An Epic Journey (hee hee)

Here it is. The story of our move to Utah.

Packing was going well. We only had a few more things to pack, or so I thought. We had good help from some dear friends, and the odds and ends were all that was left. Two of the kids crashed pretty hard. Moving is tough.

SO...those odds and ends took us until 2:30 am. Gross. We got up at 4 and were on the road at 4:30. Brian was driving the truck pulling our Civic, and I was driving the van with the kids. The truck was big. Really big. And Brian was driving SLOW. At one point on the freeway I called to ask, "is this the plan? To go 45 the entire way?" A few sarcastic remarks later, he sped up to 55. :)

Anyway, an hour or so into the journey, the back tire of the trailer blows...Brian and I pull over, and immediately notice the trailer is on fire. HELLO!! On fire, I say. I am freaking out. Brian calls U-Haul for road assistance as I am trying to flag someone down for help. All the while I keep thinking of 24(the t.v. show) and how a fire is probably going to get to my car on top and ignite the whole thing, blowing us all to pieces! Why isn't anyone stopping?

Thankfully, I notice the fire has died down and looks completely out. Seconds later, new flames burst open, bigger and stronger than before. This time, I remember that we brought lots of water in the van, so I run get them out and pour them on the fire. After 7 bottles were emptied, the fire was out. During this time, Brian had called 911, so the police and fire truck came...to a fire we had already put out. Oops. But you never know, right?

The police officer wants to get us off the side of the road, so I take all the kids and drive to the McDonalds about 8 miles up the road. I leave Brian there to wait for help from Uhaul. To give you a time reference, the tire blew about 5:30 am, and the Uhaul repair guy came about 8:30 am. He tried to fix the tire, but couldn't get it to work properly, so he needed to replace the entire trailer. Brian then unloaded the trailer, the guy left to get a new trailer, and came back about 10:30. Brian reloaded the Civic onto the trailer, checked it out, and we got back onto the road at 11 am.

Meanwhile, a McDonalds without a playplace for about 4 hours is not as much fun as you would think. We ordered food and ate, went to the bathroom, and then tried to occupy ourselves. The kids started playing with the automatic doors (running out one and into the other). At one point, a worker told them to stop playing with the doors. Seriously? I let them keep playing.

Ok. So we finally pull into Las Vegas at 3 pm. 3 PM!!! We stopped to get lunch at In-n-Out, where some basketball tournament was happening and also eating. It took us an hour to eat. It was the kind of crowd where I was stalking a table so we could sit..."are you leaving? No, don't worry about the mess, we love to eat with a mess! We just want your table!!"

We ate and got back on the road. We stopped at the Pilot gas station a few miles down the road to get gas. I stopped and pulled in. Where was Brian? First of all, he turned the wrong way off the exit. He had to find a place to turn our Amazon truck and trailer around, then get to the gas station. At that point, there was a sign for trucks to gas up. He went there. Wrong again. Only diesel. It was pull through only, and there was a truck in front and behind him. He waited a good 20 minutes, when the front truck pulled up just enough for him to start gassing up. There was a sliver of a space to try a squeeze by, which Brian did. Well, he got the trailer stuck against the concrete slab. Unbelievable.

I haven't seen Brian now for a while. He calls and asks for my help. I drive over and see the mess. What do I know about trailers? Anyway, we try this and that, and seem to be making NO progress. Finally, a trucker who has taken sympathy on us (or just wants to make fun of us, which he does often) starts giving Brian directions. It is working! But not quickly enough. The guy signals for Brian to get out and he gets us out of there eventually.

We pull out of Vegas at 5 pm. The rest of the trip is really quite boring. We were guzzling caffinated sodas, chewing bubble gum, stopping to pee (frequently from all that soda), and washing faces often. Anything we could do to stay awake.

I called my sister in Springville and asked if we could stay with her. We were dead tired and I could barely keep my eyes open as it was. We pulled the truck in at about 11:30pm and just crashed in her house.

I'll have to continue the rest tomorrow. I still cannot believe it happened, even as I write this.