Prelude to liftoff - the Grey Goose Express adventure

SACRAMENTO, California, USA - The days before we left the U.S. are a blur of packing, saying goodbye, followed by more packing and more goodbyes.

In the last days we packed up the entire house, went our for dinner with friends and realized that we had waited waaaaay too long to handle the final details of such of move. Besides packing the list had 27 items on it (shut off the cable tv, the newspaper, change phone messages, got to the safe deposit box, and, and, and...)

Our deadline day was when two house cleaners were set to arrive at 8:30 a.m. - by which time the house had to be empty so they could do a serious deep cleaning.

It wasn't. Merde!

So Admiral Fox and I fought room-to-room, corridor-to-corridor, and doorway-to-doorway, just ahead of vacuum cleaners, mops and other implements of destruction, loading things into the little red Nissan truck, the Grey Goose Express and some into the garage for later storing in the Troupey.

It was way beyond crazy.

But that night Sanders and Pat Lamont (the other two members of The Four Headlamps) arrived to reclaim their house (in which we have lived for the past two years, or is it three?) and we went our for a nice dinner (another one) at a neighborhood restaurant where Sanders and I had Grey Goose drinks (what else?) to celebrate our departure the following day.

But the following day we didn't leave as planned.

That's for tomorrow's episode: 10,000 pounds in a 9,000 pound bucket.