Saturday morning we had a number of time-sensitive appointments. That meant being up at 7:30, but first I made us some open-face egg sandwiches with Neiman Ranch bacon and St. George’s raw milk cheese. Then we got down to business.

Someone was coming to look at my table at 9, but they were late, so Stephanie left to get her car washed in advance of an 11 o’clock appointment to look her car (which she’s selling). Just after she left, a family of four showed up to see my table. Their two kids were ecstatic about the smell of bacon still wafting through the apartment. They all liked the table and brought a car large enough to take it all home with them. I gave them a discount. They paid cash. One less thing to bring to San Francisco.

Next we had to pick up a moving truck from U-Haul at 10. Made it right on time, got back, and I took a moment to commemorate our final move with a blog post. Stephanie’s car appointment got pushed back so we started packing in earnest. Finished the kitchen, Stephanie did the bathroom. Then we both began to unravel the as-yet-untouched bedroom.

At noon a couple arrived to check out Stephanie’s car. They took it out for a surprisingly long test drive, but eventually came back, and lo and behold, they wanted to buy it. They agreed on a price—enough to cover Stephanie’s outstanding car loan—and the hand off was scheduled for Monday night. Selling a car while moving to a new city, all in the span of a single weekend! NB: It looks like Justin will be learning how to take the bus to work next week—Stephanie still has one week left of rehersals in Santa Rosa.

So the “plan” for the rest of the day was to pack and load everything into the truck, drive to city with the truck and my car, unload the truck. Drop the truck off in the city. Then drive in my car back up to Healdsburg to attend a barbecue at Stephanie’s dad’s house. We’d spend the night there and then return to Santa Rosa on Sunday to clean the apartment.

Well, around 3 it became clear we were not almost done, and around 4 it became clear that driving down to the city, unloading, dropping off the truck, and driving back would put us in Healdsburg probably around 9 o’clock. So instead, we decided to skip the whole moving part of moving, and just loaded the truck, loaded my car, and around 6, though sweaty and exhausted, we changed clothes and drove together in the truck with all of our things to Healdsburg.

We had a lovely time, spent it with the family of the winemaker at Mumm Napa (friends of Stephanie’s dad, Jean Claude, and his wife Sabine), as well as five of Stephanie’s French and French Canadian friends. Drank lots of champagne (from Mumm Napa of course), ate some wonderful barbecued chicken, and eventually collapsed into bed after 11.

The events on Sunday are really the most incredible part of this adventure. We had two tight deadlines. First, the truck had to be returned in San Francisco before 10:30 in the morning, and second, we had to drop off Stephanie’s car in Rohnert Park (south of Santa Rosa) to have the brakes replaced at noon. So we enlisted Jean Claude and Sabine in our adventure, and I’m not sure we could have done it without them.

Here’s how it went.

The four of us (two in the truck and two in Stephanie’s dad’s van) drove down to Santa Rosa to pick up my car which was loaded with clothes and Stephanie’s car which we decided to drop off when Pep Boys opened at 9. To Rohnert Park I drove my car, Stephanie drove her car, while Jean Claude and Sabine manned the truck.

Service was sluggish at Pep Boys so Jean Claude and I started down to San Francisco in the truck while Stephanie and Sabine waited in line simply to drop off her car. It was another half hour before they left in my car heading to the new apartment.

Meanwhile, Jean Claude and I arrived in the city around 10:15 with little or no chance of getting the truck back by 10:30. But we still unloaded like gangbusters, leaving only the heavy furniture for the girls to do to help with when they arrived. Then the four of us emptied the truck of its remaining dresser, end tables, bedframe, and mattress.

Around 11:30 Stephanie and I left to gas up the truck and drop it off with Sabine and Jean Claude following in my car. Paid for an extra day. Oh well. Then the four of us continued on to lunch at that creperie Stephanie and I had eaten at less than a month ago when we were hunting for apartments.

Finally our four very tired bodies drove in my car back to Santa Rosa. We gave away Stephanie’s futon, emptied her storage closet, bid her father and Sabine adieu, ran an errand at Kmart, and collapsed you say? Oh no, we started cleaning the apartment, until about 4:30pm, when we left to pick up her car.

They were still replacing brakes when we got there, so we stopped by In-N-Out for our umpteenth unhealthy celebratory meal. They finished the repairs a little after 5, and then Stephanie took off for her 5:30 rehersal. I’m totally not kidding.

I bought new wiper blades, went home, installed them, and wrote most of this blog post. Stephanie got out of rehersal early (around 7), I got off my butt, and we continued cleaning last night until about 10:30pm. At which point almost everything was clean, almost everything was packed in the car (or would be later this week), and we piled into the car, in the dark, and drove towards our first night in the city.