I had every intention of following up with another post much sooner than I did! Hopefully, I will still be able to have some kind of coherent narrative despite writing about something that happened a couple weeks back. Still, I definitely want to capture it here -- just to remember this milestone some years down the road.
Jamie and I left DC in our big yellow truck filled with all of our worldly possessions. Or should I say: we attempted to leave DC. The city seemed to be conspiring against us and blocked our path out with road closings or vertical clearances. In the end, the extra 45 minutes of driving through the city was actually a nice way to say goodbye to the city that had been our home for nearly a decade. We said goodbye to the monuments and memorials, marveled at the sheer number of Harleys in town for the rally, and slowly lumbered our way away from the city.
Originally, Jamie and I had planned on splitting up driving responsibilities -- that is, until I saw the sheer size of the truck. 22 feet long + a trailer for our Prius. It was terrifying to even sit in it while it was in motion, much less be responsible for the well-being of the people inside it and the other cars. Jamie drove that whole thing to Minneapolis.
That truck went through a LOT of gas. The first fill-up was something like $120. Not long enough after, we stopped for our second tank. We were pretty pleased that it was an even $100 to fill it up. What are the chances! we thought smugly to ourselves. Then, on another gas stop, we hit exactly $100 again. Pleased as punch that we hit it again -- it softened the blow that we were going to spend over $700 in gas by the time we were through.
It wasn't until we hit $100 the third time that we realized that it wasn't a coincidence: the gas station capped the charge at $100. That makes sense. It also meant that we were stopping for gas much more frequently than we needed to. D'oh.
Still, we made it to our destination after 18+ hours of driving, plenty of gas stops, some caffeinated drinks, a Home Depot stop for a new lock, and the the fastest motel stay ever.
Here is the moment our big, yellow truck first crossed the Minnesotan border. We had some hired college guys meet us on the other end and they unloaded our truck at super-speeds. By the next day, this is how our new (temporary) home looked:
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