We spent the last two days packing everything we think we’ll need in order to ‘survive’ for two years. Have you ever really thought about how many of your possessions you could live without? It’s really hard to decide which things are ‘vital to my day-to-day life’ and which are ‘nice to have, but could do without’. Everything we’re going to bring has to fit into the 8 bags we have between us: Kazakhstan is a land-locked country, which means that shipping things there is neither easy or cheap – we’ll need to fly in everything we want as accompanying baggage.
Four of those ‘bags’ are actually large Rubbermade containers, called “ActionPackers”, which are about the size of a large suitcase and have lock-able lids. Michael read about them somewhere and decided that they sounded like the right thing to move our stuff in, but no-where in Vegas seemed to them. (We’ve been visiting Michael’s mom there.) While we were on our 8,000-mile Road Trip across the USA and Canada, Michael found an ACE Hardware in Denver who carried them. We already had a full car, but I found a way to fit them in the back seat by playing Tetris with our stuff.
And now we’re back in Vegas, trying to fit everything into our bags. We’ve got kitchen things, clothes, bathroom supplies (cold medicines, etc.), and a few classroom/teaching supplies (this was the hardest thing to decide on – which books are “best” when you use more than 20 on a regular basis?). Plus, every bag has to weigh fewer than 50 pounds, which also limits what we pack. Every bag over the first four (we’re allowed two free bags each) will cost us (actually the school as part of our shipping allowance) $200 each – so we’d better really want whatever it is we’re packing! Everything else is staying in the storage unit we rented in Vegas, for us to decide on again later (when we move wherever we’re going next). Also in the storage unit is our car. Michael's mom is helping to take care of things while we're gone and will go and take it for a spin every month or so. We got a 10x25-foot bin, which gave us room to put a bunch of boxes in the back.
We did a midnight run to Walmart (yes, there’s a 24-hour store here) to pick up luggage locks for the ActionPackers… only to find that the locks are very small and don’t hold the lid on! Ha ha… So, we had to put on two locks to keep the lid on… which means we now don’t have enough locks and will need to go back to Walmart on the way to the airport tomorrow. Sigh.
I love the adventure, but I hate moving.
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