Moving day

John had wisely arranged to pick up the U-haul the evening before the morning we were scheduled to load. As we were about to leave to pick it up he got a text saying that the truck he had reserved would be in Rio Rancho instead of Albuquerque. He called to find out what that was about and after some careful questioning, he realized that there wasn’t a truck at all.

No U-haul truck in Albuquerque, and the replacement in Rio Rancho that they were going to give him wasn’t actually there yet either. The Rio Rancho truck they assigned us was already a day late coming in, and they had no idea, and no control, over when or whether it would show up. They were just hoping it would be in soon. There were no actual U-haul trucks available in Albuquerque or Rio Rancho. So much for having reserved a truck.

What were we going to do without a moving truck? We had movers lined up for the next morning! So John called Penske and it cost us nearly twice as much, and we had to wait an hour at the Penske shop while they cleaned it, but we got a truck. Whew!

The next morning our movers showed up on time and they were excellent. We’ve used them before for unloading, but we didn’t know how good they were at loading. A good loading job takes skill, and it makes all the difference in the world. You can get twice as much in a truck if it’s loaded tight, and your stuff is less likely to get damaged because it doesn’t shift around.

We had a huge truck, but we also had a ton of stuff. I told the movers to load the couches I got from Craigslist last, because they took up a lot of space and I hadn’t paid very much for them. I planned to abandon them if we ran out of space. Luckily, our movers got it all in, even my lumpy second-hand couches.

For my Albuquerque readers, if you every need movers in Albuquerque, use these guys, https://affmove.com/. They also deliver furniture and can get oversized items from the hardware store, etc. We discovered them when Jackalope (a furniture store in Albuquerque), recommended them a couple of years ago when I bought a heavy sideboard and needed it delivered.

Ignore the U-haul trailer in the picture, that wasn’t ours. The enormous truck was big enough, lol. The movers had the trailer with them for another job later in the day. They were smart to have picked it up early!

They spent several hours carefully loading our truck on Friday morning. We were glad they took the time to do such a good job, but it was mid-afternoon before we could get on the road. Luckily we planned to stop partway anyway. We were driving two vehicles, John driving the enormous Penske, and me following behind with the camper van.

I’m not up to driving huge vehicles late at night. My goal was to get off the freeway before dark. We didn’t quite make the goal. Nightfall found us driving down a twisty road toward a mysteriously missing state park campground. We had accidentally passed our turnoff and found ourselves at a dead end, in middle of nowhere, in the pitch black. The road just stopped. Getting both the truck and the van turned around at the end of the road in the dark was a challenge! John couldn’t see behind him at all, so I had to tell him what to do and he just had to trust me. Once we got turned around and headed the right way again, we didn’t have to backtrack very far. We found the campground and (eventually) found the site we had reserved. Whew. Glad to be done for the day.

The next morning we still had almost 5 hours of driving ahead of us. We had unloaders coming at 2:00, so we left the campground promptly at 8:00 AM, expecting to arrive in Tucson by 1:00. But what a headwind! We had alternating crosswinds and headwinds the entire drive. It was miserable.

The 26′ Penske truck has a huge profile, of course, and the van is the “tall” version, so we were both being blown around. And the truck didn’t have as much power as we would have liked. John spent most of the time with the accelerator pressed to the floor as we slowly chugged along, struggling against the wind.

We finally got to our new house, with 15 minutes to spare before the movers were due to arrive to help us unload.

One of the movers actually beat us to our house and was waiting when we arrived. But that’s the only good thing I can say about the couple of guys who unloaded for us in Tucson. They were lousy. The whole process was miserable. The winds were still gale force, rain was threatening, and I just wanted those guys out of my house and away from my stuff.

I try not to blame movers for breakage, because I figure it’s all in the packing (and I packed). But I watched this happen, and the guy was simply being sloppy and boneheaded. The container was balanced precariously on top of a bunch of other things, dropped way too far, rolled, and came open spilling its contents.

Finally, the truck was empty and the guys were off to help their next unfortunate customers.

I took solace from this welcoming flower in my new front yard. Blooming red cactus!

This other member of our welcoming committee was equally brilliantly red, but not as welcome.

The reason I was able to get a clear shot of the red hourglass on her belly is because she was hanging upside down on a wall. Yes, she was alive when I took the picture. (No, she’s not still alive.)

I shouldn’t post that picture because now you’ll never come visit me! I’ll make sure we’re spider free, don’t worry. We had black widows on the back patio when we first moved into our house in California and in Albuquerque too. It’s just part of moving to a new house in the southwest. That kind of spider doesn’t like people and won’t hang around in the yard once the house is occupied. And the pest guys can take care of them anyway.

At least our house is fairly centrally located in town, so we’re unlikely to get rattlesnakes in the yard. Last year our vacation rental in a rural area just outside Tucson had a rattlesnake in the dog run one morning. Not good!

Here’s our new home sweet home (not looking its best yet, that’s for sure)