A new low for the Allains

OMG! Look at this weather we're having right now!



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About our move (we're now in Dayton, OH):

Let's set up the situation: It's Sunday the 14th, I am driving the XTerra with Morpheus (the cat), towing a car carrier from U-Haul upon which sits the Mazda. Michel is following in the armada, with the kids and the dogs, towing the boat loaded down with more stuff. We are finally leaving at 4pm on Sunday with an expected arrival time of about 11pm in Dayton at Uncle Zdzis' and Aunt Maryann's house. They are graciously allowing us to stay there the night before closing. I would just like to point out that they have been GREAT to us! They put us up while we were house hunting, with comfort, wifi, and a printer, with which we staged our house hunting tours. They also watched the children while we were speed-hunting with the agent, which made things incredibly quick and peaceful. Plus the kids were playing in their "play-basement" instead of being bored out of their skulls. Just the simplicity of not having to take them in and out of car-seats the whole time was alone worth it!

One last side note: we have made several family road-trips - including a 24 hour drive to visit the Smiths in Oklahoma for Christmas last year - as a family with nowhere near this kind of trouble.

So, on with the road-trip from hell:

Almost immediately I'm pretty sure the cat has peed on his bed in the carrier. It's not bothering me, so I just keep going. 20 minutes out of State College, Michel calls on the cell phone to say that Penny needs to pee and is whining, and oh yeah, the tire on the car carrier from Uhaul looks a little flat so we agree to stop at the next exit. I was curious how this happened because I performed a complete "pre-flight" inspection of the carrier and boat trailer to make sure that the trip would be safe. Nothing appeared amiss. This is rural Pennsylvania, already, so exits are few and far between. So we agree that we should pull over at the next exit and check the tire. We never got there. I'm messing with the GPS when there's a ton of vibration. I look in the mirrors, left side fine, right side.... I see bits of rubber flying. The rear-right tire (carrier has 4 tires) has blown. I look up just in time to see a sign saying we're 2 miles from the next exit. So I slow down to about 30 but keep going on 3 tires to a gas station just off the freeway. I stop off to the side in what turns out to be gravel and mud. At least as much as it can be mud in 30 degree weather. I call U-Haul, they relay a 1 hour show time for the truck. We get some sandwiches at the gas station Subway since there is NOTHING around this exit other than the gas station. I called just after an hour since no one showed. They report that he's on the way. Don't they always say that? 10 minutes after I get off the phone they show. Another 1.5 hrs later (2.5hrs) we're back on the road. It was the rear tire, so likely not debris, but a failed tire. It's the first blown tire I've ever had in 17 years of driving. So now our 11pm arrival is 130am. At least we filled up on gas again...

It's while we're getting gas that Morpheus has diarrhea. I've let him roam the truck since he's much quieter when he's not caged (constant MROWR MROWR MROWR). I've given him a sedative for the trip, and it's just now kicking in, apparently with a bit of a muscle relaxant at the same time. He's coughing and sputtering (from the rear) and we're trying to prevent any further mess. Luckily he's only gotten the cup holder, not the drinks themselves. His original pad was already messed on so we put a small rug that didn't get packed in his carrier in case he goes again. Arrival now: 0200. At least we're back on the road again...

It's not 30 minutes more on the road when he has diarrhea again, and this time he empties himself in the carrier. Silently. My first sign is the aroma now wafting through the cabin. I figure we've just gotten things settled, we're back on the road, I can deal with it for a while. I roll down the windows part way, crank up the heater (since it's now dark, it's 30 degrees outside, and I'm doing 65mph), and set my resolve. I try to carry on for a while as we drive through a long tunnel but it's clear that this approach is not working. I can't stay warm AND breathe that clean mountain air at the same time. I call Michel and tell her I tried, really I did. We pull over and spend 30 minutes cleaning it up. You see, he turned so that his deposit would be at the opening of the carrier, so we can't get him out in his sedated state without making him messy, too. I take the whole thing out and disassemble it to use the gas station blue paper towels and the clorox wipes from our box of cleaning stuff (that was in the boat, of course) to get things back to normal. 0230.

We continue for a couple hours before Balen has a bloody nose. He's 2, so it's a huge deal, screaming and crying. Luckily there's an exit in a quarter mile. We pull off and just park in the area between the off-ramp and the road with the hazards on. After about 30 minutes dealing with nose and getting things ready to go, I take a wizz next to the truck to stay out of view. Just as I'm finishing (out of sight) a cop stops and asks, in a very annoyed voice, "whats going on?" I tell him about the nose, and he says, "Okay" and drives off. Arrival now 3am.

We stop at a gas station that turns out to be closed, and Michel informs me that she almost ran into the back of me because the brake lights and blinkers aren't working on the car carrier. Turns out it blew a fuse in the xterra, a first in the five years we've owned it.

This "7 hour drive" turned into 11 hours.

So 3am is when we get to my uncle's house. By the time things are settled with kids and clothes, it's 4am, and we have to get up in 3 hours to get everyone ready so we can do our final walk through at the house and then go to closing at 10am. So we get up, bleary eyed and exhausted and get everything ready. But wait, where's Abigail's shoes? WTF? They're absolutely NOWHERE. Now she only has slippers to wear in 25 degree weather. We're late to the walk-through and closing; telling our story to anyone who'll listen in amazement. We're in surprisingly good spirits though, because we're very happy to be ending up in a great house again, after 16 months in a poor house. We own this one, too.

I call the movers to let them know we've closed and they say they can start offloading this afternoon like they said they should be able to. Turns out I called him right as he's thinking HE's got a flat tire! Later we find out it was a broken cab suspension item that is basically like having a blown strut which leaves them bouncing around rather uncomfortably, so they order the part at the truck stop they're at. 120 mile round trip for the guy getting the parts, turns out to be the wrong part. So now they're not delivering til 8am tuesday.

Then we come home and the cat has diarrhea again, and it's bloody. Two pillows ruined, so now we need new pillows... and our house with brand new carpets has it's first pet mess, and we've not even had a day in the house. We brought him to a vet that day to find it was stress-induced from the move, probably combined with a change in diet (ran out of the old stuff, bought Science Diet to last through the move), and he's ok now. He even had a fever. He's 9.5 - we got him when Michel was pregnant with Abigail - but has been through 5 moves with me already, so it's a surprise that he would be stressed out this time.

Monday night we go to JC Penney's to buy some shoes for the girl, we get the shoes, see Linen's N Things is going out of business, which is perfect for stocking an empty house when everything is 50-60% off. When we get home we discovered my daughter is without her gloves. We go back into the store to find them. I then discover I don't have my gloves. Go to Penney's to find them, they don't have it, but they do have my daughter's earmuffs. We go to dinner and discover we've left our son's diaper bag. Seriously!?

Move in goes without a hitch, at least. Cable install goes perfect. I now get 30mbps down, 768kbps up, according to speedtest.net. This is with Time Warner. Comcast only gave me 11 down, same up; but this is only $90 per month with their fastest tier of internet with digital tv and HD, and comcast was charging $150. Hells yeah! So things are nearly at a normal pace and stress level.

Now I have to wire the home network and get it all up to my standards, configure the HTPC for the local channels, hook up the consoles; and, of course, unpack. Things are going smoothly, if slowly, since we're making sure we put everything in the right place the first time.

Good times!