A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Journey of Two Thousand Miles

To quote The Lion King Video Game, "It starts." To quote LCD Soundsystem, "This is happening." Well! This is Take One for the trip, the trial run, the first leg: 45 hours on a train from here to Chicago. I'm sitting in the station now, the train's been delayed an hour and a half, I'm a little thirsty and pretty sweaty, and I feel a few emotions that average out to great!

First, there's the catharsis of moving out. I finished packing up my apartment today. Weird how, even when you don't like stuff, you accumulate a lot of stuff.

Clockwise from the top left: clothes, technology, a huge burrito of outdoor gear, desky things in a box, Domos and Androids, tools, my round-the-world pack 1.0, and fancy clothes in my grandpa's classy suitcase. (not pictured: about 20 books.) And that's just the stuff I'm keeping! The rest of it, I don't have to worry about ever again.

Second, there's the slight sadness. I'd expected it to be sadder; I'm either quite adept at dealing with the sadness or quite awful in that I'm just holding it in. I guess I've had a foot out the door for about a year and a half. (N.B. I don't recommend this.) So the sadness is there, but it'll kick in more later.

So third, finally, and primarily, now I'm left with the start-of-trip jitters/excitement. And not even jitters, because this part is easy: I get on a train, I see friends, I get on another train, I see family. I kick back in Westlake OH for a couple weeks surrounded by people I love. Life is easy, life is good, thank you for everything, I have no complaints whatsoever.

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Practical Shipping Tips: USPS parcel post tends to be about N + 5 dollars, where N is the number of pounds. Shape/size doesn't matter unless it's huge (length + girth > 108 inches; even the burrito there is only 78). You can ship stuff in duffel bags; just make sure the address is securely affixed. I shipped the burrito, grandpa's classy suitcase, the toolbox, and the office stuff (in another duffel), for about $90. Finally, shipping books is hella cheap via media mail; about half the price of parcel post.