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::