Corvin graduated in May and has spent his whole summer in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now it’s time for school to start. That means that he and Madison are going to be moving to Savannah, Georgia, for school. The plan on paper is always simple. Get all your stuff inside a U-Haul and drive it to where you’re going, unload, unpack, and start anew. This was not quite going to go that way.
It started with a phone call from Corvin on Thursday evening. He rented a 10′ truck and a trailer to pull his car while they rode together. Unfortunately for his planning, it turns out that the truck was just about the right size for most of Madison’s stuff. That meant that when they got to St. Louis to pick up his stuff, there wouldn’t be enough room for it. After running through all of his options, and a video call with Danelle and I, it was decided there was some room in the truck and we would rent a trailer to pull behind our car like we did moving him out of college. It was all going to work out, but just be a little more expensive.
They arrived in St. Louis mid-afternoon on Friday. We unloaded the car from the dolly and backed it up into the driveway. That would make it easier to re-pack some of the U-Haul with stuff that would not fit in the smaller trailer. But that was a job for Saturday. Luckily for me, I had a canoe race I was helping run that I needed to be at all day Saturday.
While I frolicked around with the race on Saturday, Danelle, Corvin, and Madison worked on picking up the U-Haul trailer to pull behind our car and load it with Corvin’s stuff. Then re-pack parts of the 10′ truck so we would be ready to leave early on Saturday morning. I got home from the event and unpacked the little that I had. That included getting rid of the dry ice that I had left. I put some of it in the sink and ran the water. That made a cool mist and Madison had fun with it.
Then a minor disaster struck. I went out to the car to check out the packing job. There, I found that all Madison’s plants had been sitting in the car with the windows rolled up ALL DAY LONG! All of the plants were wilted from the extreme heat. We were about to save about 70% of the plants by bringing them inside. Her dead aloe plant was exchanged for a thriving one we had at the house. We would get past this, but take extra care of the plants going forward!
Somewhere along the way, we managed to take Madison to Krispy Kreme (her first time) and play with Coatrack.
Saturday, we took off near the same time. Corvin and I were in the U-Haul truck pulling his car. Danelle and Madison in our RAV4 pulling the rest of the stuff. It was an uneventful day for most of the drive. I taught Corvin that the moving truck does actually have cruise control. It turns out that it is governed at 75mph. So if you just floor the pedal, the software keeps you from going any faster. He considers that cheating, I just enjoyed not having to think about my speed. As we approached Atlanta, Madison called her aunt who lives near there. We met them for dinner and had a fantastic time. Danelle and I originally planned to drive about 2 more hours to stay at a hotel, but were easily convinced to stay with the family for the night. This gave us time to talk more and generally relax.
Monday morning, we had a late start probably getting out around 9am. It was decided that Madison would go with me in the RAV4 as it can go faster and I tend to go faster on long trips. After a few missed directions and a U-turn, we were finally on the main highway. In Savannah, we went straight to the city office to get the water service transferred. We couldn’t move in without proof of this. I guess I do drive fast as we arrived at the apartment complex at almost the same time as Corvin and Danelle.
It is now about 1pm and we just got lunch and started moving stuff in. Of course my kids both get apartments on the second floor. I told Corvin that whenever possible, we would move the bigger items first. My theory is that I would continue to get tired as the day goes on. That meant that everything would be nearly as hard as a sofa, but at least I could do it. Ohh heck does getting old happen fast and take you by surprise. I had to stop several times and catch my breath. It was super hot. This included getting lots of extra water as all four of us were soaking wet in our own sweat!
Moved in, we returned the U-Hauls to an empty parking lot and took photos as nobody was there. Then we were off to Wal-Mart. There, Danelle and I would spend a small fortune stocking their kitchen for the first time and getting things like a fireproof locking box for their valuable papers. Adulting is hard and expensive, but we took a small chunk out of it for them. They had hoped to make dinner for us in their new apartment, but after some intense discussion, it was decided I would pay for dinner out as they were far from unpacked.
What a relief to get food and relax after this day. We wanted to stay longer, but needed to give them space to unpack. Plus Danelle and I had more to do. We then drove nearly 4 hours back to southern Atlanta for the night.
Tuesday morning, we met Danelle’s friend Chris (Kal) for breakfast. I don’t have many two-hour breakfast meetings, but this was one of them. It was nice to meet him. Plus Danelle had never seen him in person before. Then after breakfast, it was time to go to St. Louis. We had painting to do and jobs to get back to. We made it home around 9pm exhausted. It stinks to get to the coast and back in 3 days and not see the ocean, but family comes first.
Hogan (with finishing touches by Danelle)