I snapped the photo above sitting at my working desk, looking west out of our apartment over the Des Moines River at the downtown city skyline. In a few hours, if I happen to look up at the right moment, I’ll get to see my last sunset as a resident of Iowa. Our movers arrive at 8 AM tomorrow, and once they’re gone and we’ve done our final cleanup, we’re hitting the road. We should be in Kansas by tomorrow’s sunset.

I doubt that I’ll get a nice scene like that for our final Iowa sunset, given that this is what things look like outside right now, with a view slightly to the left/south of the sunset one:

Ennnnhhhh, dreary. Although I guess that beats what I saw yesterday morning when I looked out the north window of my office:

We almost made it out of town before that stuff started flying, and we’re supposed to have rain and driving wind tomorrow when the movers are here, but I guess it’s good that we didn’t get a combo platter of all that plus some ice and hail, since that’s all within the realm of normal here in late October. There’s a lot of reasons that we’re happy to be leaving Iowa and headed to Arizona, and that dire weather deal is high on the list. I’m ready to be warmer, and spend more time under sunny skies, than has been the case for most of our time in Iowa. Or Chicago. Or Upstate New York. Or Idaho. It’s been a long, long time, actually, since we’ve lived in place that isn’t normally the butt of weather jokes. Three decades, more or less. How times flies when you’re cold and wet.

In the past, I’ve written posts about things I’ll miss, and things I will not miss when we’ve moved from place to place. I was considering doing that this time, too, but honestly, I’m just tired of thinking about it. Suffice to say the “will not miss” list is a good deal longer and more meaningful than the “will miss” one. Couple that with pandemic ennui and the underlying sense of anxiety that our pending election breeds, and it’s hard to want to spend much time right now beefing about things in Iowa that we’ll be leaving behind. We’re making our case with our feet and our funds, at bottom line, and they’re carrying us elsewhere, fast, where we can invest in a new situation, happily. Enough said.

If all goes as planned, we’ll roll into Sedona, Arizona on Sunday afternoon. We already have house-hunting appointments set up for Monday morning. Very excited! I’m sure we’ll stop for walks along the way, and I’m sure I’ll take pictures when we do, so feel free to follow along here as I update our latest adventures in the days, weeks and months ahead. Are we there yet?