In-Between Part 1: leaving Mississippi

Lisa (Kirk's mom) arrived at our apartment in Mississippi on Monday, June 24th.  Our stuff was about half way packed and she was there to help finish and clean.  The movers were scheduled to come on Thursday or Friday.  They called me on Monday night to confirm and let me know that they were trying to locate a truck in our area.  This made me nervous.  Trying to locate a truck 3 days before our move?  She said she would call back and I would hear from her Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.  Hopefully they would give me good news soon. 

Tuesday evening I had a friend come help me clean a bit (Thanks Jen!) and two more came on Wednesday (Thanks Amy and Diedre!)  Jen also invited us to go to Sonic for shakes on Thursday night, which turned out to be a much-needed distraction.  Wednesday afternoon I called the movers because I still hadn't heard and they couldn't give me any more information.  Now I was really nervous.  We had pretty much everything packed and were just trying to finish up.  We had to be out of our apartment by Sunday night.  Surely they would have a truck by then, right?

Thursday afternoon (they were supposed to be there!) I got a call that said the soonest they could get a truck there would be July 3, the next Wednesday.  Wow.  Really?  I scheduled this move in March and they want to come 6 days late!  We lived in the middle of the country, on 2 major freeways and they can't get a truck there?  You can drive from almost anywhere in the country and get to Memphis in about 30 hours!  We ran through several scenerios--moving our stuff to a friend's garage until then, extending our apartment contract until then, packing up and driving ourselves etc.  We were so stressed out.  Amy made us dinner that night--awesome!--and we tried to figure things out.  By bedtime we decided to ditch the moving company.  They couldn't guarantee anything.  We were also starting to consider the other end.  What if they were 2 months late delivering our stuff?  Kirk decided to drive everything to Washington, 2400 miles away, by himself.  It was just too expensive to try to fly someone one way to go with him. 

Friday morning I talked to Penske and they could guarantee me a 16 foot truck and a car trailer by Saturday at 3.  Saturday morning we packed up everything going in our car, got the food ready.  We put Cade and Cami down for naps and I thought, "This would be a perfect time for us to get a truck."  I decided to call Penske, just to see if they had one a few hours early and they did!  Kirk and Lisa took off to get the truck.  I called our friends who were helping and they showed up a few hours early.  We started loading at 2:00 and were done by about 4:00.  Cade slept until about 3:30 and Cami slept the whole time.  Talk about tender mercies!



As I packed, I stored a lot of the boxes in Cade's room

just before our help arrived, we pull all of the boxes out of Cade's room and into the living room

 

Lisa was tons of help!  Cami loved her.

Our original plan was to drive both of our cars to Minnesota with Lisa to visit family there.  Since Kirk was taking the moving truck, he towed one car and Lisa, Cade, Cami and I piled in the other one.  We all drove together to St. Louis that night.

Kirk was up and out the door by 5:30 the next morning (Sunday) and we were gone by about 6:45.  Kirk stayed with my sister Lindsey in Fort Collins that night.  He drove to Provo on Monday and was able to pick up some furniture we had there that we didn't know how we were getting to Washington--another hidden blessing.  Alan (my brother) helped him load the stuff onto the truck (Thank you!).  Kirk drove to Richland, WA on Tuesday.  His brother lives there and was kind enough to let us store our stuff in his garage for a month (Thanks Scott!).  Kirk had Wednesday off and then flew out to meet us in Minnesota arriving Thursday evening.  We wanted one buffer day in there, just in case.  What a week for him.  I hope he never has to repeat it.  He was totally safe.  He said he never felt sleepy.  He enjoyed a couple of books on CD.  We missed him and he definitely missed out on 5 days of vacation he should have had.  But, our stuff is all there waiting for us.  We know it is safe and we can get it as soon as we get there.  This gives me much more peace of mind than leaving it in the hands of some company that can't guarantee when they'll be there or when we will see it again.

Don't worry.  My next couple of posts will be a lot more fun!

P.S.  Don't use American Van Lines.