Moving Out...

Who knew moving could be such fun?
(Formatting note: The line above should be read as if it were dripping with sarcasm...)

I can hardly believe that as I write this it has been almost three weeks since we officially made our "move" here to Asheville. Frankly, for us this summer has basically been bracketed by the twin peaks of our relocation--moving out and moving in.

The first hill to climb was that of packing up our lives and leaving Grand Rapids after more than a decade there. This turned out to be more challenging than we thought! Most of all, the goodbyes to friends and families were the toughest. Our roots ran deep in Grand Rapids and we really appreciated everyone who turned out at our party on the 4th to say goodbye. We will truly miss those relationships.

In addition to the goodbyes, though, I have to say that packing up our stuff was equally challenging! We decided to do our own packing to save some money on the move, and in retrospect it turned out to be a good decision. We packed 90% of the boxes ourselves. The movers packed 10%. Seeing how they packed those 10% I'm really glad we did our own packing! Nothing wakes you up to the concept of quantity like the decision to do your own packing. My goodness did we acculate a ton of "stuff" in our eleven years on Brooklyn Avenue (nine tons of it actually -- despite numerous trips to Goodwill in the weeks and months preceding, by the time the truck rolled down the road they tipped the scales 18,345 pounds heavier than they did when they showed up that morning! Yikes! Probably time for another garage sale...

Once packed, it was time to say goodbye to our old home in GR. We put a lot of "sweat-equity" into that house. Even though we were really pleased to get it sold in a reasonable amount of time without completely losing our shirt on it (in light of the market in Michigan these days) it was still sad to let it go. In the weeks before we moved I began to develop a sense of "last times". These ranged from the mundane (like the last time to get my haircut at that cheap but reliable hair salon) to the significant (like the last time worshiping at our church) to the fun (like the last time having a beer with the neighbors!). Probably the most impactful "last time" for me though was the last time walking through the house before we finally hit the road. The movers had cleared out all our furniture and belongings but the memories sure lingered. A friend of mine recently said that when you're up to your backside in alligators it's sometimes hard to remember that you were there to drain the swamp. Well, in the busyness of the moving process it was easy to forget the finality of it all. Seeing the house empty like that sure brought the reality of it home (pun intended)!

Move-out day was Wednesday August 6th. The truck showed up a little after 9:oo am with a crew of four. We'd been warned that this wasn't the "A-team" in advance (the moving company offered us the A-Team if we would only delay our move by one day but we respectfully declined). They weren't exactly the speediest (at least not until twelve hours later when the skies opened up--then we actually saw some hustle!). We had hoped to get a five or six hour head start on our drive that evening and maybe make it as far as Cincinnati, but that was not to be. The movers didn't get done until after 10 pm so by 1:30 am we'd only made it across the state-line into Ohio. By then we were too exhausted to go another mile so we all clambered into the trailer and crashed for the night in a rest area.

It took us most of the next day in driving (two vehicles -- Mary Nel in the Windstar and me in the big beast pulling the trailer, plus we left one vehicle back to be picked up later). At around 3:30 pm we stopped for a rest in Tennessee and sitting on the curb having a sandwich I discovered the tires in the travel trailer were about ready to pop! Not a good sight! The treads were in great shape but the sidewalls were cracking and splitting. I had checked them earlier and they weren't looking bad, but we'd never taken the trailer on such a long drive before either. I guess the tires were just getting old and the rubber was starting to give out under the long drive. I thought the better of heading into the mountains on shoddy tires so headed into town in search of four new trailer tires. Fortunately I found a place right away that gave me a good deal and had all four installed in less than 45 minutes! Considering what might have happened if we'd had a blowout on a winding mountain road this was a minor inconvenience. Frankly I said a little prayer of thanks--who knows why I sat down on that curb at that particular time?

We were on our way again and--after a couple hours on a beautiful winding drive through Smoky Mountain National Park that all of us were just too plumb tired to appreciate--we finally arrived in Asheville at around dinner time. Problem was, this was Thursday and our truck wasn't scheduled to arrive until Monday. We were going to be homeless for a long weekend! Fortunately we had a reservation at a local KOA and set up camp there.

Our move out of Grand Rapids was now officially complete and our move into our new home in Asheville was about to begin. The tough part was behind us and a new beginning was ahead. For now, though, we were homeless and exhausted, so we warmed up some hotdogs and collapsed in bed.

Next up... Moving In