Sorry this post has been so long coming. Who knew moving and unpacking was so time consuming (everyone knew that!)? We are finally just about settled in our new apartment in Tucson. We have just a couple stray boxes left to empty and some random odds and ends still sitting around, but for the most part everything has found a place. We just need to put pictures up on the wall now.
The big move turned out OK, and we didn’t really lose anything… except a bit of our sanity. It was a LONG drive in a BIG truck. Fortunately outside of Bessie’s little transmission fluid leak there weren’t any difficulties. After a delayed start, we made it to Atlantic and spent the night at my parent’s house. I was a little nervous initially driving the truck with the car attached, making a LONG truck even longer. I think about 3/4 of the way there I really started to get the hang of it. We learned how to use a diesel pump at at truck stop (it isn’t as easy as you’d think!). We left Atlantic bright and early the next morning and took off for Denver. Bessie in the lead and Jess and her mom following in the green CR-V (named Emerald – her friends call her Emmy). Bessie did pretty well that day outside of a few mountain slow-downs, but all in all a decent trip across flat Nebraska. We arrived at Jon and Liz’s house around 6:00 and relaxed a bit before a delicious dinner (you can grill Jon!), and then some game time on their Wii. Both my dad and Jess’s mom did pretty well for their first time on the Wii (Cindy wiped the floor with us in bowling!). We hit the sack and once again got up bright and early for the longest day of our travels. We hit a few mountains as we cut through New Mexico. Bessie had a few issues again getting up some of the bigger hills (we were seriously going 35mph up one of them!). Outside of that it wasn’t a bad drive. The scenery was nice. We saw a couple of full rainbows as we drove through the mountains and a few funny signs. Our favorite being Elephant Butt(e). We got to know Springer, New Mexico, a little too well as we searched for diesel (BTW, there is only ONE working diesel pump in the entire town!!). We also stopped for a short stint in Las Vegas (New Mexico) for dinner. We were a little disappointed in comparing it to the other Las Vegas that we knew. So after a really exciting day of driving, we finally arrived in Tucson around 10pm. Nancy and Robert were expecting us and had snacks laid out and ready. We relaxed a bit with them and conked out for the night. Our three days of travel were finally over!
How to keep yourself occupied while driving across the country in a big truck:
- Madlibs… sometimes using only words on signs by the road (example 1, example 2)
- Count fellow Penske trucks, and waive like crazy when they go by
- Eat “Good & Plenty,” then try to find the ones that fell out of the box all over the cab
- Coach Bessie up a big hill, and see how fast we can get her going down (record was 85mph)
- “Gold leader to Green leader… do you copy?”
We set out the next morning for our new apartment after swinging by the Penske place to return the trailer (no need to drag an empty trailer around town). We pulled Bessie in and started unpacking. At least the sky was overcast that day, but it was sure hot! Another piece that made unpacking more fun (like we need anything else!) was the apartment was set back, so we had to drag stuff about a half a block, and then up a flight of stairs to get it in. If there is one thing I think we’ve learned from this experience it is: HIRE PROFESSIONAL MOVERS!!! We’re already starting to save for the next time.
So now for the past week and a half, we’ve been running around getting situated. We’re pretty much unpacked. We’ll post photos of our new place soon. I did put some new photos of the move-in up here. We’ve now got official Arizona driver’s licenses and AZ plates (so even though we drive like we’re not from around here, we at least look like we’re from here!). We’ve put together way too many flat pack pieces of furniture (after a trip to Target and IKEA). We’re also getting to know the area better too. We still need to get out exploring a bit more, but fortunately Tucson is a pretty easy city to navigate, and I think we have the major roads down.
Jess starts work on Monday so I think things will start to get into a routine soon enough. We’ll keep you posted.
cooler!) than it is in the city. We did a geocache, which was a lot of fun (when we actually found the geocache). We attempted 2 geocaches, but the first one we tried didn’t turn out so well. We found ourselves hiking up the mountainside in the forest without any trails in sight. After about 30 minutes of this I called it quits. (Sorry, Kieran, I’m not a die-hard geocacher). But at least we found the other geocache we started!
