Well, the next phase of our move to DFW has been completed. Last weekend, we loaded all our stuff into a moving truck and drove it from Tucson to Dallas… and what a misadventure that was…

First, I had to fly into Phoenix because nobody has good flights (if any) from DFW to Tucson, not a huge deal… Tucson is only a couple hours South of Phoenix; I reserved a rental car and figured I would just make the drive and leave the car in Tucson… wrong. Something I didn’t know was that the rental company I had reserved a car with did not do “one-way” rentals. I would have to return the car to Phoenix. I had to cancel that reservation at the desk in Phoenix and then find another car company that would let me drive the car to Phoenix and leave it there. After a little foot work I found one, got a car and was on my way.

The next morning we had to pick up the truck, a big 26 footer, and drive it back to the apartment… I almost flipped it going around a tight corner, but other than that it was ok. We had hired movers, four of them, to come and load the truck for us. They were supposed to be at our place between 11 and 1… they showed up at 1:15 with three guys instead of four. After hours of loading they were almost done, stress the ALMOST, and they said they had to cut out… when they were supposed to stay until the job was done. My wife, myself and my mother spent the whole next day and a half finishing up what was left. And, get this, the car that I rented was one-way… to the Tucson airport. I found out that if I didn’t return it to the airport, it would cost me double what I was paying because it would be a business rental or something ridiculous like that; not like one of their employees couldn’t drive it to the airport from a more convenient location, naw, pass the inconvenience on to the consumer.

We finally got all loaded and left Tucson on Sunday afternoon… we had originally hoped to be on the road on Friday… let me repeat, it is now Sunday; not really going well, but we were on the road and planned on making it to El Paso, TX, which was about a six hour drive. When we got into New Mexico it started raining and we had to stop and stay the night in Deming, NM… I dont recommend it.

The next day we hit the road in good time and made it to Big Spring, TX and figured we would look for a place to spend the night. Well, apparently the local oil refinery had an explosion not too long ago and now ALL of the hotel rooms in town were taken up by construction workers. Ok, we go to the next town… Sweetwater, TX had a similar problem; Most of its hotel rooms were taken up by the windmill construction workers, but we did finally find a room.

The next morning we got up and drove the rest of the way to Dallas… got in early evening and found a place to stay.

Oh, I guess in all of this I forgot to mention that we had both of our cats in the cab of the truck with us, one of which meowed the whole time even though we had drugged both of them with medications their vet gave us to knock them out for the trip. It was amusing watching them stumble around like little drunkards.

Now we just need to find a place to live and then we can plan the move in. I am really looking forward to the days ahead past all of this when I can just spend an evening or weekend just kicking back and doing a little coding or reading.