It has been an eventful last few days! Like any major event we've ever experienced in our lives, our move, so far, has been full of drama! lol So of course I need to fill you in on our ridiculous story. ;) With most things in our lives nowadays, we really have learned that it's much easier to laugh at our crazy bad luck than to cry. I mean seriously, who else would this stuff happen to? So here's our whole story broken down in easy to digest chapters. You're welcome for the entertainment. It's what I'm here for! (lol!)
Wednesday: You want me to drive what?!?
So my husband is quite creative when it comes to saving money. It's pretty amazing the things he comes up with sometimes, and I've grown to not only accept his crazy schemes but enjoy them for the most part. Most people think we're pretty nuts, but hey, we're just eccentric. ;) But even I have to put my foot down sometimes. And when Matt says "hey, let's not hire a moving company to move us across the country, let's buy 24 foot and 14 foot trailers, pack them ourselves, take our own truck & two trips to haul them 1500 miles & back, then we can sell the trailers when we're done" I definitely tried to say "NO way!"
Obviously I lost.
So after spending a whole day on Tuesday and half the day on Wednesday packing up, we finally set off for Virginia on Wednesday evening. (Virginia because we were picking up a car half way through our trip.) Matt & I usually take our road trips in one run, switching on & off to let the other sleep & save time. So that means that *I* have to drive this 8,000 lb trailer for at least some portion of our trek through the mountains. OH. MY. GOD. Scariest thing I've ever done. I seriously am shocked that I didn't put permanent dents in the steering wheel as I white-knuckeled it down the highway. It was NOT easy. But I did eventually get the hang of it & we managed to make our way through the night with me doing a good portion of the driving. Granted, it was at 45-50 mph adding an additional 5 hrs to our trip, but that's ok!
Thursday: Because I need to be one of the cool kids
All was going relatively well until we hit the mountains. With that kind of weight behind an over-taxed truck going up steep hills & down crazy declines on narrow roads it was nearly impossible to keep it under control. And these big bully Mack trucks would whip by us (to show off to the idiots driving the doolittle I assume!) creating this vacuum effect that would only make things worse. It was really hard & it seemed to take not only all of our time but our every nerve. Finally we made it to Virginia just in time to pick up my new (to me) car. We do this a lot: buy a car online for cheap, then go pick it up. We just don't usually drive to get it in the middle of a major life-altering move! This particular car I found, to be perfectly honest, because I wanted to be part of the in-crowd in Vermont! ;) I found an '07 Subaru Forester for under wholesale value in perfect condition & had to have one. (We sold all of our cars because we couldn't exactly drive any of them in the moutains & snow!) So I'm super excited to have my New England soccer mom car (I swear at least 50% of Vermonters have one!) and we ended up having a great night. We stayed at a nice hotel in VA & were well taken care of by the staff there since it was the eve of our anniversary. (Eleven years of marriage! Wow where did the time go?)
Friday: We might as well change our name to Grisewald
I seriously feel like I'm in a Lampoon movie sometimes. How can all of this ridiculous stuff happen to one family & not be fiction?? Oh, but it's real folks! lol I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried! And seeing as I never feel like people could possibly believe these tall tales of mine are actually real, I took the liberty of taking a few photos of our turn of events on Friday. Otherwise, I truly wouldn't believe this crap myself!
So as I mentioned before, Friday happened to be our 11th wedding anniversary. It just so happened to turn out that it landed on the day we had to spend driving two separate cars, and though that was a big bummer, we were going to end the day in VT in our new home, so it was all going to be ok! We had a lot of the same driving issues trying to make our way up the coast, but for the most part it wasn't that bad. It took a little longer than we expected of course, but it turned out that that landed us on the George Washington Bridge outside NYC during the tail end of rush hour on Friday evening. Fantastic. An hour & a half later we get across the bridge and are trying to get off onto the exit to 87. New York drivers though, didn't like the idea of letting over an extended cab pick-up hauling a 24 foot trailer and all but pushed Matt off the road. In an effort not to hit anyone, he swerved & the trailer slammed into the concrete barrier blowing the tire & bending the rim.
Great. Now what? He calls me (driving behind) and tells me he's getting off at the next exit and going to call roadside assistance. He gets off at the next exit which happens to be Fordham Rd. in the Bronx. Safe! Excellent! :/ Well, he cut the corner a little close trying to pull into the gas station & here's what happened next:
Yep. He wrapped the trailer around a pole & was completely stuck. Drivers were honking & cussing us out. A homeless guy plopped down to watch the entertainment of the evening. And four well-intentioned guys on the sidewalk tried for a half an hour to direct Mathew into maneuvering the trailer from around the pole. No such luck. In fact it just got dented more. So guess what? Sometimes you just gotta listen to a woman. We know what we're talking about! ;) I, Yes I managed to direct him around the pole. (I'm a little proud of that!) He pulled into the lot & finally connects with roadside assistance. Yet again Nationwide is NOT on our side! (Don't use them folks, I'm tellin' ya!) They pretty much tell us we're screwed because it's after hours & they can't get ahold of any tow companies at this hour. What?!?! WTH are we supposed to do now? So at first Matt thinks we can try to drive it with the weight balancing on the other axel. Ray, one of our New Yorker Helper Guys, directed traffic so that Matt could u-turn around the busy street and get back on the highway. Well that clearly didn't work because he pulled over at the very next exit, a Mobil station on the side of the Deegan. We tried Nationwide, we tried, calling tow companies ourselves, we even called the police. No luck whatsoever. Finally, at midnight, we get ahold of a company in NJ who will come to help us. They finally arrive & spend an hour banging the crap out of the wheel until it's close-enough bent back to the original shape. They replace the tire, charge us $225 & take off telling us to air it up every hour or so because it won't hold air very well. Awesome. Well we no sooner turn around from their leaving that it's completely flat again!!! Grr! Well Matt had enough & said "eff it. I'm driving." He fills it up with fix-a-flat, airs it up & starts to drive. We actually made it to Connecticut, about 40 minutes of driving, when it COMPLETELY blew. We were screwed.
Lovely huh? So we were forced to get a hotel up the road (it's nearly 4 a.m. at this point) and try again in the morning, pushing back all of our plans & hotel reservations & everything else for the entire week. (And don't forget this is supposed to be our anniversary!)
Saturday: Happily Ever After... so far.
We slept about 3-4 hours and got up early to start making calls in the morning. Thankfully, the first call we made was able to help us & came right out to change the above tire & rim. We were back on the road in no time & headed out for the final 5 hour leg of our drive to VT. We got here at about 3:30 pm and were able to get our trailer unhooked & get a nice hotel room for the night. (Thank God people in this town are so nice!)
Ahh. Serenity.
We plan on heading back tomorrow morning (a 24 hr straight trip) to pick up the kids from Pa-Pa's, hook up the smaller trailer (the one with all of the tools & supplies to repair the new house), and head back to VT, this time to stay!
Wish us luck. We're gunna need it! ;)
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