Mail.

Mail has been my life and my livelihood since . . . who can count that high. Today I scared myself by turning in the wackiest change-of-address ever.

Last year, when we started this Mexico experiment, I had a heck of a time adding our names to the "Do Not Mail" list. I don't know if I've publicly confessed this before. It felt really disloyal and wrong.

The next step was to go to a Web site called "Catalog Choice." Every catalog I got, I went online and said, "Don't mail this to me anymore." It was strange.

But the weirdest was signing up for Earth Class Mail. I am forwarding all our mail to a new address: 93 S. Jackson St., #13711, Seattle, WA 98104.

It's a real address, but not really. I don't live there, but it's now my mailing address. They'll get my mail, scan it and email me the scan. If I don't care about it, I'll tell them to recycle it. If I want to know what's in the envelope, I'll tell them to open and scan it. If I want it sent to me, I'll have to figure out where they can send it.

Instead of sorting your mail over the recycle bin, you do it online.

This whole process started a while ago. Hardly anybody mails me anything really interesting anymore. My Mom is online. So is the rest of my family. I've already asked every biller with the technology to send my bills straight to my bank, where I handle them online.

I feel like I owe a lot to the US Postal Service and now I'm pulling the last rug out from under them.

Things change.

Getting ready to get ready.

Since you last heard from me, we've been (1) enjoying Seattle's most spectacular summer ever and (2) fixing up the house to sell it.

That's really about it.

Summer was so wonderful that we really didn't get to the whole house thing until far too late. But we finally did get the place pretty enough to list it a week and a half ago. There have already been three open houses and another one is coming up in an hour. There's nothing really to do but wait for that one hour to pass . . . so I thought it was the right time to relaunch this wacky blog.

Destiny, our RV and home for the month of October, has been in the shop for weeks and weeks. She needed some extensive body work. The other stuff required ordering parts. And since we weren't going to go on the road until October 1, the deadline for getting her back slipped out to tomorrow.

That means we haven't had her available for loading yet. We'll be doing that Tuesday and Wednesday.

Yeah. That's pretty insane. We (and by "we," I mean Ross) are going to be tired before we start. But we have a lovely itinerary planned across these United States. We'll be visiting family and friends along the way. We'll be taking our time. And that will be a little different, too, from many of our past trips.

We'll be hauling the Honda behind us. They say that doesn't make an enormous difference in how you drive -- except you can never, ever back up without unhitching the car first.

And, of course, the dogs will be riding with us -- soaking up the scenery, napping in the sunshine, chatting up the people at the rest stops.

I sure hope the house sells quickly!