Further adventures in moving

Okay, so in my last post I forgot some of the interesting details about getting the truck packed … like the delay getting the first truck replaced for a second truck because of a little mishap less than 15 minutes after picking it up.

While I was at Budget getting the truck there was a really nasty, if brief, storm that hit town. I'd been worried about the weather forecast and had feared that we'd have to pack the truck in the rain. Fortunately the rain came and went pretty quickly and there wasn't much more than drizzle while I was driving the truck home.

Well, as I'm tooling down Southern a branch had been loosened by the storm from a tree and it smacked into the passenger side mirror shattering the glass. Yeah, okay, it was the truck that smacked into the branch not the branch into the truck … I should have been more careful. There was no way I'd be able to drive the truck in that condition. It was spooky enough just driving it back to Budget to exchange it for another truck because I couldn't see anything on the right side of the truck. Trying to change into the right hand lane was an adventure in blind faith.

I got the replacement truck (not quite as nice and new as the first one) and we maneuvered it around in the drive so that the ramp could go directly onto my front porch. That made things SO much easier. So, an hour or so behind schedule, the fun began. Friends carrying out boxes while I was going through a lot of the last-minute stuff and making a feeble attempt to coordinate what would get packed and what would stay behind to get stored. We started with just a few folks who didn't have to work 9-5 jobs that day, but by 6 we had a sizeable crew and those that had been working through the afternoon got to take a bit of a break with the arrival of fresh recruits. Cheryl did a great job making a run for food to get us all fed and Rob got the job of going back to Budget to pick up the dolly and packing blankets that we'd forgotten to move from the first truck to the replacement (not that either of them got used much thanks to Matt's excellent coordination of the packing).

Again, I can't thank the "Get John Out of Town" team enough!

So, on the road. The biggest thing to mention is how the truck would scare the living daylights out of me when it would start rocking left and right. Something (bumps in the road? wind?) would start the truck oscillating to the point where the top of the truck was shifting at least 2 feet left and right. Slowing down helped a little but still wouldn't stop it fast enough to keep me from going into a panic. There were times that even slowing to 35 MPG didn't stop the wobble. Eventually I deduced that concrete pavement aggravated the problem. The regularly spaced expansion joints in the pavement created small bumps that seemed to be a trigger the wobble. When I was driving on asphalt pavement the problem rarely occurred. Weird. I also, some time on the 2nd day, discovered that if I jerked the steering wheel left and right with just small little irregular bursts it helped throw off the oscillation and ended the wobble faster than just slowing down.

I called several friends to ask them about the wobble and they didn't seem too concerned, so I just pressed on, but brother it was spooky!

Knowing what a gas-guzzler the truck would be I was constantly on the lookout for cheap gas. There wasn't any. The prices kept getting higher and higher the further I went north. I started with about $2.99 in Memphis and it was $3.29 by the time I got to Minneapolis.

I had I-55 all the way to just outside St. Louis then it shifted to state highways. Fortunately some years ago they put some serious effort into these highways naming the route "Avenue of the Saints" … connecting St. Louis with St. Paul. It even has it's own web site: http://www.avenueofthesaints.com/. Almost all of it was 4 lanes and much of it "limited access" so there weren't concerns about stop lights, etc.

The goal that first night had been to get to Cedar Rapids, IA and spend the night there, leaving just a few hours to complete the drive into Eagan Friday morning.

"The best laid plans of mice." (Note that's the entire sentence; a nod to HHGTTG.)

Stay tuned for the next installment and my, um, unintentional detour and adventures in hotel living with cats.

Packing up 23 years of stuff

Okay, so, I'd been offered and accepted the job … going through more than a little emotional turmoil in the process.

We'd set a tentative starting date of May 7. It was an ambitious goal. I had a lot to do to get my various Memphis clients settled to the point where I'd feel comfortable leaving town, not to mention dealing with all the stuff accumulated after living almost 23 years under the same roof. A LOT of stuff!!

To top things off, I had one of the biggest, most critical computer programming projects I'd ever done due on April 21 … a project that could not be delayed or afford any room for error because it involved live television. Maybe I'll write more on that later, but for now I'll not digress.

Eventually it became obvious that I wouldn't be able to make the May 7 start date and keep my sanity (or not have to return to Memphis in June to finish moving). So my future boss graciously extended my start date to May 21. With that date as my target I determined that I'd leave Memphis on Wednesday, May 16.

I arranged to rent the moving truck starting Tuesday, May 15. I sent out a call to my friends to join me for a "pack the truck" party Tuesday afternoon/evening with the goal of being done by 8 p.m. when we'd move the party to The Vault for my regular habit of Showtune Tuesday; www.funshowtunes.com (I had to get in that last night of showtunes).

I gotta say, my friends and family really REALLY came through for me and I can't thank the whole gang enough for their help. David, Rob, Matt, Skip, Cheryl, James and his adorable "other" Matt, Ryan, Daniel and my parents (who spent a weekend packing up my kitchen) … THANK YOU!!!

We had the worst of it on the truck by 8 and that night at The Vault was a real blast (very bittersweet for me to see such a great crowd there my last night).

Wednesday morning the hard-core gang finished the last of the packing.

After a bit of an adventure getting my car onto the tow dolly (no, Ryan, no problems from my clutch … yet), I finally hit the road about 2 on Wednesday … only two hours after my goal … not bad. The cats were drugged (more on that later) and I was headed toward I-55.

Stay tuned for the adventure on the road.