InnerTeub

Mike flew into Minnesota Saturday morning to pick up me, the jeep and the dog and get us moving (finally. FINALLY!) out to our house in Colorado.

The house we bought two weeks previously, while in Miami. Because of course we did.

Do you know what is in between Minnesota and Colorado? Nothing. That is what in between. Ok, well: Des Moines is there, and that was nice, but otherwise: nothing. As far as I can tell, the land between Minnesota and Colorado is a great windy expanse of nothing. I have spent most of my road tripping years going way juuuust enough over the speed limit that I could maybe slow down in time to be legal if I saw a state trooper; this ride was so windy that I ended up going consistently 10 mph less than the posted limit (75, btw: Hello, the West, I love you), and I STILL got pulled over, this time just a warning to not drive too close to trucks, due to the wind.

We left at 5pm and drove straight through the night, opting to get in really early on Sunday versus late Sunday and then have to scramble to get ready for work Monday morning. And sure enough, we got in around 6am Sunday AM, at which point this latent neat freak that apparently has been lurking inside me (unknown to me or anyone who has ever met me, ever) reared her ugly head, and I became determined that regardless of our “We just drove all night” zombie state, we could not possible spend a single minute in that house until all the shelves in the refrigerator were removed and santized, the bathrooms bleached down, and all the sheets and comforters washed and beds remade.

A word on that: we had sheets and blankets waiting for us. On freshly made, brand new beds. Like, the mattress pad? Had never been used (I washed it anyway, because: duh.) The house we bought had been put on the market by a company that had bought it as part of a corporate relocation package (got that?), and was furnished with staging furniture in the “Crate and Barrel on a corporate credit card” style, which is to say, pretty nice, if extremely neutral. When we made an offer, we stipulated that they had to leave the grill and one of the dressers; they came back and said, “No deal. We’re leaving EVERYTHING, or you can’t have the house.”‘

So I have a fully furnished house. I didn’t necessarily need a fully furnished house, but since everything I own is currently on a moving truck somewhere in the middle of the country, I greatly appreciate that I was able to show up at the house, throw the sheets in the dryer and go: “Cool! We’re home!”

Speaking of: does anyone want a bow-flex, an ab lounge machine, or a dish of pine cones? I’m serious: they left the decorative pine cones. You can have them if you want, my gift to you.