Monday, June 4, 2007

The Big Move

Two days ago I promised a big update with photos, and here it is.



March 14th, 2007:

The Jeep is packed and ready to go, crappy U-haul trailer in tow. We hit the road around 5:30 or 6:00, after spending a few hours hanging out with George. As we head north I can't help but notice that the Jeep refuses to go faster than 55 miles per hour, and that it is running hotter than it should. But what the hell can I do about that? We made it to Lacrosse, WI, that night and checked into a Microtel hotel, and after a covert operation to sneak the cat in, went back downstairs to get some things out of the back of the trailer. But aha! Here the first of many fun problems begin. See, when I put the lock on the trailer, I neglected to notice that it had become stuck in an angle that made it impossible to put the key into the lock. The key was just to be to fit. But we were tired, so we shrugged it off and waited for the next day.

March 15th, 2007:

This day really sucked. We left around 9:00 and spent about another hour trying to find some way to solve our lock problem. I thought about buying bolt cutters but I was a little afraid the thing might fly off and kill me or something, since I'd never used bolt cutters before and didn't have any eye protection, or any protection of any sort, really. So then we tried to get the top of the key shaved off so it would fit into the lock, but Home Depot was baffled and refused to do it. So we gave up and left. The hill going up towards the plains nearly killed the Jeep right there, but we manage to make it - only to find that the Great Plains had a headwind of about 25 to 40 MPH, which meant the Jeep, which had been going about 55, now could only go about 45. It was slow going and the engine remained hot for most of the time.

Luckily, the cat at some point decided to be cute and relieve the tension.







Purrball was great for pretty much entire trip. She wasn't scared at all of driving, in fact, she seemed to be very curious about everything, including why the shit outside was moving by so fast. She ran around the Jeep a little, but for the most part slept the afternoons away in the back.

Around noon we stopped for food and noticed a mechanic's shop, so we went to see if there was anything that could be done about the heat. The mechanic said that the thermostat was broken (this apparently isn't what feeds the temp gauge, but rather what decides when the engine is hot enough to need additional cooling) and he replaced it. Which took two fucking hours. Natasha got Purrball out and let her run around inside the shop, and we also found a place to shave off he key so we could get into the U-haul. After two fucking hours we were back on the road, but the problem was not solved. Lucky for us, the wind started to die down, and the rest of the day actually went pretty smooth. We stopped for the night somewhere on the west end of South Dakota.

March 16th, 2007

The day started off well. The wind wasn't bad. There wasn't much remarkable except for the badlands, which were a change of scenery. But our luck didn't hold, and around 4 or 5, somewhere in Wyoming, the Jeep's temp went into the red and we had to stop for awhile. The hills were becoming more severe and the Jeep was having a hard time handling the load. In addition, it hadn't shifted properly, putting extra strain on the engine. We got going again and made it half-way into Montana, starting to get into the rocky mountains. The weather was cool and I wanted to just drive the night, so we could get out of the mountains before day-break and the resulting increase in temperature. But then I noticed the GEN light was one, and Natasha informed me that actually, it'd be one for awhile - woops. What GEN meant was that the engine wasn't generating electrical power like it should, and so the battery was draining instead. Since we needed our headlights this was not a good thing. Plus the battery indicator was at this point very close to red = dead. I turned around and made for Big Timber, the last town we'd passed. The Jeep was just not going to make it. But a-ha - there was some hope for us yet, because the Inn we stayed at was right next to a U-haul place. We decided to get up early and visit it the next day.

March 17th, 2007

We visited the U-haul place as soon as it opened. Actually, it wasn't a U-haul place so much as it was an auto glass company, but it had U-hauls as a side operation (and why not, it's easy money). The guy was ULTRA friendly, he even charged up our battery. But there were some problems. We wanted to rent a truck and tow the Jeep behind us, but the glass company didn't have any tow dollys, and only had two 26' Super Mover trucks. The place 35 miles up the road did. I decided that with a full charge and no need for headlights, making it that far shouldn't be a problem, so we reserved the only two things the U-haul place had - a 17' truck an a tow dolly for the front two wheels. Obviously, that truck was bigger than we needed, way bigger, but it was the smallest the place at Livingston had.

We arrived in Livingston without problem. But they had a surprise for us - the 17' truck was already rented out. So instead, they were giving us this thing for the same price.



For those who didn't know, the trailer the Jeep was pulling was 8" long and 4 1/2" wide. Now we had this beast. This is what our stuff looked like once we had it all loaded inside.



Yeap. It was huge. We could have actually driven the Jeep into the back of the thing, if only it was legal. Anyway, we were ready to hit the road. But what is this? Another problem! The tow dolly we have has a busted fender which could come off at any moment. So the U-haul in Livingston refers us to U-haul in Bozeman, which has a repair center for these sorts of things. We take the big fuck-off truck up there and give them a visit. A guy named Lance comes out and tells us he'll be fixing it, and h he pulls the truck into the garage.



That's Lance. Lance is sort of a quite guy. And he doesn't speak very clearly. But grease monkeys often don't. The best mechanic I ever had was a guy named Guy. He was 65 years old and was almost entirely incomprehensible, but damn could he fix a car. So Lance deserves a shot. Now, it does take him about forty minutes to fix it, which is twice as long as he estimated. But whatever. Sometimes a problem arises. You just gotta roll with it. Eventually Lance gets it done and informs us we're ready to roll.

Indeed! We drive about an hour before stopping at a rest stop for a quick piss break. I'm worried about the Jeep falling off the dolly, so I go back to check and make sure everything is secure. And what do I find? The new fender, which also includes the tail light, has completely fallen apart. The tail-light is entirely gone - who knows where the hell it is now - and the top part of the fender has been dragging the road. At this point I don't give a shit, I just want to get to Portland, so I duct-tape the fender back into place and we hit the road.

After that, everything was smooth. The mountains provided beautiful scenery and we cleared them by the end of the day. The cat yet again provided entertainment by sitting on the dashboard.




We stopped in some random town which included the nicest Best Western I've ever scene, and we stayed there for the night.

March 18th 2007 - The End!

This day was unremarkable. Nothing went wrong. I had a great peanut-butter milkshake at some mom-n-pop place by a gas station. We arrived in Portland at around 3:00 and were shown to our new apartment.

The outside:


The view from our tiny deck:



Our Living Room:


Our Kitchen:



The apartment is great. Portland is great. The people are friendly and there are a lot of random little places to go. Just today we visited a little village with neat toy-store and a great candy shop. There are many places like this. And a mall with a skating rink, which is awesome.

Natasha and I now have our new cars. Hers is a 2005 Kia Rio.



Mine is a 2001 Saturn SL2.




Oh, and my job - I'll soon be starting part-time temp to hire work as a proof-reader and form letter writer at Wells Fargo. It sounds a little boring but not entirely boring, and if I get hired full-time it'll provide a decent amount of income. I don't know much more about it yet because I haven't started. They have to do a background check, which takes about 5 days. Hopefully they won't see the pictures of me with the stuffed hippo's decapitated head. Besides that I'm also looking for server work, because you get paid a min wage of 7.80 + tips here, which means servers do very well for themselves here. Working only 3 nights a week + my PT at Wells Fargo should provide more than enough income for now.

And that's about all I have. Everything is up to date now. So I won't be doing any more monster-posts in the near future. Or any at all.

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