Whew!

I am sitting at my desk in Kingman, Arizona, looking at the mountains outside my window. Actually, I'm looking at my monitor at the moment, but I'm enjoying the fact that I can look over and see this view at any time.



This morning we woke up to snow falling outside. That was unexpected. In general the weather here has been very nice. This was the only day we had any kind of inclement weather. I took some pictures of the snow earlier, but I don't know how well it will show up. There wasn't much on the ground, but it was snowing really hard at one point. There's still some snow on the mountains to the northeast, but what little fell here earlier has melted.

The picture at the top is a picture of the front of our house. I think the moving truck was still in the driveway at the time, so B took the picture with the house all the way to the left so the truck wouldn't show. The small pic on the right is a picture looking northeast from the front of the house.



I guess I'll just go back to the day we left Greensboro and try to describe the trip as best I can remember. We finally finished packing and left on the afternoon of Feb. 25. The guys B hired to pack our crap into the moving truck showed up around 9:00 a.m. and B and I were NOT finished packing yet. In fact, we were still packing pretty much the whole time the guys were loading the truck. I really didn't like that, but we just had so much stuff left to pack.

Around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. the guys finished loading the truck and we gave the cats some tuna with their tranks in it, but only Miki had some, so Spice didn't get tranked. We had to make a stop at the bank to get everything out of our safety deposit box and another stop at the cable company to return our DVR box, then we headed out of town. We were both exhausted before we even got on the road. My feet, legs and back were killing me, but I couldn't take any of my good pain meds because I don't feel I can drive while I'm on them. B took the first leg of driving that day and then I drove us through the mountains of Tennessee to Knoxville, where we stopped for the night. I think it took about 5 hours to get there. We let the cats out of their carriers in the hotel room and we were happy to see them eat and drink a little bit and also use their litter box.

Tuesday morning I noticed that I had some bug bites or something on my left hip that were itchy. More about that later. We left Knoxville and drove all day, then stopped in Maumee, Arkansas for the night. We again let the cats our of their carriers in the hotel room and they were very curious about the room. After she got done snooping around, Miki got under the covers on the bed and pretty much stayed there. I think she was feeling overwhelmed and hiding under the covers was her only respite. We were able to watch most of American Idol that night, but we missed the beginning because it came on at 7:00 p.m. there, not 8:00 like we were used to. There was a Taco Bell down the street, which is where I got my dinner from, so that was nice.

Wednesday morning we left Maumee, Arkasas and drove all day, then stopped in Amarillo, Texas for the night. We stayed in a Quality Inn (I think) that night and that was probably my favorite hotel. It was actually a little suite and there was a big, comfy red recliner in front of the TV that I sat on while we watched American Idol that night. The bug bites or whatever on my left hip were still itchy and kind of irritating. By this time, the cats were getting more used to riding in the car all day, and rather than having to shove them in their carriers, they just calmly walked into them when it was time to leave the hotel.

On Wednesday we drove through Oklahoma and we passed through Chekotah, which B was very excited about, because that's where Carrie Underwood is from. As we got to the far western part of Oklahoma, the landscape suddenly changed to desert.

Thursday morning we left Amarillo and drove all day until we reached Kingman, which was around 7:00 p.m. (I think). Just as we were coming into town, P (our realtor from Kingman) called B on his cell phone. Neither of us expected to hear from her because she's not been very forthcoming in the communication department. B ended up having to hang up with her after just a minute because he had to negotiate getting off the highway and finding his way into town, so we drove to her office to talk with her in person. I was irritated about that because 1) I find her irritating and didn't really want to see her at that moment because I was already tired and cranky, 2) she has a tendency to talk our heads off, which I knew would make us late for Survivor and/or Lost that night, and 3) I was really hungry for dinner.

So we went to her office and instead of getting right to it, she started in with the small talk. B did his best to redirect her to the matter at hand and we finally found out that the closing was probably not going to happen the next day. Apparently the seller still had not sent over some paperwork that we needed to sign, and without that paperwork, we couldn't close. Supposedly they had overnighted it or something, so there was still a chance that it would arrive the next day, but it was looking doubtful. Before we left her office, she told us she would pay for our hotel there in town until the house closed, so that helped my mood a little.

P put us up at a Days Inn, which was a sucky room, and by that time we totally missed Survivor and half of Lost. The next day we did not close on the house. I don't even remember what we did that day except probably sit around and wait for P to call us. Since it didn't happen that day, we then had to wait until the next business day (Monday) to see if it would close then, so we spent some time driving around the area, buying some food and other supplies and just trying to relax. We stayed in that Days Inn for two nights and then moved to another hotel that was a little nicer.

Monday came and went and we did not close on the house. The paperwork seemed to be lost in the twilight zone or something because they had a tracking number for it, but UPS or FedEx or whoever said the tracking number did not exist. The seller overnighted the paperwork AGAIN and we were told it would get there on Tuesday.

Tuesday we made a trip to this place to sign the papers and they still were not there when we arrived. We were then told the papers would NOT be arriving that day because they were never picked up from the seller for some reason. By this time, B and I were both ready to strangle someone or everyone.

Wednesday morning we got up, had breakfast, checked out of the hotel and loaded up the car again with all our stuff and then went down the street to this park and sat in the car, waiting for someone to call us and tell us if the stupid paperwork arrived or not. We waited until 2:00 and still no one had called, so we drove over to the place we'd been on Tuesday to find out what was going on. Apparently FedEx or whoever had just been there a few minutes before we arrived and the infamous paperwork was delivered! We then rushed out of there and B started making phone calls like a madman, trying to get our moving truck driven out to the house (it was in a holding facility) and trying to get the guys he hired out there to unload it. We also had to stop at this equipment rental place to rent a handtruck, and we just barely made it there before they closed at 4:00 p.m.

We met up with the moving guys at the rental place, they loaded the handtruck into their pickup truck and then drove out to our house with us. I think they were here until about 9:00 p.m. unloading that truck, and then B and I pretty much collapsed on the bed and went to sleep, but we were so happy to finally be sleeping in our house.

Between then and this past Tuesday, we unpacked as much as we could and ended up driving into town almost every day for one thing or another. We both got back to work on Tuesday and it was kind of a relief to get back to our normal routines. The cats are doing well, although Miki is still spending a lot of time hiding under the covers, but she seems fine when she's out with us in the livingroom or whatever. We still have a few boxes in the garage that haven't been unpacked; mostly books and other nonessential things like that. We haven't hung up any of our pictures yet, either, but I did put up my Ayumi 2008 calendar in my computer room today.

That's about all the typing my fingers can take for now, and that's basically the whole story, though I know I probably forgot some stuff. Right now I'm going to get some dinner. ^_^