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Home safely
Feb. 28th, 2010 08:36 amThere wasn't an update post for Friday, but if there had been, it would have been titled "If it's Friday, I must be sick of being in a truck." By the end of things, it got harder and harder to climb back into the truck after each stop, and I don't mean in a physical-difficulty way.
I had set a mental goal of Indianapolis for Friday, because I know that Indy is about 6 hours away if you're in a car in the summer (i.e., the trip to GenCon every year). I figured that winter and truck would up that to about 8 hours, and that's about how much actual driving we usually did each day (plus lunch and dinner and gas and potty and get-me-out-of-this-damned-truck stops, which translated to about 11 hours between "get in the truck at the previous night's hotel" and "get out of the truck at tonight's hotel.") When we decided to stop for dinner just before Indianapolis in order to avoid rush hour, I mentally readjusted my expectations to Fort Wayne for the night.
A snowstorm that started shortly after we got off the beltway around Indianapolis nixed that. We inched along I-69 for a little over an hour and got about 40 miles north of Indy before we called it quits. We agreed to go to bed earlier, set the alarm clock for earlier, shower the night before, and generally just do everything we could to get out on the (hopefully cleared and salted) road early on Saturday, to make up for the lack of progress Friday night.
It worked; we finished up breakfast and hit the road at about 8:30am, as opposed to our usual 10-11am. The roads were indeed cleared and salted, and we pulled into the driveway around 2pm.
There was a bit of frustration on my part, as I had tried to carefully balance "round up people to help unload" with "our driveway does not have much parking space in the winter". So I had counted on Jacob being here to help, and Chris being able to help. Jacob didn't arrive until after we were finished, and while Chris did eventually help a lot, when we first got here he was laying vinyl in my bathroom (which is not yet finished, despite my high hopes) and I had a hard time getting enough people together to take the first few large-heavy-and-in-the-way-of-everything-else items. Once we got the initial resistance overcome, both the vinyl and the unloading went smoothly.
Matt and Abigail arrived just in time to help get cars moved so that the truck could be backed around to the main plowed part of the driveway. Abigail went with me to drop off the truck, and Matt went with John to help return the vinyl roller and then pick up Abigail and I.
Penske had told me that my drop-off location was open until 6 but did not have an after-hours dropbox. As it happens, they were open until 4, which could have been a big problem for me, arriving as I did at 4:20. But fate was smiling on me yesterday, and the owner of the drop-off business (a Pack+Mail Plus) had taken pity on a customer just before me and had unlocked the door to let him in. So when I strolled in and said "I have a truck to drop off" she sighed and checked in the truck for me. It wasn't until we were midway through the check-in process that she mentioned that she had already closed. It's a good thing we got up early; I'd have been screwed if I'd had to wait until closer to six to drop the truck off.
While we were dropping off the truck, Other Chris* arrived with Connor and was confused at the lack of people. He called to inquire, and I explained where everyone is, and said "But CJ should be there. Just let yourself in, and when you find the guy you don't know, introduce yourself." I completely forgot that Dmitri was still there, and has never met Other Chris. Oops.
Once we were all back to the house, moving boxes up the stairs proceeded apace. There's still a few here and there that got missed, and there's still an entertainment center in the living room, but for the most part everything went up to the right room. There were massages for John and CJ (I have a standing appointment on Friday, and there just wasn't time for three full massages, so I ceded mine to people who don't have one to look forward to), and dinner provided by Chris and John, who had come across a special yesterday on a 3 lb chuck roast and potatoes. Marina made a salad to go with the roast. I attempted to whip up a cake to go with it, as we had a couple boxes, but I got over-eager and made too much cake for the pans I had available. They ended up overflowing the pans, and we had lots and lots of smoke, and some cake that had some not-at-all-done parts. However, it was still yummy, even if some of it was served as cake soup, and the smoke eventually cleared.
There was also some lovely conversation, and Lego Star Wars with a four-year-old (fruuuuuuuuustrating), but you had to be there for that.
Many thanks go out to Matt, Abigail, Chris, Chris, Dmitri and John for helping to unload and haul boxes. Also, thanks to Brian for suggesting Penske, which has much more comfortable trucks than U-Haul, and for a lower price. And also thanks to Jeff for loaning us his iTrip, which meant we had music for the entire trip without having to fuss with CDs or constantly scan for radio stations we could stand.
* Sorry, Chris. I don't mean to imply that you're secondary, I just wanted to keep the Chris's clear, and I'd already referred to Chris-who-lives-here as "Chris"
I had set a mental goal of Indianapolis for Friday, because I know that Indy is about 6 hours away if you're in a car in the summer (i.e., the trip to GenCon every year). I figured that winter and truck would up that to about 8 hours, and that's about how much actual driving we usually did each day (plus lunch and dinner and gas and potty and get-me-out-of-this-damned-truck stops, which translated to about 11 hours between "get in the truck at the previous night's hotel" and "get out of the truck at tonight's hotel.") When we decided to stop for dinner just before Indianapolis in order to avoid rush hour, I mentally readjusted my expectations to Fort Wayne for the night.
A snowstorm that started shortly after we got off the beltway around Indianapolis nixed that. We inched along I-69 for a little over an hour and got about 40 miles north of Indy before we called it quits. We agreed to go to bed earlier, set the alarm clock for earlier, shower the night before, and generally just do everything we could to get out on the (hopefully cleared and salted) road early on Saturday, to make up for the lack of progress Friday night.
It worked; we finished up breakfast and hit the road at about 8:30am, as opposed to our usual 10-11am. The roads were indeed cleared and salted, and we pulled into the driveway around 2pm.
There was a bit of frustration on my part, as I had tried to carefully balance "round up people to help unload" with "our driveway does not have much parking space in the winter". So I had counted on Jacob being here to help, and Chris being able to help. Jacob didn't arrive until after we were finished, and while Chris did eventually help a lot, when we first got here he was laying vinyl in my bathroom (which is not yet finished, despite my high hopes) and I had a hard time getting enough people together to take the first few large-heavy-and-in-the-way-of-everything-else items. Once we got the initial resistance overcome, both the vinyl and the unloading went smoothly.
Matt and Abigail arrived just in time to help get cars moved so that the truck could be backed around to the main plowed part of the driveway. Abigail went with me to drop off the truck, and Matt went with John to help return the vinyl roller and then pick up Abigail and I.
Penske had told me that my drop-off location was open until 6 but did not have an after-hours dropbox. As it happens, they were open until 4, which could have been a big problem for me, arriving as I did at 4:20. But fate was smiling on me yesterday, and the owner of the drop-off business (a Pack+Mail Plus) had taken pity on a customer just before me and had unlocked the door to let him in. So when I strolled in and said "I have a truck to drop off" she sighed and checked in the truck for me. It wasn't until we were midway through the check-in process that she mentioned that she had already closed. It's a good thing we got up early; I'd have been screwed if I'd had to wait until closer to six to drop the truck off.
While we were dropping off the truck, Other Chris* arrived with Connor and was confused at the lack of people. He called to inquire, and I explained where everyone is, and said "But CJ should be there. Just let yourself in, and when you find the guy you don't know, introduce yourself." I completely forgot that Dmitri was still there, and has never met Other Chris. Oops.
Once we were all back to the house, moving boxes up the stairs proceeded apace. There's still a few here and there that got missed, and there's still an entertainment center in the living room, but for the most part everything went up to the right room. There were massages for John and CJ (I have a standing appointment on Friday, and there just wasn't time for three full massages, so I ceded mine to people who don't have one to look forward to), and dinner provided by Chris and John, who had come across a special yesterday on a 3 lb chuck roast and potatoes. Marina made a salad to go with the roast. I attempted to whip up a cake to go with it, as we had a couple boxes, but I got over-eager and made too much cake for the pans I had available. They ended up overflowing the pans, and we had lots and lots of smoke, and some cake that had some not-at-all-done parts. However, it was still yummy, even if some of it was served as cake soup, and the smoke eventually cleared.
There was also some lovely conversation, and Lego Star Wars with a four-year-old (fruuuuuuuuustrating), but you had to be there for that.
Many thanks go out to Matt, Abigail, Chris, Chris, Dmitri and John for helping to unload and haul boxes. Also, thanks to Brian for suggesting Penske, which has much more comfortable trucks than U-Haul, and for a lower price. And also thanks to Jeff for loaning us his iTrip, which meant we had music for the entire trip without having to fuss with CDs or constantly scan for radio stations we could stand.
* Sorry, Chris. I don't mean to imply that you're secondary, I just wanted to keep the Chris's clear, and I'd already referred to Chris-who-lives-here as "Chris"
