we actually arrived when we had planned (july 6th), but it took a day or two to get the internet connection up and we have had other things to deal with. so, while i was able to post a brief message in dreaming, it's taken me some time to get to whysper. last night we finally got a usable kitchen (i.e. unburied from most our boxes), and most the rest of the house is about as good as it's going to get without furniture, so i finally have a little time to do something more than unpack. next week i have to start doing a whole bunch of other things (changing addresses for ssa, registering kids for school, etc.), but for the moment i have a little more freedom.

the trip . . . had it's moments. we probably should have gotten a clue that things were going to be interesting when our uhaul was 2 hours late and we had to go to another town to pick it up. it took 4 hours to load our stuff, so we got out of town about the time we were thinking but without the naps we wanted. it ended up being okay - i think we were just too happy to get the hell out of that place (although we did huddled around kitten and cry). the first day or two went well. the hardest part was figuring out how to sleep in such cramped quarters.

the second night taz got sick, and from there things kind of . . . well, not quite nose dived, but we had more problems than not. the truck broke down - the batteries died. turns out the alternator wasn't working. uhaul put us up in a motel (which also put us a half a day behind on our schedule), but the next day told us we were overweight by 4600 pounds. apparently books weight 4 times as much as appliances because they're dense . . . and i had 16 boxes of books. :O the word was we would have to get, and pay for, a larger truck, which we could not afford. however, the secretary there (and i really should have gotten her name) managed to get us the bigger truck for free. we had to load it and pay for any help, but got it done in 2 hours. by now we're a full day behind.

we drove until 3 am that night, i think, slept for maybe 3 or 4 hours, then were back on the road. we had planned to drive late that night too, but had to wait for an emergency infusion of funds which delayed us a bit (only a bit) while we ate dinner and waited for that to work out. then a rather spectacular, but entirely too distracting, lightening storm stopped us. we got another motel and stopped earlier than planned. the motel was miserable. it was already humid and then the air conditioner didn't cool anything off but managed to make the humidity worse. i slept a bit, then woke up unable to breathe. right after i woke up there was this flash of lightening, bright white like in the movies when they fade to white and wash everything out, then a crack of thunder so loud that it woke everyone up. saxy says it sounded like a bomb going off. we got everyone settled again and i finally went to sleep in the van. it was actually kinda cool to listen to the rain hitting the roof of the van (as long as i was awake, anyway - passed out pretty quickly in the van).

of course, we didn't get the wake up call i requested at 5:30 am, so ended up getting started on the road again 3 hours late. but we did pretty good time despite getting lost something like 5 times (twice for saxy, the rest because of me) and got in on time. my brother, who i haven't seen in over 20 years, was waiting for us outside our new house with supper. i can see the little boy in the man, but wowee has that boy grown! well, of course, but you know, it's still quite a shock to see him!

each state had something different to offer. we didn't see any law people on the highway except in texas, and there we saw 4 around one poor car, plus several others while in the state. new mexico had some pretty landscape - high bluffs and beautiful land formations. we also tripped out because when we ate dinner that night they asked if we wanted to sit in the smoking or nonsmoking section and cali only has nonsmoking. period. arizona had the painted desert and dinosaur statues on the road. we first started seeing lightening storms in oklahoma. they were quite elaborate and beautiful. in arkansas it started to get really green. lakes, forest, and rivers everywhere. it was some of the most beautiful land i've ever seen. and from there it just got greener - more humid, but greener.

all in all, the trip could have been worse. it could have been better, for sure, but it most definitely could have been worse. i just wish we had had time to see some of the sites - the painted desert/petrified forest wanted $10/car, which we didn't have so we saw most of it from a distance. we did stop by and see a 90-story cross. lol those are probably the only pictures that really came out, but we'll see.

and that was pretty much our trip. obviously we were pretty dang tired by the time we got here and i've been sleeping a lot (ug!), but hopefully that will all even out to normal, or fairly close to normal, soon. we don't have the pictures developed yet, so those will have to wait, but i'll post some as soon as i can. same for house stuff. for now, i'm going to see about organizing some boxes - which is about all i can do without furniture for some rooms.