Starting a New

There are physical and psychological effects of moving and I am going to focus on how we moved our material possessions from Kansas City to Angola, Indiana. I’ll save the emotional stuff for later.

We begin our journey the night before we leave. It was common for articles to placed, replaced, moved, and replaced again within the twenty-six foot U-Haul truck. Space was a bit tight and everything needed careful placement, which meant we worked until well after the sunset. Finally, it was all ready for the move, every item snug in their own spots, our material possessions were ready to move.

Now, all we had to do is transport our stuff to Angola; however, there were some unexpected twists along the way. My car, bicycles in tow, full to the brim, was a smooth ride, which is why it was the favorite vehicle for Melodee, the cat. I was not prepared to spend the entire road trip with the cat. Wait! I was going to be weaned into a relationship, not forced into one! On the other hand, it was the best thing to do. If you can imagine, normally her meow is like a smooth audio wave with few peaks and valleys. In the truck, it was like her meow was riding all of the rides at Cedar Point over and over again and Will’s nerves only lasted about thirty minutes.

If you thought the first thirty minutes was enough, a few short minutes later, I witness smoke billowing from the back right side of the car trailer being towed behind the truck. I quickly grab one of our new walkie talkies and alert Will to the smoke. The blown tire meant an hour and a half delay in our venture, but we survived. I’d like to make one side note: why must those who drive an RV or camper or whatever you may call it be complete assholes? Not a single one of them moved over to the left lane while we were pulled over on the highway. Plenty of trucks, cars, motorcycles, etc. pulled over or slowed down, but RV drivers and oh, the Missouri state highway patrol, were not courteous!!! Learn how to drive!

Poor drivers made me mad and I wished I could have snuggled in my brand new bed instead of drive another twelve hours, but Will and I were determined. Our determination took us until 12:30am (Eastern Time) when we had to stop or become one of those poor drivers ourselves. At 12:30am, we found a Super 8, pulled the cars along the back and snuck the cat into the room. We would have done a pretty good job sneaking her in until Will spilled most of the litter box all over the carpet in the hotel room. Good news – she did not use the box. Bad news – the carpet was just a click short than shag carpet and cleaning up tiny little litter pellets was virtuously impossible. But, we had time right? Who needs sleep?

After a few short hours of sleep, we made the rest of the journey and arrived in Angola. Every item made it. We had new walkie talkies, a new trailer tire, new cat litter, and a new place to live. What other surprises would await us in our new home? Would there be other cat stories? Read and find out.