I did price some early in my planning but it appeared that if I travel a couple years I'd be spending $3000 even for a small storage, so I decided it would make more sense to dispose of everything and buy new when I settle down, especially since I might live in some other state for a while if I find an ideal location. If traveling turns out to be a short experience I will no doubt regret the decision.
If I don't make it through the photos they will be difficult to just throw away, but on the other hand, there is only my brother and I left who would remember any of the people, and the vast majority of the old photos I have no idea who they are. Yesterday I found a photo of my maternal grandparents when my mom was a baby and my great-grandparents are in the same photo which was interesting. It is weird to see my great-grandmother, who I only knew as a very old person, in a photo where she is quite young.
Last night in the garage a box had some discs, I wasn't sure if CDs or DVDs, and they were mostly just numbered, but I brought a couple into the house to see what was on them, and they are voice recordings. One was at an anniversary party in 1955 and it seems like my Dad and his brother were going around interviewing family members and so I heard my great-aunt and one of my great-uncles talking. I met them numerous times as a kid but they died a long time ago. They were talking about how many horses they had for their farm and one person had just recently sold a cattle feed to another person at the party and they were discussing it and wondering if animal feed was going to be a successful product or if it was a temporary fad that then farmers would go back to just feeding corn and oats, and apparently some minerals.
The other disc was of my parents and myself and siblings when I was 3 and a half years old (1959). It was so weird that although my mother's voice was very vaguely familiar, I just didn't recognize her 27 yr old voice as my mother's voice.
I threw those two discs into the stack to go into the two boxes my daughter will keep for me, and now I have to decide do I have time to listen to any others or should I throw them away and not know if I am losing something, I really don't have time to listen to a couple dozen, nor space to keep every memento.
I have a vague itinerary of doing a sort of loop around the country. My plan was to drive a full day between locations and stay for a month, but the vet has told me if I drive a full day the cat needs a roomy carrier with water and litterpan. I have a small car, so I am going to try the full day the first time (because I already have paid for the stay in Chicago and can't get the money back), but I might afterwards only go a 4 or 5 hour drive each month to a closer location. So I was planning on Chicago, then someplace-Pennsylvania, then Boston, but it might change to chicago-ohio-new york-boston (to whatever towns are big enough to have extended stay hotel rooms). I want to try to get to Boston before any winter weather, then I'll head south.
