THE JOURNEY BEGINS!
As I left off in Part 1, our journey from Wisconsin to Texas and our new home began on February 24, 2014 at 4 PM.
I should say that I originally had plans of taking lots of pictures to chronicle our journey south; however, leaving late as we did, there were no real pictures to take. That is, unless images of random gas stations would count.
Our caravan consisted of the following:
Taking the lead was Terry driving our Ford F150 pickup and pulling a 3-horse slant bumper pull trailer. The trailer was filled to the top with all manner of tools, a motorcycle and the personal belongings we wanted to have with us when we first arrived. Our son, Kyle was co-pilot. Along with them was Terry’s other co-pilot – Molly (short for hot tamale). Molly is the amazing Chihuahua that is pictured on my main blog page as header. She is 5 lbs. of awesome!
Bringing up the rear was our Chevy HHR with our daughter, Alex, driving the first leg and me resting as co-pilot. Our cargo consisted of Spaz (my rat terrier), Loki (Alex’s baby mini schnauzer) and two cats – Bart and Bailey. You would think that traveling for almost 22 hours with these animals would be traumatic; however, they all rode like champions.
Throughout this long and tiring journey, Alex shared the driving responsibilities with me and was a joy to talk to. Alexandra made what could have been a very long and boring trip a whole lot more enjoyable. I am so grateful for the help our kids gave us along the way. They are the greatest!
INTO THE STORM!
The weather was 16 for a high and -4 for a low (Fahrenheit) – the low felt more accurate. While the sun was shining as we pulled out our 1000 foot rock-covered driveway for the very last time, little did we know that the weather was about to change.
By the time we got past Albert Lea it was beginning to snow. Light and fluffy, it continued to up the ante until we were driving hours and hours through a full-blown blizzard! The entire time we drove through Minnesota and Iowa, we had to deal with white out conditions and ever-worsening roads. Never fear, we were too fixated on the goal to leave the frozen north woods to bat an eye at all that Mother Nature was throwing our way. We sallied forth!
FINALLY HOME
Needless to say, after 22 hours of exhaustive and constant driving, we finally pulled into our 50 foot cement covered driveway in Texas. I wanted to jump out of the car, drop to my knees and kiss the non-snow covered ground. Alas, my legs were locked in place and my back was screaming words my mouth have never dared utter.
Bart was so happy that we brought his favorite stool along! Of course his riding companion, Bailey, hid in our room for a while, but she was happy that her carriage had stopped moving finally
But we were home!
I have said over the course of this post so much about how Kyle and Alex were our invaluable right-hands, but I would be remiss if I didn’t add to that the contributions that Emily Gotch provided down in Texas. Even though she had recently underwent appendix surgery, this amazing young woman still found time to help ease the transition when we arrived. Thanks to our wonderful daughter-in-law as well!
There is much more of the story to tell as we opened the door to our new home for the first time and officially became Texans… (did I mention that the moving van was close behind —- NOT!)
you will be missed up here in the frozen north
We miss you guys too. Hope things are looking more like spring.
Amazing story cannot wait for the continuing segments. The updates you post about the additions made to your new home are so interesting. Keep them coming!
One reason I am doing this is so that, in years to come, we can look back and remember with clarity just how things occurred – how our new home looks now and how much we loved it from the very first day!
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