Road Trip 2, Day 0

Day Zero, Monday 5/3/10

Moving... We recommend that you don't do it unless completely necessary. Statistics say it's one of the 6 most stressful events a person can endure, uh, encounter. The other 5 in no particular order are -- Planning a wedding, going through a divorce, having a baby, a death/funeral, getting a new job. NL has actually at one point in her life had 3 of those events happen at the same time. So this time it was a breeze... Ha! Positives of moving -- purging and getting rid of STUFF. And setting up the new place -- new carpets, paint, shelf liners. Anal OCD peeps unite!!

Monday started at 6:30AM (after only 3 hours of sleep and packing). God Bless Maeve Quinlan who was there lovingly leading the packing charge the entire time. Actually, she was probably just trying to get us out of town so she could have the house to herself.


Our House

Bekins guys were supposed to be there at 7AM. However, they were 2 hours late. Come to find out, they had never driven in LA traffic and didn't account for that. Ha! Amateurs! Lamont and Brian were originally out of South Carolina, but are based out of Little Rock, AR.

Once they finally arrived they were a well oiled machine. Two local guys, Jose and Ernesto (father and son team), took stuff out of the house, while the drivers loaded. The truck was huge (see video below) and it was divided into lockers. We shared the truck with 3 other families heading east. These guys were amazing -- it was like a giant Jenga game. Seriously, walls of our copious crap, perfectly stacked.



The last half hour was crazy -- the local guys had another move to load elsewhere in town and needed to leave. So we had to power pack the kitchen. It was certainly interesting to see what got lumped together in the boxes when they finished their journey. Of course, we have Maeve's great box labeling again... You'll see some of those photos along the way. Thanks to Maeve, Matt and Natalie for help during that crunch.


Whoa!
4 hours start to finish they were ready to roll.

Did you see in the video NL's truck hitched up to a trailer with Paige's car in the background?

Ned & James
A few words about our rig for this leg of the move... First of all, you know we name everything -- NL's truck is named Ned. Long tradition of trucks named Ned in her family. Paige's Jimmy is named James, and is a girl FYI. Confused, yet? And the auto trailer, while no Squidward, we have named it, as well. There is a Kansas plate on the trailer, but we resisted naming it Dorothy. So instead it's name is Tow-Tow. Get it? Okay, we were sleep deprived. So these are the players, Ned, James, Tow-Tow... oh and Natalie. She's the navigation system in Ned. Comforting voice, even though she's kind of bossy.

A few words about getting the trailer hitched up. NL has hauled a lot of horses in trailers over the years, so this was going to be a breeze -- same rules apply: Wide turns, lots of room between the vehicle in front of you, plenty of breaking time, and try to say in the right two lanes. Note to all drivers -- when you see a big rig or someone hauling something, give them room, don't cut them off, don't tailgate, let them merge and don't park too close to them as it makes it hard to get out without creaming your car, or accidentally spilling a jamba juice on the hood.

Our "son" Matt Cohen went with NL to the U-Haul place to pick up the trailer to tow James. This begins the through-line of the universe giving us some great timing. Matt was supposed to be in Florida with his family and Mandy (his fiance and our "daughter"), but he had stayed in town for some auditions and work. Lucky for us. As it turns out, Matt's childhood was filled with hauling race cars all over Florida with his dad -- boy knows a thing or two about hitching up cars. He hitched Tow-Tow to Ned, drove James up on the rig, and secured her on the trailer, got all greasy, and gave NL a little driving lesson in the neighborhood.

Now if only he was going to be in NOLA to unhitch... Matt? BTW one of the Bekins guys asked if Matt was NL's son -- "Is that your boy?" NL said yes, and Bekins guy said they "favored each other." NL is still high from that one -- but clearly Matt got most of his daddy's good genes...

After the Bekins truck pulled out, all that was left was to pack our clothes for the road and whatever we were cramming into Ned and James. Which ultimately came down to -- Clothes, Liquor/Wine, guns, ammo, guitars/mandolins, cleaning supplies, fragile stuff, a stocked cooler, dog beds and the Emmy.

Monday night we had some BBQ from USA Ribs in Burbank, Nat and Maeve continued to pack us up. We had a visit from Lizzie P. who had given us a great going away gift -- flip flops with a bottle opener on the bottom (we're going to be so popular), and Dara dropped by with a great bottle of champagne which we will be opening in our new home in NOLA.

We actually got to bed around 2AM for a few hours of sleep. Tomorrow we head out. Here's the map of our route.


We'll get our kicks on Route 66.




That's good cause we probably packed any kicks we had left in a box with a fart.
Tomorrow it's gentlewomen, start your engines!!