Instead of driving the 1500 miles from Mesa to Whidbey, we came up with the idea of parking the camper at a storage lot, and then flying home.
This meant finding a suitable storage facility (has to be good because we are parking our home there, and ideally should be close to the airport), arranging transportation from the storage facility to the airport, and getting transportation from Sea-Tac airport to home.
Right now we are on the plane, so the first part has gone well.
We got up early, because we needed to close up the camper for an entire month instead of for a few hours as we ordinarily do. We (Vicky) had done a masterful job in planning our food needs so that we had virtually nothing we had to throw or give away (a little unused butter that our neighbor happily took).
We had to have empty water and gray water tanks.
At the storage unit we carefully backed the camper into our spot, leaving only a couple of inches between the wall and the door of our camper. Nobody could break in unless they had a tow truck to pull out our pickup. The storage facility has a person there during the day, and is well lit with individual access codes for after hours. Our rig is as safe there as it has been for the past two months.
The SuperShuttle picked us up early, and we were deposited at the airport 15 minutes later. Easy peasy.
When we arrive in Seattle Vicky's parents will meet us at the airport, and we'll have dinner with them before we catch a late Whidbey/Sea-Tac shuttle back to Whidbey. It will deposit us 2 miles from home, at about 10:30 p.m., too late to catch the bus to home. We'll have to walk....in the dark....carrying lots of heavy bags filled with stuff we no longer needed and wanted to leave at home....including lots of hiking books for states we can't visit again until next year. Told you it was a Rube Goldberg solution.
Next day update:
Flight went smoothly. When we arrived, Vicky's sister Alicia picked us up and whisked us to her parents' home where a scrumptious dinner had been prepared. We got to see her brothers and sister and parents for a short while before we were whisked off back to the airport to catch the shuttle to Whidbey Island.
On the shuttle we "casually" mentioned we didn't have a ride, and, like most people are, everybody was very helpful. Nobody was going our direction though, so when we got onto the ferry, Vicky and I split up to make the rounds to see if we could find anyone we knew.
We didn't, but Vicky just started asking people if they were going to Langley. One young man said he was and would be glad to take us!
Turns out he wasn't going to Langley at all but instead was going to Coupeville, but was happy to take us anyway. How's that for a sweet ending to a long, 18-hour, sort of stress-filled day?
We arrived home, glad to be here, to be greeted by Jack. I know what his meows mean, having learned their meanings over the past 17 years. It was "where the hell have you been and do you know what I'm going to do to pay you back?"
