The Move – Blogging By The Beach

There was no time for relaxing on my first day of retirement as the movers were scheduled to arrive at 8am, so we set our alarm for 5am to be sure to have the final things organized and ready for them.

They arrived on time and proceeded to pack everything. For Mexico, it is required to have a moving company pack all our stuff as they need to inventory everything for customs. So, as they were packing the things that they would be shipping for us, we were in the bedroom organizing and packing the things we were bringing with us now, as well as separating out last minute things we still had to drop off for the kids. It was a bit chaotic, but the movers managed to finish up in just over four hours.

After they left, we continued our packing and eventually loaded everything into the car to take to The Executive Inn in Richmond, that we had booked for the next few nights. We had reserved a one-bedroom suite which was nice and roomy to hold everything we had to bring with us. Back at the condo we met up with Tita Cool one last time to give her the keys and some last-minute info for the new owners. We thanked her for making the sale of this condo so much easier than our Cabo condo, and we said our goodbyes and headed to the hotel to finally relax!

The next couple of days were filled with lots of last-minute errands, visits with a few people and selling Lorne’s car. Before we knew it, it was our last day. We would be staying our last night at The Fairmont Hotel, located right at YVR, and arranged for early check in that day, so we were up, dressed and ready at 10am to check out and pack all our stuff into the rental car and move it to the airport hotel. Then off we went first to Owen’s to say goodbye, then to Ryan and Chelsea’s to say goodbye, then stopped by Lyzz’s to say goodbye and then over to Kayla’s. Kayla broke her ankle earlier in the year and we had developed a weekly routine of having dinner with her Friday nights when we dropped off her weekly grocery order, so it seemed only fitting to have one last meal with her on our last day. We stayed a few hours then said our goodbyes. Afterwards, we dropped the rental car and decided to just simply hang out at the hotel for the rest of the evening.

Our flight was leaving YVR at 1:45pm so had lots of time to sleep in and even order breakfast in the room (many food options in the airport were closed). It was so nice not to have to rush. We took our time getting ready, then simply checked out of the hotel and wheeled our bags downstairs to check into our flight.

The airport was like a ghost town so we quickly made it through security and then check-in at the US border was easy peasy. We were through so fast that we had about 1.5 hours to wait at the gate prior to boarding the flight. We flew Air Canada from YVR to San Francisco and were lucky to score a great deal to fly first class. Nice that we did because no food or drinks were being offered to those in the economy seats. There was a small bottle of water at our seat when boarding, and once we were flying they offered us only one drink option (no refills) and a box lunch.

It was about a 2.5-hour flight, so it went quick and we landed at SFO about 4pm. We grabbed all our luggage (7 bags in total including carry-ons) hopped on the Airtram and a couple of stops later, we were at the Grand Hyatt at SFO, which is another in-airport hotel. Check-in was a breeze, got to our room, rested a bit, then went downstairs to their “marketplace” to grab a quick sandwich for dinner. I could barely keep my eyes open past 9pm, which was good because our alarm was set for the next day to wake us at 4:30am!

View of SFO from our room, all smokey from the California wildfires

We were up at 4:30am, dressed, packed and checked out at 5am. Back on the Airtram and three stops later we were at the Alaska Air check-in terminal. After checking in, we went through security and off to find our gate, but more importantly – COFFEE!!! Most places were either closed due to COVID or closed because it was too early but we finally found a little place that did coffee that had a long, long line. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I had my coffee, and Lorne had his orange juice, and when we got to the gate they announced that pre-boarding was about to start. Again, they were announcing that no drinks or food will be served in coach so if anyone wanted something, they needed to go buy it before boarding. In first class, we were again offered only one beverage (no refills). Food options were the fruit and cheese plate (which really didn’t seem right for 7am), or a bacon-egg breakfast sandwich, which I opted for… however, it was served cold! Cold bacon on a croissant with sliced hard-boiled eggs…. that was a bit weird!

We landed at 11am Cabo time (10am BC time), picked up the rental car and drove to our place. Our property manager Angelina was here to greet us. There had been some water damage during the last hurricane that needed to be fixed before we arrived, so she was doing the final cleaning of everything as there was just so much dust and debris from the repairs. We started unpacking while she was finishing up and after a while, she headed out wishing us a big “Welcome Home”. We went out to do a quick bit of grocery shopping and grabbed a Wicked Pizza to bring home for dinner.

As we settled in on our first night to watch Netflix and eat pizza, we suddenly turned to look at each other as if it finally hit us – OMG, WE JUST FREAKING MOVED TO CABO!!!!