We’re all here

It was an eventful trip up here, to say the least. Here is the chronicle in all its glory. I apologize for the absence. I haven’t had internet access for a long time. We still haven’t gotten it at home (that comes tomorrow), but at least I’ve been able to access it from work, which means that the twitching from my withdrawals has stopped.

We had a great Christmas. It was spent at our house, amidst boxes, empty walls, and other such fun. Julie and I tried to keep it as normal as possible for the girls. I suppose we’ll know in a few years if we were successful in that or not. But they seem to have done really well, thanks in no small part to Grandma and Grandpa taking them Christmas night.

We started out the morning of December 26th with our one giant truck from Penske. Thanks to ADD (but no thanks for eating all my crab legs), Robert Mullins, Tracy Abbott, TJ Coon, and others, we were able to fill it very quickly. Also thanks to Alison, Lorraine, Amanda, Nancy, Dan, and everyone else who helped us clean stuff out, watch kids, and whatever else was going on while the move was happening. Unfortunately, once the truck was filled, I looked in the garage and realized that it was also filled with yet more stuff. Obviously we weren’t going to make it with just the one truck. I suppose in hindsight I can see how I was probably fooling myself, but as my mother always says, “Hindsight is 20/20.”

So Michael called me that afternoon and asked how things were going. I explained my tale of woe to him, and he suggested we go and get a trailer to haul behind the Penske. Michael and dad bring the trailer over to the house. An hour or so later, the trailer is full, and the garage is half-full, which means that we’re still in a somewhat considerable bind. We start going through some stuff in our minds, trying to see what needs to go and what could (or should) stay behind. Late that night, we decide that we just need another truck.

UHaul opens in the morning at 7am, so we’re on the phone with them at 7:01. Julie asked, begged, cried, and whatever else was required. All I know is that she was able to get them to exchange the trailer for another truck. Michael and I spent some time in the UHaul parking lot on the morning of the 27th, taking stuff out of the trailer and putting it into the new truck. The folks at UHaul said they’ve never seen so much stuff come out of a 12×6 trailer. I guess that’s a tribute to Dan, Michael, and dad, as they were the principle orchestrators of the Tetris game being played.

So we bring the new truck back out to the house, load it, and find we have a few things that just aren’t going to make it. We clean the house some (thanks to April Brewer, who saved our bacon!), sort through things, take some trash to different dumpsters (sorry, Marley Park), and decide that we just need to leave and get on with it. So we say our goodbyes to the home that has so many of our wonderful memories, and we head off to grandma’s to pick up the girls. Keep in mind that neither one of us has changed clothes in a few days and that the girls are still in their Christmas clothes. So we were a ripe bunch, to say the least.

We finally head out on Wednesday at about 2pm. Michael drove the Penske beast, and I drove the UHaul. That leaves Julie driving the van with 4 adoring, obedient, content daughters in the car. We made it as far as Kanab, UT, when the snow started falling. So we stopped for the night at the Shilo Inn. We got a little nervous about availability, as the first 2 places we stopped at were completely booked. The news said that there was quite the storm that night, and was supposed to continue into the next morning. Cedar City got lots of snow, but not much up north.

After a good, but all too short, night’s sleep, we got up early to try and make it the rest of the way. I had hired movers the day before, and they were scheduled to be at the house at 3pm, so we needed to make pretty good time. By the way, hiring those movers turned out to be pretty much the only good decision I made during this whole move. Once we hit about Mt Carmel Junction, outside of Kanab, until Panguitch, the roads were horrible — snowy, packed, icy, etc. We were going no more than 30 mph in certain spots.

We didn’t dare cross over highway 20 from US89, so we decided to keep heading north on US89. You’re supposed to go east on I70 to Richfield, but we weren’t too sure which way to go. The signs were all snowed over. I knew that I15 was west of US89, so we just went west. It turns out that we backtracked about 15 miles or so, but we made it OK. I was shocked to see how bad I15 was. The ramp to get on to I15 must have had a foot of snow on it, with no tracks whatsoever. And I15 itself wasn’t much better. We made it to Fillmore, then the weather improved. Everything was dry once we got up to around Nebo.

That’s kind of the reader’s digest version of what our trip was like. Our landlord has been less than on the ball with our home, so we still don’t have blinds, a washer/dryer, a mail key, a garbage can, garage door opener, etc. But I guess it will come with time. So will his rent checks . . . We spent most of the afternoon on New Year’s Day doing laundry at the local laundromat. I had no idea how expensive that was. We spent $30, easily.

The girls started school yesterday and were very excited to ride the bus this morning. We’ll see how that excitement holds up for them, as it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.

That’s all for now. For all (or both, whatever the case may be) of you keeping track of us, we’re still around. We don’t have internet access, so Julie hasn’t checked her email for quite some time. That will change tomorrow. We’ll also have a real phone number then as well. Hopefully I can get some more pictures as well. Happy New Year everyone.