Moving, Part II

With the trip to Kentucky having refortified my spirit, if not my body, I feel like getting the second half of the move out of the way.

The expected difficulties with the tollway were compounded by the rain and the late start, which allowed more traffic on the road.  The sound of the truck engine meant that I had to crank the radio up loudly so I could hear anything other than the engine.  But what was silliest, once we got moving, was the effect of the road on the truck, causing its suspension to push me up on the bench seat.  Of course, what goes up must come down, which turned me into a human shake-weight.  If I hadn't packed the front seat so tightly I might have been jostled around.  I almost could have used a hardhat.

We got to our first stop for food and gas, and I had to park with the trucks behind the restaurant.  To be sure, my puny 26-foot truck wasn't in the same class as the semis parked there, but it was kind of cool parking with the truckers and not the overloaded SUV's in front of the place.  Unfortunately, getting in and out of the truck was a bit of a hassle, and the walk was three times as long from the truck parking area to the restaurant.

I remember that both Karen and I were tuckered at that point, and we were only halfway home.  We just both wanted to be done.

We got back in the vehicles and Karen resumed the lead.  The problem was that although she had the car fully loaded, she could still go 70 miles per hour and more.  I could barely top out at 72 miles an hour, but when I'd come to any kind of an incline, the odometer might have read 70 miles per hour but the rest of traffic was passing me by.  And when I came upon semis, I passed on the left, but made progress at a glacial pace, no doubt angering the other commuters who could do well above 70.

The flipside, however, is that I was like a boulder on the downslopes.  Karen said she'd lose sight of me once she went over the top of a small incline, only to see me hurtling toward her on the backside.  Even so, I don't think the truck ever went over 70.

We finally made it to our destination and unloaded the car.  It was a bit of a rude awakening to discover that, contrary to what we'd been led to believe, there were no shielding berms or trees to block out the sound from the highway that runs less than fifty yards from our front door, but the sliding glass doors more than blocked out the noise, thankfully.

The next morning we got up and went to the honeymoon hovel to load up our belongings in the two cars.  When we returned there were four decidedly very young men waiting for us to unload the truck.  We got out and Karen went into the apartment to direct traffic up there.  I was to stay with the truck and tell them where things were to be put.  But I wasn't just a traffic cop; I would also be unloading the truck and organizing the garage, which we were going to use as a storage facility.  Downsizing from a house to an apartment left us with more stuff than we could reasonably fit into an apartment, but given that we'll only be in the apartment for a year before we buy another house, there is little sense in ridding ourselves of things that we'll need again the following year.

The men -- boys is too pejorative -- hustled.  In fact, they had the truck emptied and the bed put together in three hours flat.  The guys who loaded the truck took six hours to load it, but there were only three of them and it's harder to load a truck than to unload it.

As good as the men were, I was less than half that good.  I was trying to organize the garage, unload the truck and help them assemble the bed while at the same time making sure Karen was getting what she wanted where she wanted it.  It was a thankless task made slightly easier by the fact that we had decent weather, not too hot and with a few light sprinkles.  Having moved in excessively hot weather before, I knew when to be thankful.

Once the men left, Karen and I just looked at each other as if to say What next?  Although far from over, the hard part was largely ended.  We could start putting things away, throwing other things into the garage.  Most importantly, we could go get our boys.

We drove to the manager's office and went through the garage to find our boys as enthusiastic to see us as we were to see them.  It was good to be a family again.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles