Sam's Blog

We did it (lo hicimos)...!

Well... The movers came Tuesday morning at about 8:30. It took them until almost 3:00 to get our 17,000 (almost) pounds loaded. They did an excellent job dismantling things and wrapping everything in blankets. They only thing I'm concerned is whether I packed things tight enough in the boxes because they stacked them from floor to ceiling on the truck.

We spent the night in the Super 8 Motel in Sacramento on El Centro. Surprisingly, it wasn't a bad mini-suite. It was clean an spacious...although, I was thinking we should have checked out the Fairfield Inn (by Marriott) across the parking lot...

On Wednesday, we got out of the hotel by 7:45am. We stopped at Jack in the Box for a quick breakfast, picked up the dogs at the old house, dropped off the keys, and hit the road at around 8:45am. The weather was terrible so I kept it at a safe, leisurely pace. To our delight, the best weather during the entire trip was encountered as we drove through the Oregon Pass - from Weed to Grant's Pass. There was some light rain but mostly clear or overcast. It was after Grant's Pass that we hit the hardest rain of the trip. It was really coming down. That, combined with the hills and turns, had Lisa freaking out. At one point, we almost pulled over to wait for it to pass or find some alternate lodging to spend the night.

We pulled into Eugene, OR at around 6:00pm. We pulled into the motel and found that they didn't have the room that we reserved. They offered an alternate room that was tiny and (according to Lisa) disgusting. So, we drove down the street to the Executive Inn. It was an OK room that was clean and had decent accomodations for the dogs.

We hit the road at 8:00am on Thursday. We decided that we'd drive awhile before stopping for breakfast because the kids were sick and didn't have much of an appetite - almost a big mistake. The kids were going crazy by the time we hit Salem. We were so tired of junk food that we decided to take the extra time and order a decent breakfast at Shari's. After breakfast, it was a smooth 4-hour (or so) drive to Renton - we arrived around 2:30. By the time we got there and unloaded the van, the kids were starving again and VERY irritable - darn! should have stopped before going to the house. I was glad to see that my belongings that I left there were still in the same place.... We went to Taco Time for lunch/dinner and to Safeway for a few things.

Trip Notes:

• I think the one-day, 12-hour trip is much easier than the 2-day. I don't think the kids can handle it though...
• With the stops for bio-breaks for us and the dogs, it didn't make any sense to try to make up time by speeding. So, I didn't and that made it a nice drive for both Lisa and I (and, therefore, for the kids too...).
• To the cleaning people at the old house and at the hotels: You're welcome for the beer and wine...we didn't want to pack it in the car...
• Best investment category: car DVD player. $700 for the whole setup but well worth it. The kids watched videos for 2/3 of the trip and we kept our sanity (well...somewhat...I could do without the Dora the Explorer or Bob the Builder themes for awhile.....)

Pics will be posted later...

posted by Sam @ 6:49 AM