so torturous...

i simply cannot wait until tuesday, when we get DSL and Dish. we've been staying at lois' sister's house for a few days now...and they're cursed w/ dial up.

well, our move took a little longer than anticipated. originally, we had planned to leave town by 1:00 PM last saturday.

no luck.

you see, the 26' truck that we had rented fit the contents of our house beautifully. unfortunately, we still had 60-70 MORE boxes, a china cabinet, fans, and two bookcases...crammed into a 10'x10' storage unit.

soooo...we had to rent a 17' u-haul as well. luckily, we still had five people for four vehicles.

and instead of leaving at 1:00...it turned into leaving at 3:30. oh well. so we just make a huge push on sunday.

ha!

initially, we wanted to make it to either hays or salina, KS the first night. that way, it would be another 8-10 hours the next day. well, we made it as far as stratton, which is roughly 30 miles from the colorado/kansas border.

so we spend another night...

double ha!

on sunday morning, we got on the road at 7:45, wanting to beat the snow that was bearing down on denver's metropolitan area...a mere 140 miles away. just 15 miles down the road, near burlington, the truck has acceleration problems. seems that the truck simply does not want to go. mebbe it's a fuel filter problem. so we call penske and have the thing changed in goodland.

while we're waiting in goodland, lois' nephew, roger, and i are sent ahead. if there are additional problems, at least roger and i can get a vehicle and u-haul back to texas. for that first day, we're pretty much 100 miles ahead of the other three.

after some really blinding rain, roger and i make it into the north wichita best western...not a bad place. a couple hours later, lois, her sister, and brother-in-law, get in...w/ the same truck problem. seems that nothing has been resolved. sooo...

on monday morning, roger and i head out again while the other three wait five more hours to get the truck fixed. this time, the diagnosed problem is a faulty supercharger (turbo). basically, roger and i haul ass because we hear that worse inclement weather was headed for the oklahoma/texas areas...and roger is expected back at work on tuesday.

fortunately (for roger and myself) we get to roger's house at three in the afternoon, just whizzing through some snow flurries and rain between southern oklahoma and northern texas. we hear from the others that penske is going to pick up the tab for another night's stay/meals while they're on the road. and by 5:00 the rain is coming down in sheets, lasting well into the night.

on tuesday, the other three roll into town about 11:00, having endured some harrowing snow in the arbuckle mountains...in oklahoma. i guess there is such a thing as oklahoma mts. ;)

so the move was an ordeal...but still a pretty lucky situation. by tuesday night, more snow had hit northern texas and brought most traffic to a standstill. in fact, some places got walloped w/ nine(!) inches of snow. most texans freak at the sight of one inch, just think what nine did for them...

and that's the pictureless (i'm not gonna post any w/ dial-up!!!) version of our move.

as for the unpacking, i never realized how much fun packing is because we are now totally overwhelmed w/ too much stuff in a too small of a house. we really took our oak built-ins for granted. it's a shame that we loaded two trucks full of stuff, drove them 900 miles...just to have a garage sale.

triple fuckin' ha!

methinks that enough dishes for 40 placesettings, dozens of stemware, and probably six dozen mugs is a wee bit too much for two people and a dog. the boxes of dishes are multplying as i type...groan! so with phone/internet/satellite bundle coming on tuesday...the washer/dryer/fridge coming on thursday...we may be set up by sophie's b-day, which is april 1st.

appropriate for us moving fools, eh? hope you all have a great sunday and don't forget to lose that precious hour of sleep!