Escape from New Jersey - the final chapter

Thursday night at 5:30PM the dude who was to fix the septic distribution box finally showed up, two weeks and a bunch of appointments late. Esther was frantic and stressed. As he and a buddy worked, it grew dark and buggy. At 8:30PM he bonged the front door, took me out in the yard, and explained how he had just broken the new distribution box. They appear to be made of concrete, but are apparently made of cheese! More stress, as we were to leave on Friday! We had already postponed our trip a day to make sure he was on the job. The buddy promised to come back and complete the job on Friday, though.

We packed up the last load Friday morning and motored past Comcast (returning our cable gear), continuing on down the NJ Turnpike toward Chincoteague. The last load proved a bit more than we had expected, underestimation being our watchword so far. It looked like this:

I really don't like driving when I can't see properly out the back, but we were stuck. There was ridiculous amount of crap, and this after we had thrown away, given away, FreeCycled away, and dumpstered away a boatload of other crap. The nooks and crannies of the nooks and crannies all had stuff in them.

Even Esther was packed in. It was so full around her and on the floor that she could only get one foot on the floor of the car. Getting out at the pit stop was even difficult. Every time we fastened seat belts we had to pick up a bag between our seats.

We got some good news on the machine as soon as we landed. Our buyers' house had closed early, and they were in the process of moving. It seems there are no obstacles to our closing, but neither of us is counting chickens until next Wednesday.

Today we got more good news. The hole is closed and the job is done.