH the packed moving truck, close on the new house, go back to new house and start unpacking.

Things are slightly different when you are moving from state to state though. Coordination of events takes on a completely different life at that point. First the buyers of your existing home have to agree to let you “rent” the house from them for a couple of days so the movers can load the truck and you can get out. That not being a huge problem, the next step is to get the closing on the new house a few days later so you can, well, move. Now you have to have the attorneys for the new house forward the closing documents to you, next day, so you can sign and return, next day. Then you have the movers show up on the pre-determined day and start the packing. In theory this all seems easy and straight forward.

The packing continued and the vast majority of our belongings were either in boxes, Rubbermaid tubs or wrapped in blankets and cardboard with bubblewrap. The items we didn’t want to bring with up were either sold, given away or brought to the dump. We cleaned out an were ruthless. We would learn much later that we weren’t ruthless enough.

On one of my packing days, two weeks prior to the closing, I had my Heritage out of the Ted Shed. On completion of the packing ritual I just had to move the bike back in the shed. I started her up, pulled her of the side-stand and put it into gear. I hear a louder than usual clunk as it went into gear, but I released the clutch and nothing. I thought to myself, “Maybe I just missed 1st gear” and pressed down on the shift lever again. It was already down. I pulled it back up into neutral and pressed it down again with the signature Harley “clunk”. Again, nothing. I then instinctively went through all the gears only to find it wasn’t working in any gear. First thought was my clutch cable broke….. the one I just replaced last summer. Defeated and exhausted, I pushed the big girl into the shed vowing to fix whatever the problem was when I got to North Carolina. When I was pushing it in, I was hearing this weird sound. It sounded like something was being dragged across a carpet or tearing cardboard. After I put the bike back on its stand I went to the rear of the bike and got on my aching knees and there is was…..

….The drive belt was broken. Ugh……

In the house, my wife got off the phone with the lawyers office and we had confirmed closing dates for both this house and the house in North Carolina. Now it was time to coordinate the arrival of the movers. After several phone calls and discussions with the movers, we had them scheduled for a Monday in two weeks to load the truck and head for the new house. We would depart bright and early on Tuesday and hopefully be having take-out in our new home that same day.

The Saturday and Sunday before D-Day was not as hectic as we thought it would be. We had done as much as we could have and there was nothing else we could do until move day. Sunday night we would spend our last night on our loveseat watching our TV and our last night sleeping in our bed in that house. We were excited and melancholy at the same time. Our dogs and cats were confused and wandered around the near cluttered house wondering what was going on, but they could feel the tension and anxiety in the air. The cats were lurking around quietly and skulking around every corner confused with all the boxes and odd shapes of things everywhere. All the things the pets were used to that they saw every day were no longer where they should be. I felt so bad for them.

But tomorrow would be a completely and utterly different day….. very different.