42 Hours of TASK!!

Eighteen of those forty-two hours were spent in the car driving over 1000 miles to Dallas, then back to Kansas City.

On Wednesday, Tess and I picked up the U-Haul and I nervously (I’VE NEVER PULLED ANYTHING! But admittedly, growing up with a dad and a brother that love trucks and toys and “hauling” things, a part of me was excited for the challenge) drove it back to the house to load up. I was ready to make a tally of the curbs I would jump on the drive home. I didn’t hit even one curb. I was super impressed with myself, but all I could really think about was the drive to Dallas we had to make on Thursday, which would now take about 10 hours, instead of 8 hours, because we were informed by U-Haul that we really should not drive over 60 mph, to prevent any fish tailing of the 6’x12′ BEAST we were pulling behind us. Egads.

We knew in order to get everything done on our agenda, we would have to leave by at least 5:00 am. I was NOT excited to be driving in the dark, pulling the trailer OR unpacking it all when we got there. But we did leave by 5:30 (we over slept just a bit) and headed down the road, with some tunes and a few snacks, and lots of catching up to do……we were on our way.

During our cold and cloudy drive to Dallas, we made several more pit stops than anticipated. Apparently a Hemi pulling a full 6’x12′ trailer uses an %#€ load of gasoline!!! I swear you could just watch the needle go down, along with the bank account!! Oh, and I was very concerned that I was going to get myself into a situation that would cause me to have to back up the trailer, and there was NO WAY I was about to let that happen, so each gas stop was very well planned as I slowly pulled into each parking lot eyeing the pumps and what was ahead of them. We totally lucked out on every one! Whew!!

We were now running so behind due to all of the unexpected gas stops, we never even stopped for a meal!

We pulled into Dallas just before 4:00 pm with a ridiculous amount of things to do. I was white knuckled all the way through downtown. The trailer is quite a bit wider than the Jeep and I swear there was construction EVERYWHERE! I just knew I was going to hit one of those stupid concrete walls with a trailer tire and flip the trailer and the car and most likely die! Well, those were my worst thoughts anyhow, but Tess talked me through it all and assured me I was doing a great job.

Our next task was a short trip to Love Field to pick up a house key from her roomie at Southwest Airlines, and all I could think about was…..”What’s the parking lot like there? Will I be able to maneuver this trailer through it??”
Again, success.

We did make one wrong turn before reaching Love Field, and the GPS lady politely told us to make a U-Turn, and I let her know what I thought of her suggestion since we happened to have an EXTRA LONG LOAD!! We drove until I found a huge lot that I could pull into so we could turn around and we finally got back on the right path. 🙂

We finally got to the apartment complex. (The apartment complex is a gated community with an awesome parking garage with security and super convenient for the tenants to park on their level and walk right to their door. That all works great if you have a vehicle with a less than 7′ clearance, and unfortunately, our U-Haul did not.) While searching for the most convenient spot to park the trailer and unload that was anywhere CLOSE to her apartment, is where I got myself into a “Damn, I am going to have to learn how to back up a trailer today” situation.

I have no idea how many people must have been watching out of their apartment windows (lets assume most people were at work), but I know for certain, I gave a few of them a pretty good show which actually turned into a lesson of “How NOT to back up a trailer….AND…..How TO back up a trailer.”

Now we had to figure out how in the world the two of us were going to get everything into her apartment, because we were simply to far from it to walk everything in. We did make several trips (in the flipping cold, light rain), before deciding to call her cousin, who had offered to help us when he got off work. We decided when he got there, we could transfer everything from the trailer to the back of his pick-up truck, THEN drive right to her apartment via the parking garage! So THAT, my friends, is exactly what we did!

Then we went to the U-Haul store and got rid of that stupid trailer, hopefully to never be seen again. (How long does a 21 year old live in an apartment before they get tired of it and want something new?)

Finally, at 8:30, we ate dinner. We had planned to drive back to Jason and Sara’s house (the cousin Tess was staying with) to get all of her things that were there and move them as well, but we were exhausted and decided to wait until Friday morning, until Tess realized all of her paper work to get her new car tags and drivers license the next morning, were actually back at their house. It’s a 45 minute drive. So at 9:45, we made the drive, packed up her entire bedroom, drove BACK downtown and unloaded the car. We got into bed at 12:30 am.

Friday morning we were out of bed at 8:00 am and off to get a Texas Drivers License and Texas plates for Tess. Don’t you love the DMV? I know I do. But first, more gasoline and a Starbucks to wake our tired bodies up! After watching Tess maneuver her way through downtown and find the different locations, and see how prepared she was with her “file” of necessary paperwork, I was reminded of what a planner she is and how she will do just fine in the big city. At 2:30 pm, Tess was officially a resident of Texas, and we headed back to her cousins to clean. We were back on the road to K.C. by 3:30 pm. We had now been in Dallas for 24 hours and accomplished a ridiculous amount of task. I let Tess drive this route. By 11:30 pm, we were home. Neither one of us could believe the ridiculous amount of things we accomplished in the last “less than 48 hours”, but as always, we had a great time together and it begins the next chapter in

“The Life of Tess”.

Saturday will be the best sleep in day ever! Then our plan is to get caught up on all of our DVR’d shows, sip coffee and cuddle with the dogs.

I tried to eat the best that I could. I am a nervous passenger, so Friday was not the success that Thursday was, but I will weigh on Saturday morning, and see how things are going.

Recap………..

1. Get Hitch on Jeep
2. Load Trailer
3. Drive to Dallas
4. Unload trailer
5. Return trailer to U-Haul
6. Load Stuff at Cousins house
7. Unload Stuff from cousins house
8. Set up bedroom
9. Sleep
10. Get D.L. And tags
11. Clean old room and bathroom at cousins.
12. Drive home
13. Sleeeeeeeeep

I really hope she stays put for a while, because I really can’t imagine her moving and me not helping.

“love the life you live, live the life you love”