The trip of a lifetime?

Well, for those of you who don't know....we made it to New Haven!


Let me re-cap a little bit of the trip for you. Jeremy and I drove a 16ft Budget truck complete with car carrier 2,901 miles...coast to coast. (well, actually Jeremy drove the whole way, he wouldn't let me drive) Although most people go from East to West, we just had to be difficult and go the opposite way.

So at 4am on a lovely Friday morning, we set off into the dark. Jeremy was sweating, hoping he wouldn't crash the truck or lose my car from the carrier. I was crying. That lasted about 2 hours before I passed out from tear duct exhaustion. When I awoke we were almost to Stateline..things were going smoothly as we passed into Nevada...then....trouble!


A nice couple in an RV signaled to us that something was wrong with our truck and we should pull over. Oh shit! So, we get out of the truck and we see smoke billowing from our car carrier. Awesome! Jeremy starts to freak and I see it in his eyes that we should just turn around...this has to be a sign. I get on the phone with Budget and we make it to a gas station.


Long story short, we got the car carrier changed out in Vegas and it was smooth sailing from there on out. We passed the time with our "clipboard of fun"~kudos to mamacita! So as we played license plate bingo and crosswords the miles just flew by.


On our trip we listned to alot of NPR, oldies, and my fabulous singing! The NPR was great along with the spectacular views of corn fields to lull me to sleep. About every 30 minutes I was nodding off. We stopped in Cheyenne for a day and saw the sights. Thanks Rene & Doug for entertaining us with a tour of their new abode furnished with the most beautiful red and gold carpet I have ever seen!



After Cheyenne we were ready for Chi- Town. But, before Chicago we really got into corn country. Besides seeing fields and fields of corn, where you could almost hear the whiperings of "If you build it they will come" I asked Jeremy..."Is this heaven?" to which he replied, "No, it's Iowa." Besides seeing corn and pondering life, wealso got hit with the knowledge bomb that Kool Aide originated in Nebraska. Kool!



So we finally made it Chicago and found a place to park the truck. Only one tree was scarred in the process. Melinda took us sightseeing and we saw "The Bean."





If you have not been to Chicago and seen this beautiful piece of art, put it on your life list. It will entertain you for at least a half hour. Amazing! Jeremy entertained himself flicking the bean and laughing about it for at least 3 minutes.






We have also checked off "seeing Wrigley Field and take a picture in front of the sign" from our life list. Chicago was awesome and it was great to have a couple of days out of the truck.



Then we had to get back to reality and get in the truck again. We almost made it through Pennsylvania, but couldn't take it anymore. That is a really long state. So we headed to the Comfort Inn just in time for "So you think you can dance." Perfect end to a 14 hour day of driving.



The next morning we woke up and were excited that this would be our last few hours of driving. We were really excited, but the though of moving all of our stuff up 3 flights of stairs didn't seem all that appealing. We made it to New Haven, Thursday the 16. The drive was over! Moving up the stairs wasn't too bad. It was humid, but anything was better than driving another 14 hours. With all of our stuff in our new apartment, we had one last task...return the Budget truck. We would no longer be truckers, which entailed waking up at 4am, drinking endless cups of horrible coffee, and navigating highway 80. A tinge of sadness crept into our hearts, but was diminished after a hassle of driving through narrow one way streets in New Haven and dropping it off at the Ikea parking lot.



The trip was officially over. We were now in New Haven. The next week was filled with unpacking, getting to know the area, and cursing Connecticut drivers. More on that in the next post....