We Made It!

We've successfully made the move. Monica's mother, Suzanne, came and watched the baby while we packed up the house. Her brother, Jeremy, came and took charge of packing the truck. The ladies flew to Madison, and Jeremy and I - and my dad - drove out here. If I had a laptop I could have live blogged the whole thing, but it was probably more efficient and less annoying to everyone around that I just did my part to help the move.

Here's the recap of the drive in the car and the moving van. (This is a lift from an email to South Pas Ian.)

"We left South Pasadena and drove up to my dad's place in St. George, UT. He took us out to dinner at the Elks Club. My brother in law thought that was a real hoot. We left Utah on Thursday intending to drive all the way to Cheyenne, Wyoming, but after a few hours we decided to take it easy and stop early since our next planned stop after Wyoming was Omaha, NE (an easy drive from anywhere in Wyoming). We stayed over night in Rawlins, WY, about a hundred miles short of Cheyenne.

We woke up on Friday to snow and wind. We were able to drive about 60 miles to Laramie, Wyoming before the highway patrol closed interstate 80 due to high wind and ice on the road. Jeremy said that the short drive from Rawlins to Laramie instantly made his "top 5 of his most harrowing drives ever." It certainly was tough. We were driving at 40 mph at some points because visibility was so low. We stopped in Laramie and had breakfast. It was only about 10 when we stopped. It really made my father upset. He couldn't quite accept it. Regardless we sat around the restaurant and played cards for a couple hours. We kept one ear on the highway advisory radio channel, but nothing changed. Finally my dad drove up to the highway and he saw some trucks moving (semi-trucks had lined themselves up on the shoulder of the interstate, waiting for the road to open). He thought that the road had opened. We drove ourselves up there, but the road wasn't open yet. We parked at Wal-Mart and killed some more time there. Then we parked the moving truck and the car in the line of semi-trucks lined up on the road. And waited. I read. We listened to the advisory channel in the car repeating the same messages over and over.

About three o'clock Jeremy and I started trying to talk my dad into giving up for the day, getting a hotel room and maybe seeing a movie, but he refused. He was convinced that the road would open soon. His misunderstanding was that he thought it was the snow that was causing the problems. He thought that they would have the interstate cleared of snow soon and that we could pass. However the problem wasn't the snow. It was the wind. Up to 70 mph according to the advisory channel message. And it wasn't letting up. The trick is that there is kind of high pass on our route on the interstate between Laramie and Cheyenne. The wind in this area gets up very strong.

We drove to the last exit before the road closure and could clearly see the highway patrol car sitting in the middle of the road with its lights on. Then we circled around and got back in line behind the semitrucks. Eventually, sometime after six oclock, we convinced my dad that we had to get a room. It would be dark between eight or nine, and even if the road was opened it still wouldn't be actually safe. And neither of us wanted to drive in those conditions in the dark. He finally agreed. We got a hotel room. According to the radio the road coming west (opposite the way we were traveling) opened about 8, and the road going east opened about nine, well after dark. Thank god, we didn't try it. It would have been scary as hell. Jeremy and I ended up going out for a beer and watching Atlanta beat Boston in game 6. Downtown Laramie is pretty happening. It's a college town so there were lots of people out on a Friday night.

The next morning, Saturday, my dad woke us up at 4:30 am. We were on the road at, I remember, 5:22 am. Light, but not the disc of the sun, was just appearing over the mountain pass that we were going to travel over. We got going with the intention to try to get all the way to Madison in one day. Dad had a plane to catch Sunday, and Jeremy's wife, Tracey, was having a birthday and we needed to get back to have lunch with her. We'd have to leave Wyoming, cross the length of Nebraska, cross Iowa, and then surge into Wisconsin. We took it as it came, switched drivers around, ate quickly, and ultimately we made it. We pulled into Monica's parents place about 10:30 Saturday night. It was exhausting, but also exciting and challenging.

We unloaded the truck pretty quickly the next morning. Then celebrated Tracey's birthday. Took my dad to the airport."

Whew!