Well we did it! The day finally came for us, and we moved from our snowed in apartment in Illinois to the warm and bristly Texas. I say bristly because...well, everything seems to be rough and thorny and almost dead. Phil's says it's because it's winter. I think it's just Texas. We shall see...
It was uncertain if we'd even be able to move or not. The weekend before our scheduled departure we were bombarded with a massive snow storm. The roads were literally shut down. The whole area was declared to be in a "state of emergency", and only emergency vehicles were permitted to be on the roads. Even if we tried to go out (which we...uh...did), there were massive piles of snow on the roadways and it was impossible to leave our ridiculously small town.
We were scheduled to pick up the U-haul on Sunday. Unfortunately all of our plans had to be cancelled for that day- even our plans to say goodbye to our dear friends. Monday was much of the same. Tuesday it seemed like things were clearing up a bit- we were no longer in a state of emergency and could drive on the roads. The ones that were cleared off anyway. So we made our way out into town that evening, got the U-haul trailer and loaded up the things that needed to go into storage. Phil....bless his heart, drove the 45 minutes, unloaded the trailer by himself, and got back around midnight.
We got up early the next morning and preceded to load our lives into the tiny trailer. It was a difficult task; we had zero help, had a fussy baby and a sick toddler. Not to mention the below zero temperatures and the 3 inch thick ice on our bottom 4 steps. It was miserable!
Unfortunately we were not quite finished loading the trailer and cleaning when the landlord came over to do his walk-through. But what a huge surprise! Because he came with cash in hand and gave us back our deposit anyway! He said we were by far is best tenants and he appreciated having us living in one of his apartments. Then he told us horror stories about some of the other tenants he has.
We finished cleaning and loading, and waited for my mom to come over. After all, she was helping us drive down to Texas!
By 7pm we were ready to hit the road! We drove for 3 hours and stopped to pick up my brother- who also happened to be helping us drive down (we took 2 vehicles).
All in all, the trip wasn't terrible. The kids...well they did great for having to be in the vehicle for 20 hours. We were blessed in that we had a portable dvd player to entertain Jaelyn, and even Phillip from time to time! The poor girl was sick and miserable, but she was a real trooper. The little guy wasn't too bad either, though he seriously hated being in his carseat.
Overall, I would opt to NOT drive across the country with 2 under 2 again. Someone else can drive our U-haul, but me...I'm flying!
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