Moved, Mostly

Posted 20:00 PST Tue May 8, 2007 in Travel

Well, here we are. The last week/ten-days is flown by in a blur of activity and fatigue. Such is the nature of moves, I suspect. At least, such is the nature of all the moves I’ve made.

We left Lubbock about between 1000 and 1100 Saturday morning and drove northwest along U.S. 84 — a familiar route from many trips to New Mexico, and now to Nevada. Of course, the west Texas winds blew — from the southeast. The cross wind wasn’t too bad, but it did move the truck around some. Of course, it hurt what passes for fuel economy in such a large vehicle.

We passed through Santa Rosa and picked up IH-40 headed west. There are several long up-hill pulls along the route, but the truck handled them well. We slowed, of course, but the engine pulled strong and we climbed each hill like an obstacle set before us. At the top of each hill, triumphant, we accelerated back to highway speed and made miles.

We stopped for the night in Grants and I found a Super 8 that hosts pets as well as people. It was ready for a break and I know both Wife and Young Son were ready too.

We headed out again Sunday morning, earlier but not early. It was another long day, but the western landscape sure helped my tired old eyes. The miles were just hard. I could see how they weighed on Young Son, who didn’t really want to leave Lubbock. Everything he knows is there since he’s lived there since he was about two-years old.

Wife, exhausted, drifted in and out of sleep. She was nervous about the large truck with the auto transporter carrying the Bimmer behind us. But, I’ve driven trailers off and on all my life and know how they handle. I also am familiar with heavy trucks and remember that it takes time to start and stop. It’s hard for her to remember that experience and it showed. She was pretty panicky a couple of times, usually on waking from sleep when the truck moved as I maneuvered it.

Sunday evening found is in Las Vegas. I thought about stopping for the night on the north side, but it was still early and there was some light left. So, I decided to try for Tonopah.

That was a bad decision. As darkness fell, I found my eyes very tired. The drive was just hard. So, exhausted, I pulled into the Motel 6 in Beatty, Nevada. I tried to line up behind the parked vehicles, but a fire plug was in the way and I couldn’t get the angle right. So, I backed up, panicking Wife, and pulled over to the side.

Fortunately, they also hosted pets as well as people, so I checked in and we hauled our stuff to the room. For a Motel 6, it was really clean and I was just glad to be out of the truck. We watched a little TV and crashed.

Monday morning, after our normal ablutions we walked over to the Stagecoach Casino and entered Rita’s Cafe. Breakfast was good and reasonably-priced. The coffee was passable and certainly better than none. We chatted over food and then headed back for the truck and the road.

Six hours later we dropped off the auto transport, after unloading the Bimmer, and drove in-caravan to the house. There we began the process of unloading the truck. It wasn’t easy because we have some heavy furniture. But, my sons and I got most of the furniture unloaded before I had enough.

We relaxed for a couple of hours and made arrangements to sleep. It was good to sleep in my own bed again, here at Home. I can call it Home now because my family is here. It is good to be together again.

I rose at my normal time this morning and drove to work for a meeting. That done, I snagged my paycheck, deposited it at the bank, and picked up (and restarted delivery) of my mail. I drove home and found the boys had most of the boxes unloaded.

Boy were they some stinky boys! It’s hard work and I pitched in. We broke for lunch and then finished up the last two heavy bookcases. The empty truck was a sight. It’s hard to think that just six days ago we were loading it for the trip. Wife and I headed for the motor pool to drop it off and be rid of it, at least for now¹.

All checked out, we drove back home to finish things up for the day.

I had to have some networking equipment to give access to my family. We’ve been cripping by with a four-port router and wired connectivity. I bought an access point and set up access for my family. I still have to configure a couple of computers so everyone has access, but that’s not so hard anymore.

Now I’m just tired. I need to clear some things from my bed because we moved my workroom to the master bedroom for now so Older Son and DiL have a room for themselves.

The hard work of unpacking cartons and stowing our things remains to be done. I have most of my tools in Lubbock and will retrieve those later. I’ll pick up Shadowfax the next trip and ride him here. I’m anxious to have my bike here because the weather is beautiful and there are lots of places to explore.

But, for now, I’m just tired.

¹ There’s another trip coming because some of our stuff remains in Lubbock. I’ll bring that material later this summer.