settling in and catching up

I poured myself a cup of coffee, kissed hubs and sent him off to his meeting this morning, and picked up my old laptop friend. It's been a long and difficult seperation, but me, computer, and internet are all finally reunited once more. Are any of my readers even still keeping up? I've missed you all so terribly.

On Friday, July 11 (I can't believe it's only been three weeks!), the movers arrived at our little 2 bedroom apartment in Dallas - 3 hours late. This was the start to the move that set the tone for the next couple of weeks as we began this journey to the Northeast. For international moves, it seems the theme is "contract the biggest truck imaginable, pack as many people into it as we can, and move them all at the same time." So they brought the biggest truck they had, and couldn't get it through the gate at our apartment complex. Finally, at 11:30, a little shuttle truck arrived and began what should have been started at 8am. Everything got numbered, loaded, taken apart and shifted. We kept the guys supplied with Gatoraide, and they worked hard. Hubs' parents came and watched with us and helped us clean each room as it emptied. Steph and Preston brought us a magnificent burrito for lunch. At 4:30pm we turned in our keys, signed the last of the paperwork, and tearfully said goodbye to the first home of our married life. So many memories, so much of life formed. We were excited, but surprisingly sad. Then we said tearful goodbye's to Hubs' parents, promising to call and visit.

We hit the road at 5pm, headed east out of Dallas. When everything was scheduled for three hours earlier, we had made hotel reservations in Memphis, which is a little over a seven hour drive from Dallas. So we had hopes of making it there when we started out, Hubs in his car and me in mine. (Hubs transported his mounted trophy deer head himself, and that thing stared out his back window at me for 1500 miles! It was a little creepy.) Tearfully, we passed the Texas/Arkansas border, knowing we wouldn't be back to our home state for at least 6 months. We made it to Little Rock, and then the exhaustion and the emotion and the darkness closed in, and we broke down and cancelled our reservation in Memphis and found a room for the night at a La Quinta in Little Rock. We got unloaded and cleaned up and into bed around 12:30, and the sleep felt so good.

The next morning, after a filling continental breakfast from the hotel lobby, we hit the road again at 9am. In 2 hours we were out of Arkansas and into Tennessee. We were now two states removed from "home." In case you were wondering, Tennessee is a very long, thin state. Especially when you're driving longways across it. Memphis, Nashville, on toward Knoxville... we were in a different time zone now, and making good time, deteremined not to have to cancel our next hotel reservation in Roanoke, Virginia. It's a 12 hour drive from Little Rock to Roanoke, and we were sure we could do it. About 30 miles outside of Knoxville, however, doubt came in the form of a tanker truck accident on Interstate 40. All traffic shut down for a 24 hour period while they cleaned up what had to have been one of the biggest wrecks ever. All traffic rerouted. Up to 5 hour delays. After 2 1/2 hours, we had made it about 5 miles. Hubs and Dad got their heads together over the phone, however, and became heroes for the day by finding us little backwoods Tennessee roads (duelling banjos were ringing in my ears the whole time) that wound us back to I-40 on the other side of all the traffic, detouring the detour. And it just wouldn't be a good Tennessee story if I didn't share that the name of the little road we took was "Pig Path."

We made it to Knoxville, and picked up speed. We were determined to make it. The traffic, albeit sitting still, was a little bit of a break. So we kept driving. And driving. As dark was falling, we left Tennessee and entered Virginia (we were now three states removed from "home"). And we drove more. At 1:30am (12:30am Central), we made it to our Roanoke hotel where we had reservations. We were too tired to even smile at the desk clerk's thick Virginia accent when we checked in. But we had made it, and we felt so accomplished. 15 1/2 hours on the road, driving seperate cars, with only three breaks no longer than 20 minutes each. We fell into bed at 2am, and slept hard.

The third day we slept late. We called in a late check-out and slept until 11. We were on the road by 12:30, filled up with gas, and started down one of the most beautiful roads of the trip. Mountains, old dairy and sheep farms, winding streams and railroad tracks... The scenery was beautiful. We hit a huge thunderstorm in Virginia and had to slow our progress down to 45 mph as trucks and driving rain made visibility very limited. We entered the tip of West Virginia as the storm tapered off, and we were now four states away from "home." More mountain roads, more scattered storms, we left West Virginia 20 minutes later and entered Maryland - five states away from "home." Crossing the Potomac River was a big deal for me for some reason. That's one of the coolest things I've done in a car. About 30 minutes after we entered Maryland, we drove across the Maryland/Pennsylvania border. We were home, six states away.

It took us about 3 more hours in Pennsylvania to reach our new town, and as the buildings and bridges began to form in the distance, I began to smile. The familiarity of our new town was welcoming us from the distance... roads we've driven in rent cars we were now driving in our own cars. Familiar landmarks, new favorite restaurants. The turn off for the University. It was good to be home.

Ok, gang. There is still much to catch up on, but I'm getting a writer's cramp. I'll fill you in on the rest in the next post.