Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Moving to North Dakota-Volume 2


I know, ya'all were wondering whatever happened to volume 2? I didn't think about how hard it would be to chronicle our move with no real computer access.

Well, my Mac is up and running and I can give you a brief update on how our move has gone. The last you heard we were busy packing the house and getting ready for the movers. The movers came on October 24th and began packing things up and loading them onto the truck. Jenn and the kids went up to her parents' house the day before since it was getting dangerous to have the kids there while we were packing the last of the stuff. No toys, no TV, no comfort.

I was up late the day before packing and woke up early to finish as the movers were loading things onto the truck. After things were loaded I hung out with one of my closest friends for the evening before driving up to Glendora to be with Jenn and the family. It was sad to say goodbye but we had opportunities to see many people and many others came by the house the last few days we were in town.

We had a week between our furniture leaving and our following behind in cars so the family went up to Glendora to visit Jenn’s family and enjoy a week of no responsibilities. We went down to Mexico one last time before moving up to the Canadian Border. One friend of mine said only we would go to Mexico when we have one week left in Southern California!

We finally left for Grand Forks on Thursday, October 30th leaving mid-morning with the intention of staying in St. George Utah that first night. We drove right through the heart of Vegas. I was amazed to see that even the gas station also doubled as a casino. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a slot machine in the bathroom. I'm sure it is only because they haven't figured out sanitation issues or they would have them. Other than getting gas, we didn’t stay in Vegas for too long however. That was our first time in Vegas and I highly doubt I’ll be back there anytime soon.

The second night we stayed in Idaho Falls, ID at a place called Le Ritz. I was afraid the place was going to be a dive but it was an absolutely great hotel with spacious rooms, great service and a wonderful hot breakfast. In fact, both of the first two hotels were great. But our good fortune would not hold out for a third night.

We drove through Idaho and most of Montana. We stayed at a Best Western in the town of Glendive. I would change the spelling of the place to glenDIVE because we did not have a good experience there. As we drove up to the Best Western we were greeted by the Russian Mafia. Perhaps a slight exaggeration but not by much.

There was one door into the place and outside the door were six or eight guys all standing around chain-smoking. They were all rough looking characters and as we approached we could hear that they were all speaking in Russian. Who knew? The cloud of smoke parted enough for us to find the door handled and enter. They kept a really close eye on our vehicles, so much so that when I came back out one of them was scoping out our 4Runner! Maybe he was looking at our California license plate or else he was just checking out our car alarm system.

We had our attack Labrador, Zoe in the back so I wasn’t too worried (yeah, right). We did bring everything in without incident. They had reserved two very nice SMOKING rooms for our convenience. Maybe they just smelled all the smoke on our clothes from walking in the building. We switched that in a hurry. Our rooms were smaller than any other place we have stayed and I thought it was a mistake because of how much they charged us. No refrigerator in the room and barely enough room to put down our luggage. Not fun. We couldn’t wait for morning to come.

We got there so late we needed to get something to eat. Jenn’s dad and I decided to go out and find something open. He decided to drive which was fine with me after having driven for the last 10 hours. We drove around but the only place that was open was a “Taco John’s”. For those of you not from the Midwest, Taco John’s is like Taco Bell. Believe it or not it is actually a chain of “Mexican” food. How Mexican can a restaurant be with the name John. Shouldn’t it be “Juan”?

Two blocks before the restaurant we found the city of Glendive’s main source of income, their speed trap. HALF-way across the bridge the speed changes from 45 to 35 MPH and then to 25 MPH as the bridge ends. One of Glendive’s finest was kind enough to pull us over and give us a $65.00 reminder. He actually pulled us over as we were pulling into Taco John’s. We had to pay cash because we were from out of town and they were afraid that they wouldn’t get their money if we did it by mail. The mayor has to eat, ya know.

I needed change so I walked to the drive through of Taco John’s to break a $20. The cop didn’t carry change with him or it has been a busy night. We finally paid the ticket and drove to the drive through after that 20-minute ordeal. By this time it was 10:05 PM. You guessed it, Taco John’s closed at 10:00! We ended up going to a gas station to buy food. Needless to say, I drove.

The last day of driving was beautiful and uneventful. We only got separated once the entire drive but it was 45 minutes before arriving in Grand Forks when we were going to Wal Mart in Fargo. Good old Wal Mart, or as I call it, “My second home.” We were out of diapers, wipes and milk (nothing important).

We finally got to Grand Forks, got the keys to the house and saw it for the first time. Did I mention that we bought the house off the Internet. Okay, not exactly but that’s too long of a story to get into now. It really was the first time we were seeing our new house for the first time. But we absolutely love it so no complaints there. It wasn’t organized enough for us to stay there so we all stayed at a local hotel. This was one we’ve stayed at before so it wasn’t an issue.

Grace loves popcorn. That may seem random but she was asking for popcorn for hours so I bought some microwave popcorn for the hotel. The only thing worse than burnt microwave popcorn is burnt microwave popcorn in a small, enclosed place with no ventilation! We thought we were going to end up evacuating the hotel there was so much smoke. If anyone from the hotel reads this I’d suggest you check your smoke detectors.

Later that night I awoke feeling very nauseous. I figured it was the microwave popcorn smell lingering in the room. But in the morning I felt even worse, achy and feverish. I told Jenn to take the kids to breakfast as I didn’t feel well enough to go. Shortly after she left my body decided it wanted to return all the food I had eaten for a refund. We thought it was food poisoning (from the gas station in glenDIVE perhaps or the sandwiches we bought at Wal Mart). But apparently I had caught a stomach fu.

I was sick from Monday through Friday, Grace got sick on Friday and was better by Sunday night and Jenn got sick on Friday night and was felling better by Monday. Alexander managed to miss the entire thing! Strange that the kid who picks up random things off the floor and puts them into his mouth is the only one not to get sick!

Well, that’s about it other than unpacking our home and office. With all the illness things have been slow going but the church ahs been absolutely wonderful bringing over meals every night of the week and volunteering to help us unpack. Now that everyone is healthy we should be able to finish the last of the boxes.

Sorry for the long delay before finishing the story but I hope that you had a few chuckles and enjoyed the story of our journey. By the way, sorry Chuck for your speeding ticket. I would have driven.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you're all settling in. I talked to Jen today and she sounded great. Glad you're all over the flu. I hope your box maze is getting smaller..lol.

Miss you!
Kim