Distance Traveled: 558 mi
Average Speed (moving): 59.5 mph
Total Moving Time: 9:23 hrs
Maximum Speed: 71.4 mph
Our fourth day was pretty uneventful, thankfully. We called Penske service first thing in the morning to get our headlight fixed, and while we were waiting we had breakfast and took our showers at the hotel. Ultimately, we got out of Amarillo about 9:40--not bad for having arrived past midnight!
Jen and I split driving pretty evenly today. I took the first two hours, she took the next two, etc. After the long day yesterday, we were pretty brief with our stops. We had lunch at Subway with our first fuel fillup, and had dinner at McDonalds (Jen's choice) with the second fill-up. As a result, we made good time, despite brief traffic outside of Oklahoma City and some modest backups during rush hour in Tulsa. We ultimately pulled into our hotel in Springfield at a bit before 9pm. The biggest drama of the day occurred in the parking lot, where I managed to back over one of the pet bag dispensers they had outside of the parking lot. :(
Tomorrow we're going to try to shave another hour off of our start time and leave by 8:30 or so. That's 5:30am Phoenix time! We probably still won't make it to Cincinnati until pretty late at night, but at least we'll get there assuming all goes well. -justin
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Move: Day 3
Update is posted late because of no wireless in hotel last night.
Day 3 Statistics:
Total Miles Traveled: 607 miles
Overall average speed: 57.9 mph
Moving average speed: 59.4 mph
Most of the day was uneventful. We had lunch at Cracker Barrell in
For dinner, we stopped in Tucumcari. Approaching the exit, we saw a billboard for McDonalds that said "Best Service in town". That should've been a sign to us to keep on going and not stop. We first decided to stop at a Chinese restaurant. We walked in and the restaurant was completely empty except for the hostess/waitress and one customer standing at the front desk waiting for his order. The hostess immediately sat us with menus and then we waited. We could see her from where we were sitting and she kept getting calls for delivery orders and who knows what else. After about 20 minutes without even giving our drink order and we noticed at least 3 other orders were going to the kitchen before we'd get a chance to place ours, we just got up and left. After that experience, we knew we wanted something quick because it was already around 8pm and we were losing daylight quickly with about 2.5 more hours of driving left. So we stopped at Pizza Hut. We went to the front counter and stood in line for a bit then realized they had servers at the tables so we sat down. Then we waited. Finally, we went back up to the counter and placed our order up there. Then we waited. About 25 minutes later (when he told us the pizza would take 15 minutes) Jen went back up to the counter to check and see how it was coming. After a few minutes, Jen interrupted the conversation between the waitresses just hanging out there and after acting majorly inconvenienced, one of them turned to look at the kitchen and there was no pizza there waiting. So then she just started chatting with another employee and we decided to leave. Finally, we walked across the parking lot to A&W for quick burgers so we could get back on the road. If you are ever passing through Tucumcari, TX just keep on driving!
By the time we got back on the road it was after 9pm and it was dark outside. We drove for a bit and then we saw a cop who pulled us over. There was one sign when we entered the state about trucks having a lower speed limit than cars, but no other truck was following it so we were just keeping up with traffic. Plus, it was only one sign. Luckily, that wasn't the reason we were pulled over. The cop notified us that one of our headlights was burnt out. He left us off with a warning and we were only about 15 minutes from Amarillo which was our destination, so we continued on.
We had picked up a brochure at one of our stops along the way with some hotel coupons. We decided to give the Fifth Seasons Inn a shot. They had rooms advertised for $38/night with a free Hot breakfast. The picture in the coupon looked nice too. The main hotel was very nice, however the rooms at the $38/night rate were the ones in the adjoining motel at the back of the building. It was kind of deceiving. We approached our room and the door was ajar. That really freaked Jen out. In addition to the hallway room, there was also a door to the outside as well as a door to the adjoining room. The room was very old and not the nicest we've seen.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Move - Days 1 and 2
While Mom was busy working through her fiasco on Thursday and Friday, Dad was at home packing. Friday afternoon we picked up the Penske Truck, and so I needed to empty the storage closet we were renting before the movers arrived at the house Saturday morning. If 2 hours of heavy lifting in 107 degree weather isn't enough to convince you that it was time to move away from Phoenix, nothing is!
Day 2 began early--the movers arrived at 6am (and I was up until midnight packing...), and they were awesome. If you happen to be in Arizona and need a truck filled, I highly recommend AZ Best On Time Movers. Best $200 I've ever spent--we started with a house full of boxes and still-assembled furniture, and by 8:45 the truck was filled and secure. I could never get the truck packed as well as they did, and even if I could, it would have taken an entire day (in hellish heat) to get it done.
Mom got back in town at 9, and we ended up staying at the house doing final packing (there's always something else to put in a box!) and cleaning until 3. Amazing how long that stuff takes. But anyway, 3 hours late, we passed off the keys to the new owner (Mom got a kiss! No wait--two kisses! Romanians are a loving bunch I guess), we were off!
Things went well for about 30 minutes. Then, the truck started to sputter. Basically, as we accelerated moderately, the engine would occasionally not have power for a half a second. This happened three times just outside of Phoenix, and then another 6 times within a few seconds about 15 minutes later. We stopped in Black Canyon City and called roadside service. It only took them 45 minutes to get there (in the meantime, we had an absolutely terrible dinner at the 4B Cafe--Mom's roast beef was actually green), but the guy wasn't able to find anything. So we decided to keep on going and just see how far the truck would take us. Surprisingly, it behaved very well up the steep inclines to Flagstaff, so we're hoping those problems won't surface again. Our current thought is that the truck was having trouble deciding what gear to be in--and maybe now I better understand how much gas to give it at a given speed.
We ended up staying in Flagstaff, which is pretty darn far from our original goal of Albuquerque. But late departures and truck troubles will do that for you. But it's ok--we'll just have to make up time over the next couple of days--we had a lot of buffer worked into this trip anyway. In the meantime, Flagstaff is absolutely gorgeous tonight, and Mom and I got a chance to chill in the hot tub for a few minutes before coming back to the room, writing these posts, and now--falling asleep!
::pushes publish, shuts laptop::
Day 2 began early--the movers arrived at 6am (and I was up until midnight packing...), and they were awesome. If you happen to be in Arizona and need a truck filled, I highly recommend AZ Best On Time Movers. Best $200 I've ever spent--we started with a house full of boxes and still-assembled furniture, and by 8:45 the truck was filled and secure. I could never get the truck packed as well as they did, and even if I could, it would have taken an entire day (in hellish heat) to get it done.
Mom got back in town at 9, and we ended up staying at the house doing final packing (there's always something else to put in a box!) and cleaning until 3. Amazing how long that stuff takes. But anyway, 3 hours late, we passed off the keys to the new owner (Mom got a kiss! No wait--two kisses! Romanians are a loving bunch I guess), we were off!
Things went well for about 30 minutes. Then, the truck started to sputter. Basically, as we accelerated moderately, the engine would occasionally not have power for a half a second. This happened three times just outside of Phoenix, and then another 6 times within a few seconds about 15 minutes later. We stopped in Black Canyon City and called roadside service. It only took them 45 minutes to get there (in the meantime, we had an absolutely terrible dinner at the 4B Cafe--Mom's roast beef was actually green), but the guy wasn't able to find anything. So we decided to keep on going and just see how far the truck would take us. Surprisingly, it behaved very well up the steep inclines to Flagstaff, so we're hoping those problems won't surface again. Our current thought is that the truck was having trouble deciding what gear to be in--and maybe now I better understand how much gas to give it at a given speed.We ended up staying in Flagstaff, which is pretty darn far from our original goal of Albuquerque. But late departures and truck troubles will do that for you. But it's ok--we'll just have to make up time over the next couple of days--we had a lot of buffer worked into this trip anyway. In the meantime, Flagstaff is absolutely gorgeous tonight, and Mom and I got a chance to chill in the hot tub for a few minutes before coming back to the room, writing these posts, and now--falling asleep!
::pushes publish, shuts laptop::
The Move: Days 0-1
This next series of posts will chronicle our move from Phoenix to Pittsburgh.
Let's start with Day 0. Read on and you'll understand why I call it Day 0. Paige and I had a 3:15pm direct flight booked from Phoenix to Pittsburgh arriving in Pittsburgh around 9pm. We purchased the direct flight because Paige is just too much to deal with in a layover situation. Plus, the last time we flew to Pittsburgh, she threw up mid-flight. To help prevent the flight sickness, I gave Paige a dose of Benedryl about 30-45 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart. This would give it time to kick in by the time we took off. About 5 minutes after I gave Paige the Benedryl, the airline announces that we have a maintenance delay and they will have more information in 15 minutes. We waited and waited. every once and awhile they would make an announcement to check back every 15 minutes in case there was an update. But there rarely were updates. About a 45-60 minutes after I had given Paige her Benedryl, she was asleep in her carseat.
Eventually, they announced the issue was with the radar and the flight would be delayed until 5pm. At this point I was a wreck. Here Paige was sleeping off her Benedryl and would be at risk to get sick on the plane. To make a story short, every hour or so they would update the delay and add on another hour or 2. They seemed pretty certain that this flight was going to happen as soon as that part came in. They gave us a little snack tray around 4pm and then issued food vouchers for $10 each around 6:30pm. The families flying with small children started gathering in the open space in front of the desk, so we started camping over there so Paige could at least play with the other kids. She was doing amazingly well.
My return flight after dropping Paige off with Grandma was to depart Pittsburgh at 7am. Once the flight was delayed to 10pm, I talked to the gate agent and told him if this flight was delayed one more time then I was going to miss my return flight. All he could say was that the flight was currently on schedule to depart at 10pm and he knew nothing else. Shortly after 9pm, they pushed the flight to 11pm and told us that they have been given permission to put us on alternate flights if we chose to do so. So I got in line...and waited. Then the display screen was turned off and they started pulling people from the waiting area and taking us to different counters. Our flight had been officially canceled.
While I was waiting to see what was going to happen next, a girl had come over and started playing with Paige and said she could watch her for a few if I needed to work with the gate agents. After sitting with everyone waiting on this flight for over 7 hours now, we were a sort of family. Finally, we managed our way down to the main ticketing counters and they re-booked our flight to be on Southwest for Friday at 2:40pm. My return flight also was changed to 7:50am on Saturday. By the time we got home, Paige didn't make it to bed until around 11:30pm. It was a very exhausting day for the 2 of us when nothing really happened at all. That's why I call it day 0!
Justin on the other hand, was very productive on Thursday getting his office cleaned up and getting more packing done at home. On Friday morning, it worked out that my flight was in the afternoon so that we could get the rental car, the moving truck and my car dropped off for shipping before my flight left! After Justin took Paige and I to the airport, he headed off to clean out our storage unit.
Paige did great on the Southwest flights on Friday. We had a layover in Chicago, because there were no direct flights available. Both on Thursday and Friday, she just went with the flow and had a great time watching and riding on the airplanes. Her favorite part was landing when she would clap and exclaim "I did it" as if she was responsible for landing the plane.
We arrived in Pittsburgh around 1am on Saturday morning (EST time). The wing of the airport our gate was in was deserted. Paige and I were the last ones off the plane and as we walked through the dark terminal, she would ask "where did everybody go?" and then answer herself "everybody go night-night".
Let's start with Day 0. Read on and you'll understand why I call it Day 0. Paige and I had a 3:15pm direct flight booked from Phoenix to Pittsburgh arriving in Pittsburgh around 9pm. We purchased the direct flight because Paige is just too much to deal with in a layover situation. Plus, the last time we flew to Pittsburgh, she threw up mid-flight. To help prevent the flight sickness, I gave Paige a dose of Benedryl about 30-45 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart. This would give it time to kick in by the time we took off. About 5 minutes after I gave Paige the Benedryl, the airline announces that we have a maintenance delay and they will have more information in 15 minutes. We waited and waited. every once and awhile they would make an announcement to check back every 15 minutes in case there was an update. But there rarely were updates. About a 45-60 minutes after I had given Paige her Benedryl, she was asleep in her carseat.
Eventually, they announced the issue was with the radar and the flight would be delayed until 5pm. At this point I was a wreck. Here Paige was sleeping off her Benedryl and would be at risk to get sick on the plane. To make a story short, every hour or so they would update the delay and add on another hour or 2. They seemed pretty certain that this flight was going to happen as soon as that part came in. They gave us a little snack tray around 4pm and then issued food vouchers for $10 each around 6:30pm. The families flying with small children started gathering in the open space in front of the desk, so we started camping over there so Paige could at least play with the other kids. She was doing amazingly well.
My return flight after dropping Paige off with Grandma was to depart Pittsburgh at 7am. Once the flight was delayed to 10pm, I talked to the gate agent and told him if this flight was delayed one more time then I was going to miss my return flight. All he could say was that the flight was currently on schedule to depart at 10pm and he knew nothing else. Shortly after 9pm, they pushed the flight to 11pm and told us that they have been given permission to put us on alternate flights if we chose to do so. So I got in line...and waited. Then the display screen was turned off and they started pulling people from the waiting area and taking us to different counters. Our flight had been officially canceled.
While I was waiting to see what was going to happen next, a girl had come over and started playing with Paige and said she could watch her for a few if I needed to work with the gate agents. After sitting with everyone waiting on this flight for over 7 hours now, we were a sort of family. Finally, we managed our way down to the main ticketing counters and they re-booked our flight to be on Southwest for Friday at 2:40pm. My return flight also was changed to 7:50am on Saturday. By the time we got home, Paige didn't make it to bed until around 11:30pm. It was a very exhausting day for the 2 of us when nothing really happened at all. That's why I call it day 0!
Justin on the other hand, was very productive on Thursday getting his office cleaned up and getting more packing done at home. On Friday morning, it worked out that my flight was in the afternoon so that we could get the rental car, the moving truck and my car dropped off for shipping before my flight left! After Justin took Paige and I to the airport, he headed off to clean out our storage unit.
Paige did great on the Southwest flights on Friday. We had a layover in Chicago, because there were no direct flights available. Both on Thursday and Friday, she just went with the flow and had a great time watching and riding on the airplanes. Her favorite part was landing when she would clap and exclaim "I did it" as if she was responsible for landing the plane.
We arrived in Pittsburgh around 1am on Saturday morning (EST time). The wing of the airport our gate was in was deserted. Paige and I were the last ones off the plane and as we walked through the dark terminal, she would ask "where did everybody go?" and then answer herself "everybody go night-night".
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Cute things
The other night as part of Paige's bedtime routine, I had brushed her teeth and then we were reading a book about animals. There's a big foldout in the middle of the book of an alligator (I think it actually might be a crocodile, but she calls it an alligator). When we looked at the picture (she loves this picture and just stares at it) I was pointing out the alligators teeth. She pulled the book closer to her and looked at his teeth. Then she reached over and picked up the toothbrush and starting brushing the alligator's teeth!
This morning on the way to work, Paige was talking to herself as normal. Then she started counting. She can now count all the way up to 8! It sounds kinda like this:
"one, doo, free, four, five, dix, nemen, eight!"
Paige absolutely loves these cereal fruit bars that we have. She's been eating about one a day. It got to the point that no matter what time of day or what you are doing, if you ask Paige what she wants, her response will be "Ootbar". She's actually become very insistent on it no matter what meal we are trying to serve, she will push away the food and ask for "ootbar". We're trying to break her from this addiction, so for the last 2 days she has been going into withdraw with no fruitbar. Maybe tonight we'll give one to her as a special treat.
This morning on the way to work, Paige was talking to herself as normal. Then she started counting. She can now count all the way up to 8! It sounds kinda like this:
"one, doo, free, four, five, dix, nemen, eight!"
Paige absolutely loves these cereal fruit bars that we have. She's been eating about one a day. It got to the point that no matter what time of day or what you are doing, if you ask Paige what she wants, her response will be "Ootbar". She's actually become very insistent on it no matter what meal we are trying to serve, she will push away the food and ask for "ootbar". We're trying to break her from this addiction, so for the last 2 days she has been going into withdraw with no fruitbar. Maybe tonight we'll give one to her as a special treat.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Preparing for the move
We only have one more weekend left to get things ready for the big move. Unfortunately, that means this past weekend was pretty hectic. Luckily on Saturday, Paige took a 3 hour nap. We got a ton of stuff packed and I really started to feel like we were making progress. We also went to storage on Saturday (and Sunday) to go through some of the things in there that we'll want to sell this coming weekend at our moving sale. The more we can part with, the better. We are a bit concerned everything might not fit in the truck. So far, through ads on Craigslist and to ASU grads, we've already sold our grill, entertainment center and curio cabinet. We also sold the fishtank to the new buyer of the house. (Update: we also have sold the birdbath and our loveseat to buyers from craigslist).
I think Paige is starting to feel the effects of the move. She seems to be needing a little bit more attention than normal. And if she's not getting attention, then she starts getting into trouble. If there's one thing in the room that you don't want her to touch, she'll be all over it. The other day she managed to open the oven door while I was baking a casserole (update: to clarify, she only got the door about part-way open, and we were on her in a second!)! So now we don't let her go into the kitchen if we can help it. When we were at storage this weekend, she would take off running just so we would chase her. It's scary there too, because you can't see around the buildings, so if she gets too far from us she could run out in front of a car.
Father's day was very low key. When dad woke up, we gave him his presents. He got a bike seat for Paige to go on the back of his bike, a wireless controller for the wii, and a new tie. After gifts, we went out to breakfast and then headed right over to storage before it started getting hot out.
Next weekend will be our moving sale and we'll finish packing just about everything up! Time is going by really fast.
I think Paige is starting to feel the effects of the move. She seems to be needing a little bit more attention than normal. And if she's not getting attention, then she starts getting into trouble. If there's one thing in the room that you don't want her to touch, she'll be all over it. The other day she managed to open the oven door while I was baking a casserole (update: to clarify, she only got the door about part-way open, and we were on her in a second!)! So now we don't let her go into the kitchen if we can help it. When we were at storage this weekend, she would take off running just so we would chase her. It's scary there too, because you can't see around the buildings, so if she gets too far from us she could run out in front of a car.
Father's day was very low key. When dad woke up, we gave him his presents. He got a bike seat for Paige to go on the back of his bike, a wireless controller for the wii, and a new tie. After gifts, we went out to breakfast and then headed right over to storage before it started getting hot out.
Next weekend will be our moving sale and we'll finish packing just about everything up! Time is going by really fast.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Congratulations!
It took a lot of work,
Time, and persistence, too,
To achieve the important goal
That you set out to do.
That effort now pays off,
The world now offers more.
To you, new graduate,
It opens a special door.
Congratulations Justin,
You did it all; you made it through.
You took your first step toward success,
And we're so proud of you!
By Joanna Fuchs
Time, and persistence, too,
To achieve the important goal
That you set out to do.
That effort now pays off,
The world now offers more.
To you, new graduate,
It opens a special door.
Congratulations Justin,
You did it all; you made it through.
You took your first step toward success,
And we're so proud of you!
By Joanna Fuchs
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Hide and Seek
Paige has an obsession with doors. She loves to close and open, open and close them over and over again. She just recently started playing a hide and seek game. If we're all in one room together she'll sneak out the door and close it with us still in the room saying "bye-bye mama dada". Then she runs and hides (usually to the kitchen). Then of course we come out of the room and start looking for her. If we even get remotely close to where she is or call out her name, she gets so excited that we're looking and she lets out a great big squeal! It's so adorable.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Our New House
Technically, it's not going to be "our" house since we'll only be renting it, and it's definitely not a "new" house. We found a cute little 3-bedroom, 1.5 bathroom house for rent in upper Cresson. Really nice neighborhood, and it's a charming little house. The bedrooms are tiny as all heck, so we're going to have to use two of them as a "suite" of sorts...one for the bed (which will barely fit), and one for our dressers and a computer desk. Paige gets the third bedroom. Unfortunately, that means no guest room, but there's a bed and breakfast a mile down the hill that looks pretty nice.
The house is in great shape, which we couldn't say for a lot of the places we looked at--some were real dumps. This place was completely remodeled about 9 years ago, and they're repainting it and replacing the carpets for us. Windows and such look good, and there's blown-in insulation plus a "new" (ca. 2000 or so) furnace, so it should be fairly energy efficient. And it's in a neighborhood where we'd seriously consider buying a (bigger) house, so this will be a good chance to try out the area. We really like that it's ~12 minutes from campus, and only ~15 minutes from Altoona's shopping district. And the fact that it's a stand-alone house is a big deal, as we're pretty sensitive to (i.e. easily annoyed by) noise from neighbors.
We didn't get any pictures of the interior, but here are some of the exterior. Click on them for a larger view. And check out Picasa for more pictures from our PA trip.
The house is in great shape, which we couldn't say for a lot of the places we looked at--some were real dumps. This place was completely remodeled about 9 years ago, and they're repainting it and replacing the carpets for us. Windows and such look good, and there's blown-in insulation plus a "new" (ca. 2000 or so) furnace, so it should be fairly energy efficient. And it's in a neighborhood where we'd seriously consider buying a (bigger) house, so this will be a good chance to try out the area. We really like that it's ~12 minutes from campus, and only ~15 minutes from Altoona's shopping district. And the fact that it's a stand-alone house is a big deal, as we're pretty sensitive to (i.e. easily annoyed by) noise from neighbors.
We didn't get any pictures of the interior, but here are some of the exterior. Click on them for a larger view. And check out Picasa for more pictures from our PA trip.
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