This date has been circled on my calendar for the last ten months.

Today is departure day–Madison to Tucson, a 30 hour drive. We should arrive sometime on Monday.

My last to-do list includes:

• Say goodbye to my neurotic cat, and the house sitter who is doubling as the neurotic cat sitter.
• Recheck (for the fifth time) the camera gear bag, the computer equipment, the two suitcases holding four seasons worth of clothes, and all the other things I’m certain I can’t live without for two months, including a plastic milk crate filled with books.
• Recheck the bubble wrapped art, and the trailer that will carry that art half way across the country.

Google Map indicates it will take 5 hours and 9 minutes to reach our first destination in western Iowa, but it does not appear to factor in drifting snow or icy patches on the roads. If all goes according to schedule, we should be snug in our hotel room by 7:30 this evening, give or take an hour.

Well, not too snug. A belt in the washing machine snapped while I was doing a load of laundry during the blizzard. Since no repairman would venture to my house before tomorrow, I’m bringing along a plastic garbage bag full of still damp, still dirty clothes. I will get to practice my motel laundry skills, first night out.

In another life, the broken washing machine and the inability to pack clean, folded clothes into my suitcase would have upset me. But not in my going-to-Tucson life. Dirty laundry didn’t rank high enough to make the worry list. It did make the how-do-I-solve-this-with-the-least-amount-of-effort list. So far, so good.

Last night I took a final trip downtown to check out the State Capitol. The dome is specially illuminated this week in Packer green and gold in honor of the Green Bay Packers. They are playing in the Super Bowl this coming Sunday. It’s not an event that happens with much frequency, so I wanted to capture the Capitol in all its Packer glory before I left town.

Madison is a wonderful city. I’ll happily return when the tulips are in bloom.

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Bo Mackison is the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for the next eight weeks, taking daily opportunities to visit deserts and desert gardens while practicing her photography, and blogging about learning to live on her own. Share Bo’s Excellent Adventure as she writes about living in Tucson. Her mantra is “Bo goes solo!”