Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.
OK, I have a few things to say about the events of the last week. I have avoided recording them here until I calmed down and was in a better frame of mind to be fair (or more fair) to the guilty parties. Please keep this in mind as you read the following tale of woe.
Tuesday, February 3rd
I worked until about 3 pm making my rounds throughout the day to say my farewells to those co-workers in Plano that I dealt with frequently. Afew handshakes and a few (too many for my comfort) hugs. I am a "one armed" hugger rather than a full embrace kind of guy and the handshake that I give always seems weaker than the handshake that I receive. I made a few trips to the car with my computer monitor, docking station, etc, and a box full of some paperwork that I carried with me from Indiana but do not seem to recall ever needing or using. My mother had arrived at the airport (albeit delayed 40 minutes due to bad weather in Indianapolis) at around 2 and I wanted to get home in time to pick up the U-Haul. I remember picking up the U-Haul for my trip down to Texas 2 1/2 years ago. There is a big U-Haul building here in Kokomo but the computer sent to to Marion (30 minute drive) to a little bait and tackle shop that doubled as a U-Haul rental place (it also sold guns). There were only 2 trucks out front when we pulled up and the whole experience was surreal. Fast forward to this past Tuesday. There is a huge U-Haul place not 2 miles from my house and another one about 5 miles away. The each have 10+ trucks outside. The U-Haul computer sent me to a little used car dealership about 10 miles away for no good reason. After signing the paperwork and inspecting the truck (there were lots of dents and scratches that we had to note so we would not be blamed for them later. I remembered almost immediately that these trucks do not have cruise control (or a cd player) and resigned myself to the fact that it was not going to be a fun trip. When we arrived back at the house, the son was very excited. He remembers riding down with me 2 1/2 years ago and has talked quite often about riding with my back to Indiana. The daughter is old enough now to ride as well so they were deciding / arguing who gets to ride first, for how long, etc (as if it was their decision). We decided not to being loading the truck on that night.
Wednesday, February 4th
We got going first thing in the morning and by 10 AM we had most of the heavy stuff loaded. We did a much better job this time of boxing things up so loading the truck we a more organized event than last time. About 1/3 of the way into the process though I began to have the inkling of a doubt that all of our stuff would all fit in the truck. For the rest of the day I wavered back and forth between "their ain't no way" to "maybe, just maybe" and everything in between. We took a break around noon to drop off the Buick for a much needed oil change, run the cable modem back to the cable company and get some lunch. The cable company evidently needs a week advance notice in order to come pick up the cable modem so my only option was to drive it the 10 miles or so and drop it off at the main office. That place was a little scary looking and was not in that great of a neighborhood but all went well and the promised to send me a final bill. Despite my telling them twice that I was moving, they did not ask for a forwarding address. After a quick lunch at Jack-In-The-Box (we don't have them up in Indiana) we picked up the Buick and heading back to the house. We decided that the weather looked better for traveling on Thursday / Friday instead of Wednesday / Thursday and were only going to drive about 60 miles the first day (to Denison, TX). I had made reservations for that night and the next night (in Rolla, MO - about the 1/2 way mark). We were limited in our hotel choices since we had 2 pets coming with us. My mom gets a discount with Comfort Inns (and their affiliates) so I had used her log in and made the reservations. By around 4 PM I was leaning back toward "their ain't no way" and I thought it better that my mom take the kids on to the hotel so they could at least enjoy it. The wife and I still had to run the keys and garage door opener to the realtor's office before we could leave. We left the back door unlocked and made the 25 mile trip in rush hour traffic (avoiding the main highways). The realtor had told us that we could leave the keys in a drop box they had on site. I had not been to that office in about 18 months but did not recall their being a drop box. We arrived there after the office closed. We could not even get into the main part of the building and we did not see any drop box. We walked around to the back side of the building and did not see a box there either. A worker from another company in that building let us in but even then we could not see a box anywhere. In the end we left the envelope in the door handles (we could not slide it under the door since it contained our garage door opener) and then left a voicemail message with our property manager. We got back to the house around 7 and got back to work. I was down to about 12 square foot of floor space and was left with unstackable stuff (like lawn mowers and bikes) along with items that would not fit in a box real well (by then we were out of boxes anyway). Let me pause here and say to my mother that all those years of playing tetris were not wasted. Only a person of superior tetris skills could have fit all of our stuff in that truck. I hope to have pictures for you in a later blog. We got everything in the truck and made it to the hotel around 9:30. Dinner was some chex mix from the vending machine and a granola bar. The king sized bed was very comfortable and the dog (who does not get to sleep on our bed normally) slept the entire night without moving or needing to go out. One casuality of the packing was my toothbrush (the dog grabbed it and made it unusable). Also, the wife realized that she had only packed me one shirt to change into for the next 2 days. I picked on her more than I should have that HER toothbrush was fine and SHE seemed to have plenty of clothes. All in all though, the all day packing and 1 hour drive went well. The only main casuality of the packing was our headboard but since we got that at the same time we were married (about 12 years ago) it had a good run and was due to be replaced. At the time of writing this blog I have not opened up the U-Haul though so it might not be the only casuality.
Thursday, February 5th
I had hoped to be on the road by 8 but it was more like 9 (after we had gassed up the vehicles as the truck only came with a 1/4 tank). Rolla, MO, was about 450 miles away and I only hoped to average 50 mph (with frequent stops for kids and animals). The truck was supposed to get 10 mpg but since it was so full I was bracing for the worst. The first 2 refuelings though were about 49 gallons and 510 miles so the estimates were correct. After that I quit keeping track. The son took the first turn in the truck with me and we were on our way. Oklahoma is a neat drive (compared to Missourri) but there are frequent stoplights through the little town along highway 69. We stopped around lunchtime and made sandwhiches from the stuff in our cooler and were back on the road quickly. There was some snow in the shaded spots once we turned onto highway 44 and headed east. The son and daughter took turns riding with me and most of the day was uneventful (just like I like it). We got to the hotel just fine but decided to order pizza and have it delivered to the rooms. This to me is one of the funnest things to do while traveling. I don't know why I enjoy it so much. We decided on Domino's and I ordered online. They have a cool website for placing your order that was very intuitive to use and the really cool part was the online order status part that showed the prep and bake time along with telling me when the delivery person had left the store. It even told me the first name of the person who would be arriving with our pizza. The vegetarian pizza with feta cheese was very good as was the other pizza we bought. We got 12 oz drinks from the vending machine down the hall and all was well. After we ate and settled down for the night, I turned on the Lakers / Celtics game and fell asleep.
I will continue with the rest of the trip soon.
Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.
Jon
