The Van-ity of driving across the country.

Moving is such a pain. Days of packing, throwing away tons of stuff I can’t believe we kept in such a small apartment, and lots of cleaning. We had lots of friends to visit with before leaving. Trying to fit them all in around all the packing and stuff became a little difficult and stressful. It led to some very long nights of only a couple hours of sleep. The night before we moved we went out with friends and then came home and stayed up until 3 am making sure everything was ready to be packed the next day. We shipped 11 boxes of clothes and shoes. That was after getting rid of tons of pairs. Fedx screwed up the pick-up so Ender had to deliver the packages to their warehouse early that morning before we could pack the van. (Right...the van. So we bought a van for the trip. We figured it would be cheaper than renting a uhaul and we could turn around and sell it once we finished the trip.)

So Ender’s back now and our friends came by to help us pack the van. All went well and we were on our way. We drove thru China town (which was a bad idea) but soon we were out of NYC and really on our way. Woo hoo! We had driven about 2 hours and we blow out a tire on the freeway. We were in Pennsylvania which we were supposed to drive right through. Ender meant to get a AAA type roadside assistance thing but we were so busy he forgot. So we’re on the side of this super dark, two lane highway and the van is so packed we can barely reach the spare, let alone get it out.

Now this is what I was worried about the most with driving across country. I’ve watched enough horror movies to know that breaking down in a small town gets you tortured and killed. We were lucky enough to not be killed by anyone. We got towed by a very nice guy who changed our tire and told us to get the other tires at Walmart. That is when the rest of our troubles began. The next morning we went to Walmart where they relaced 2 tires but didn’t have a third in stock. We ate at a yummy chinese buffet and were once again on our way. We drove about an hour this time before we started having problems and had to get off the freeway again. We found another Walmart and told them we needed one last tire and for them to check the front two that the last Walmart had replaced. He said they were really busy but should be able to get to it in about 1 1/2 hours. During this time we ate, really stressed out that it could be something else making the van drive bad, and looked at everything possible in Walmart. 4 hours later our van was done. The guy said the first guy who replaced the tires did a horrible job and everything should be fine now. We get in and drive and the van is still making a horrible noise. By then it was too late to find a place to fix it, so we had to get a hotel in Pennsylvania again. The next day the mechanic couldn’t see the car until 1, so we had to pay for another night in the hotel. Ender took it over and it was still the tires. They were falling off of the car. So he replaced the bearings and everything ran smooth. We finally made it out of Pennsylvania with a big cheer.

We drove forever to make up the day we lost and made it to Chicago. We checked into our hotel at about 2 am. We had breakfast with friends the next morning. It was nice to have something other than fast food and snacks. We had a fun time visiting with them and were once again on the road making our way to Lincoln, Nebraska. Before getting on the freeway we stopped to get gas. Ender didn’t notice it was 7 eleven gas and as we pulled away said I hope we didn’t get bad gas. Of course with our luck we did. We drove for a while and then started having trouble again. Bythis time we were in Nebraska. We pulled off the freeway and Ender called a mechanic to see if he could look at it. The mechanic said they were closed for the football game and then wouldn’t open again until Monday. We had some lunch and put new gas in and the van started right up. We had no more problems with the van after that. We made it to Colorado just as it started snowing but nothing really stuck. We made it to Utah on Monday night. It was a stressful trip with van troubles, ferret smuggling, and long hours of driving but we still manged to have fun and make it in one piece. We’re happy it’s over and are ready to start our lives in St. George. Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes as we drove.