The big move

On Thursday, Oct 30, I slept at the Joneses. We all woke up at 5am or so and they drove me to the light rail on Friday, Oct 31. I landed in San Jose, waited around a bit, and met Peggy's flight at 11. We arranged for a 14' U-Haul truck for Saturday morning, had lunch at a very cool Apple cafeteria (designed by Norman Foster) and visited Kelley's apartment. Then we met Jon and Kelley for dinner at Mama Mia. We spent the night at the Larkspur Landing in Campbell. Jon slept on the couch.

On Saturday, Nov 1, Jon drove us out to Newark (near Fremont) to pick up the U-Haul truck. It was brand new, with only 1,000 miles on it. Then we spent all of Saturday sorting through our storage lockers and carefully loading the truck with Peggy's things. Jon was a huge help. We all headed back to Larkspur Landing that night.

On Sunday, Nov 2, we finished loading the truck and couldn't refuse Jon's request that we visit his apartment in San Francisco. Jon, Kelley, Peggy, and I drove up in Jon's Corolla and Jon and I assembled his hat rack while Kelley and Peggy got hot dogs at Biergarten. We nailed up a ledger and hung his Mexican rug. Then everyone but Jon drove back to Los Gatos, We got the truck from Extra Space and convoyed to Apple in Cupertino, where we parked the Corolla for Jon's use and said goodbye to Kelley.

Peggy and I drove to Salinas Sunday night and stayed at the brand new Hampton Inn. The room was too big, so the TV was too far from the bed--champagne problems. We ate at Pica Fresh Mex downtown.

Monday, Nov 3, we drove down 101 to Pasadena. We arrived about 3:30 and scrambled to empty the truck until Peggy called and found we had until 10am the following day. So, we left half the stuff in the truck overnight and had dinner with Frieda at Panda Inn.

Tuesday, Nov 4, we emptied the truck and returned it to U-Haul, then I built the Expedit bookcase and put Peggy's books away. That left us with a lot of boxes to dispose of, which we did--in a "cardboard only" dumpster at Cal Tech. We spent Tuesday integrating Peggy's stuff into Frieda's duplex. I installed a sliding glass dog door for Oreo.

Wednesday, Nov 5, we got up at 5 am, only to find that Southwest had cancelled our flight. We had to call and book a flight that was two hours later.

The eventual flight was pleasantly half-full and we arrived in San Jose at 11:30, when we had planned to be there at 9:30. Kelley met us and drove me to U-Haul of Campbell, where I rented a 17' truck that was very similar to the 14' truck, only 3 feet longer.

Peggy and I worked all afternoon Wednesday loading the remaining stuff into the truck. At 3:30, we had to stop and drive Peggy to her 4pm meeting with David Beck. While they talked, I drove to Home Depot and bought rope and a box cutter. By 5:30, fortified with McDonald's, we were back clearing out the storage lockers. The sun went down and we kept working. Extra Space closed at 10 pm, and we kept working. Finally, at 11:30, we had only locker 1133 to finish. Lockers 4143 and 4144 (all 10x10) were empty. We drove the truck to Safeway, bought dinner, and headed to the Inn of Los Gatos for the night.

The next morning, Thursday, Nov 6, we finished loading the truck and I called Don at Extra Space to say that we were out of all three lockers. We went back to the hotel to freshen up for the drive north. We took 280 to 680 to the Carquinez Bridge. The 80 to the 505 to I-5, then had lunch at Granzella's in Williams.

I was surprised that it was only four and a half hours from Williams, CA to Grants Pass, OR, where we had reservations at the La Quinta. It was walking distance to a McDonald's, so we did that and then collapsed. We encountered some rain at the Oregon border, which was worrisome because the U-Haul truck wasn't guaranteed to be waterproof, but there turned out to be no problem.

Friday, Nov 7, we woke at 6am to get an early start, and by 7 we were driving through foggy Oregon. We had lunch at a McDonald's in Vancouver, WA, and at 3:30 or so, we found ourselves in downtown Seattle with the truck complaining that it had less than 50 miles of gas left. I didn't want to risk hunting for a gas station, so we went to one I knew on Roosevelt and we arrived at the Trees House at about 4:20. Peggy and I methodically emptied the truck into the garage and the MIL room behind it, and then drove the Prius to Chiang's Gourmet to meet the Joneses for dinner.

Saturday, Nov 8, we suggested that the Joneses use our truck to take their heavy, old TV to Goodwill. Kevin and I did that from 9:30 to 10, then Peggy met me at the U-Haul center on 15th south of Ballard. We kicked around Saturday afternoon, grabbing ice cream at Molly Moon's, and doing laundry at the Joneses. We planned to get started unpacking seriously on Sunday.