Moving: part I

This is our 7th move in 8 years. Yuck. We may be good at moving (although after this trip I seriously doubt it), but it is exhausting. On top of all this, we have the worst car luck. Seriously, the worst. I have now added Ritzville right beside Chehalis (and some random city in Utah) t0 my Cities-I-Hate-Because-I-Broke-Down-There List.  We headed down to Portland this past week because I had a job interview, and somehow we decided it would be a good idea to bring down the bulk of our belongings. No big deal, right? Except that one hour into the trip (at 715am) Andy wakes me up (I only slept 5 hours that night) to asks me, is the car smoking?  Hmmm, I don’t see it, I say. Then suddenly the car stops shifting gears.  Any acceleration just revs the engine.  Quickly, and thankfully, we are able to pull off at a close exit and stop the car. Immediately it begins billowing out smoke, pouring around the radiator cap, till it puffs no more.

Shit. Double shit.

We both silently panic, and instantly are in denial. “It’ll be fine, we say. It just needed to cool down.”  But it was not fine. Not fine at all.

So we call AAA. Can you tow our broken truck and our large rented trailer?  Obviously No.  But, they will gladly tow it to the nearest rest stop though. Gee thanks, it just has all our earthly possessions in it. Or they could tow it for full fee, but I didn’t hang around to hear that figure.  So we sit and panic, and do what any normal person would do — call our parents. Duh. Why are we always the screw up kids?

By now it’s 745am and the clock is ticking while we wait for the opening hours of Budget and Uhaul, hoping for a miracle, while we all frantically brainstorm a solution. Do we go back home and unload everything, but miss my interview? Or try to get a replacement truck to meet us where we are stranded? How long will that take?  This trip was a quick trip as it is, we only planned to stay one night in Portland.

After 18 phone calls to 5 different places and people, and many crunched numbers — we finally came up with a plan.  Andy’s dad will pick up a rented pickup truck and drive it the hour out to us, while his mom watches our kids at her work (I know, they are saints!).  Through some strategically times phone calls we will have the tow truck meet us around the time his dad wil arrive with the pickup.  The thing is though,  the pickup truck isn’t available for 4 HOURS.  

So instead we go eat at a diner across the street. Thank you Templins, I really, really needed that.

This is how Andy feels about breaking down.  And about me spilling coffee on him. And me taking this photo.

 Nearly 5 hours later we were back on the road, Starbucks in hand and AC cranked.  Nevermind that it took us 13 hours to get to Portland, 37 phone calls and one rescheduled job interview.  We made it.

Tagged as: MM, Moving