The Trip Down

We closed on the sale of our house on Wednesday April 9, picked up the money Thursday morning, and hit the bricks before noon in a caravan of three.

Steve drove a 22 foot Penske truck, our dear friend Renay drove a 12 footer, and I drove Sunshine the Bright Yellow Van, pulling a white 15 foot trailer.

There's a story on the trucks.

Okay, I'll tell you.

First, we were supposed to close in late May. I looked forward to being able to go through everything, having a yard sale, making several trips to the dump. We reserved a 26 foot truck to move all our stuff.

Then, around the middle of March the buyers notified us that they had secured a really really really good deal on a mortgage, but they had to close within 30 days to get that good deal. This pushed the closing date into the time range of April 7-17 instead of May 27.

Yikes! Just like that, our prep was shaved by a hefty seven weeks, from ten weeks to three - no time for sorting, definitely no time for a yard sale - just instant decisions to "pack" or "toss."

Let me pause to relay two important things we have learned from previous moves:

1. Sure, you can get a lot of stuff in great big giant boxes, but who has to carry those boxes, and how far? and what happens to the stuff in those boxes when someone drops one because they're too big and awkward or too heavy to carry, or what if the box falls apart because it's got more stuff in it than it can old? Not-too-big boxes are better.

2. Liquor store boxes are a great size in general, big enough to hold a good amount, not too big (as per item#1), but they're not of a uniform size. Short, medium and tall, liquor store boxes come in a whole mixy mess of sizes. Fine if you're moving in your car and a couple dozen pickup truck loads - not so great if you have a big truck to fill and need to do the whole move in one trip. Many boxes the same size are better.

So I ordered 150 file-size "banker" style boxes with lids, 75 longer boxes of the same type, and 50 18x18x12 boxes for things that wouldn't fit in either of the other two size boxes. I ordered these boxes from Uline, by the way, if you should ever find yourself in such a position. They were GREAT, Uline was. If you ever need a bunch of boxes of a uniform size, check them out. Check them out anyway. They have lots of cool stuff and are a very professionally run company. Uline.

My precious daughter Misty and our dear friend Renay came over every day for two weeks, taking time off from work, recruiting other family members and mutual friends to come help, and they were absolute life savers in helping us get packed. No way in God's Green Earth I could have gotten all that done in the time allotted once the closing date was accelerated. Another dear friend of ours, Keith, came on several successive days as well and helped us get packed boxes and furniture downstairs and then helped Steve get the truck loaded.

Trucks.

Trucks, multiple.

We had reserved a 26 foot truck, the biggest you can get without hiring a semi. We went to pick this big truck up, and a couple miles from the rental place Steve became concerned that there was a pretty scary problem with the front end. What a drag it would be to be, oh, miles from nowhere and have the front end fall out from under the big truck, so Steve took it back to the rental place.

They got him fixed up with another 26 footer, and he was about halfway home with that one when the engine light came on. Again, looking at a trip of over 1600 miles - what a drag it would be to have the engine blow, oh, say, in the middle of rush-hour traffic in some hurry-up impatient road-rage city between Cooperstown and Oklahoma City. Such places do exist, you know. No, really. So Steve took that one back, too.

Unfortunately, they did not have another 26 footer. Best they could do was the 22 footer, so that's what he came home with.

4 feet , the difference between 26 feet and 22 feet, doesn't seem like that much, but when you consider the width and the height of the box, we're talking somewhere over 400 cubic feet. That space can hold a lot of boxes.

Steve loaded that 22 foot truck and when it was full we still had a lot of stuff left to load. There certainly hadn't been time to go through everything when we were trying to get it all done in that abreviated time frame, and there was no time to go back through anything, either, now. Criminy, what to do? Leave it all? But I had packed the less-essential things first, saving the things I need most and use most often to pack last. There was not anything not yet on the truck that I could comfortably say I could do without.

After some stewing and fretting, we decided to see if we could get someone to drive a third truck for us, and Steve called Penske and cut a deal with them for a 12 footer.

Our first ask was for our brother-in-law David Bradford, but he was not available on such short notice. Steve and I wracked our brains as to who might be willing, able, and have the time on immediate notice to drive that third truck for us. Between Steve, me, and Renay, I think we, the three of us, know just about everyone in Otsego County, and in talking to Renay, she said she would like to drive that truck! She consulted her family, cleared her schedule for about a week and voila! We were all set! Saved our beans again, Renay did. Go Baby!

So here we are in Oklahoma City.

As I write, we are all set to go out to the acreage tomorrow to see what all needs to be done to clean things up. It looks like someone who has lived there at some time in the last seven years must have collected junk to recycle, and didn't make it to the recycle station with quite a bit of the material. Garage door panels, old appliances, beer cans... Anyway, we're going to go triage and evaluate what is there and what needs to be repaired, replaced, etc.

I thought we would live the rest of our days in Cooperstown, and I love and miss my friends in Otsego County (thank God for phones and emails!), but I must say, I am glad to be back, and am seriously looking forward to getting a garden in. Probably too late in the season to start chickens this year, especially with everything else that must need to be done out there, but chickens next spring for sure. I'll keep you posted.