Moving day is upon me.

On Wednesday (yesterday), I got a call from my last client for the season. Instead of starting the contract on July 25, he wanted to start on July 22.

Thursday (today).

That seemed to work out fine for me. My previous contracts all ended on Wednesday and there was no rain in the forecast. So even through two of my clients were still picking cherries, it was unlikely that they’d need me to extend. A quick call to each of them confirmed this.

I’d been planning to move on Sunday. Or maybe Monday. Now it looked like I’d have to move on Friday.

The fifth wheel RV that I’ve been living in since the start of the season is in Quincy, WA in a campground on a golf course with a full RV hookup. My helicopter is parked across the street at an ag strip there. I need to get both of them up to Wenatchee Heights, WA, and park them on an orchard.

Today, I’m driving up to Wenatchee Heights to meet with my client and agree on a place for me to park. I have my eye on a spot, but the land doesn’t belong to my client and he’s not sure how to contact the owner. I’m hoping I don’t have to park in the orchard. The roads in there are very narrow and I’m worried about getting my 36-foot rig around the corners. I’m also thinking that there probably isn’t 36 feet of level space in the whole place.

This afternoon, I’m going to a salmon grill party at the ag strip where I’ll probably give helicopter rides to my hosts and their families.

Then I’ll come back to the RV and pack it up.

RVs are great because they’re set up for living and can be very comfortable. Mine is extremely comfortable. But when an RV is on the move, all loose items need to be stowed. When you spend weeks parked in one place, you tend to take out a lot of items. I need to put all these things away where they won’t go flying as I drive around curves and down bumpy roads. Among the larger of these things is my 24-in iMac computer, which has been sitting on my desk since I got here and unpacked. I’ll be putting it away in its box until I get home from my travels at the end of September. I have a laptop — actually, three, but who’s counting? — with me for the book project I’ll likely start on Saturday.

I expect packing and cleaning to take most of the day. By morning, I need to have it 90% done.

Tomorrow, I’ll fly the helicopter up to the orchard at about 7 AM. My client will meet me there again and drive me back to Quincy — a distance of about 40 miles. Then I’ll finish packing up, take care of all the dumping and disconnecting, get Alex out of his cage and into his travel box, close up the RV, and hook it up to the truck. With luck, all that will go smoothly and I’ll be on site at Wenatchee Heights by noon.

There’s a pretty good chance that I won’t have any hookup when I get to my next parking space. That’s three weeks without water, power, or sewer connections. Power isn’t an issue; I have a solar panel on the roof that should keep the batteries charged and a 2000 watt generator if I need more power. (I really don’t want to run the generator if I don’t have to, but with daytime temperatures getting into the 90s, it looks as if I’ll need it just to run the air conditioner.) Water could be more of a problem. I know I can’t last three weeks with 62 gallons of water. I’m hoping I can run a hose from a water source to the RV to fill its tanks occasionally. We’ll see how that works out.

I’m looking forward to the move. I was actually starting to get pretty tired of this place — especially with no work for the past four weeks. But I am nervous about it. This is a known; where I’m going is an unknown. Hopefully, later this morning I’ll have a better handle on where I’ll be parked and what’s available to me. I can take it from there.

Details to come…