Stuck at Stucky's

When I was a little girl, my father used to tell me, "there are no short-cuts".
I don't think my husband was ever given the same advise, and if he was, then it definitely went in one ear and out the other.
About two-thirds of the way through our recent migration to Dallas, I was driving along while talking to my Mother after having filled up with gas at the last exit. I was just telling her how the trucks were both running well, and that the trip was going very smoothly.
I guess my husband figured it was going a little too smoothly, and needed to spice things up a bit. No sooner did the words come out of my mouth, when I heard my husbands voice on the walkie talkie say, "Turn around. My iPhone was stolen at Stucky's Gas. I'm stuck."

It was 12 miles to the next exit. By the time I got back near Stucky's, I was fully panicked and worried. What did he mean by "I'm stuck"?
Then I saw him.

Couldn't miss him.
He must've freaked out when he realized he did not have his main mode of communication with me on him, and decided it would be easier to turn around on the grass median to return to Stucky's to try and find it or get it back. The grassy knoll separating the highway from the local road was a bit u- shaped. So when he got acrossed it to turn around, the nose and tail end of the truck anchored on the outer edges, trapping the wheels and causing the truck to become a big ole yellow bridge from one side of the median to the other. It was like a banana colored beached whale in the middle of a major highway. I can't believe a police officer did not see this and give him more trouble than I had planned to. I guess I should've laughed, because in hind sight, it WAS pretty funny, but I didn't. I was furious. I threw our AAA card at him and stomped off to nurse a hungry and fussy Quilla in the car.
Everyone knows that if you sit your iPhone down in a public place that it will probably get legs, right?
.... And I wouldn't have rode a bicycle across that median, let alone drive a massive moving truck across it!
Grrrrrr!
Moments later a trucker driving a huge semi stopped and helped to pull the vessel carrying all of our earthly possessions back onto the road.
Lucky.
My husband is SO lucky. He seems to always have a plethora of good Samaritans on call for the times when he just can't help himself but to take that ever-tempting short cut.
He must have some super-duper goooooood karma.
He certainly doesn't ever bore me. :-)

Don't Mess With Texas!

Immediately after crossing the boarder into Texas there are signs posted along the highway with the Lone Star state's slogan: "Don't mess with Texas". And as if to drive that point home, there is the widest variety and greatest amount of road kill along the side of that highway I have EVER seen! Dogs, cats, deer, skunks, pigs, coyote, and possum were all lined up to welcome us. :-(
Poor things.

Relocating half way across the country is quite an undertaking. Raven hasn't lived there in at least 30 years, and I have absolutely no idea about how anything works or where anything is there. So, until we get all the how, what's, and where's sorted out about becoming Texans, Raven's family have made their lake house near Dallas available to us. It was an enormous gift, relief, and help to us. We will stay there through the holidays, or until we get our footing .... Which ever comes first.
The arrival plan was for me to go visit and rest with Quilla at Raven's sister's home with her family while he and his brother went to unload the truck at the local "Stash and Dash" (no, I'm not kidding). After they finished unloading what needed to go into our storage unit, they would go to the lake house to unload whatever things we would need for the next couple months, and then they would return the truck rental and meet up with us.
So, we drove through Texas for a day and a half, and after what has seemed like the week that would never end, we arrived at Raven's sister's family's home in Dallas where Quilla and I received a very warm welcome. We thoroughly enjoyed a long over due visit with Quilla's aunt, uncle and cousins. Raven's eldest niece has a daughter who is two years old, and Quilla fell in love with her immediately.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Or lake house as it were ...
Raven was receiving his own down-home Texas welcome.
After finally storing the last of our belongings at the Stash & Dash, he and his brother fumbled through the darkest of the night at 2am to deposit the rest of our belongings in the cabin. The GPS took them to boat ramp by mistake, so they had to back the 26 ft moving truck down an alternate dirt road to get back on track. This must've caused a bit of a disturbance in the sleepy little gated community because the next thing you know a man was walking towards them through the dark yelling "don't come any closer!" .... With a gun!

He then fired a warning shot into the ground just to make sure they knew he meant business. Raven tried to explain that they were looking for his family's cabin, but the slurring man looked skeptical. Clearly though, he wasn't worried because then his "back up" jumped out from behind the bushes in full on camouflage with an AR14 semiautomatic! He let the startled brothers know that he was the head of the POA (property owners association) here in these parts, and that his family owns most of this land. After some brutal verbal interrogation, the two community watch dogs finally let Raven and his brother approach the house. In order to maintain that Raven and his brother were who they said they were and that they had no criminal intent, they watched over Raven's shoulder as he punched in the security code on the lock that would allow them to retrieve the key to enter the house. Realizing that they had barked up the wrong tree, they lowered their weapons and mumbled an apology, but could be heard in the bushes where they probably were spying with night vision goggles for the next hour.
How's that for a nice "howdy-ya-do"!
The next day when Quilla and I arrived at the lake house with Raven, things were much more quiet. The only greeting of any kind we had was an enormous black bug that flew by as I rocked Quilla on the porch swing outside. She pointed at it and said "bird".
yup! Pfffff! DO NOT MESS WITH TEXAS!

The open road

Wednesday night at the route 66 motel made me feel like we were in a scene from "My Cousin Vinny". We were so tired, but just as we started to drift off to sleep, a train whistle blew just a stone's throw away. Then the room became quiet again. So quiet, in fact, that we became painfully aware of the dripping faucet in the bathroom. Then, just about the time we began to finally drift off to sleep again, the tin on the gas heater heated up enough that it made a loud "pop" that sounded like a gun going off right in the room, and all three of us jumped from the bed. By the time we were calmed down and ready to drift off into la-la land again, the next train went by and the room shook. It was so dark when we got to the motel, that I guess we failed to notice the train tracks that nearly ran past the window. Somewhere around 3:30am, we all fell into a deep sleep from sheer exhaustion. We got up 4 hours later and started driving again.
Surprisingly after such a restless might, Thursday was a great day. We somehow survived the sleep deprivation. Maybe it was all all training that Quilla put us through in her first months. Lol! Regardless, we got to Albuquerque feeling positive and accomplished for the day. We had some Mexican food and got a good nights rest.
On Friday morning as we pulled back onto I40, Raven beeped the horn of the yellow Penske truck at me and waved as I pulled in front of him into our normal caravan formation.
The horn on the yellow truck STUCK!
I felt like I was being followed by the "Little Miss Sunshine" van! Good thing Quilla and I didn't need to push it! what a picture THAT would've been! Eventually the horn stopped. Whew!
We knew we were definitely not in Kansas any more at the next rest stop when a very interesting Jed Clampet-esque character monopolized 20 minutes of our break for gas while telling us about his "grand youngans" We were thoroughly amused and enjoyed listening to his story while Quilla studied his weathered face and twinkling eyes. She also enjoyed the next rest stop where a massive German shepherd named Bullet sauntered over from his post by the vintage gas pump just off route 66 to greet her. She threw her arms around his neck and he gave her a kiss on the nose. Very sweet. A man with a straw hat who was very diligently working on a wad of chew informed me that "Bullet won't hurt 'er none".
"Jed", tobacco man, and Bullet were just about the only living creatures of any kind we saw all day as we crossed over into Texas.
...just lots of open road and the most beautiful, big, full moon I have ever seen.

Truckin'

After 34 days of packing and 4 days of loading 2 trucks, we finally got on the road yesterday. We got a late start, and had lunch just before we got on the road. One hour later Quilla started to fuss a little and I figured she was just about to fall asleep for her afternoon nap. Then she started to WAIL. Of course I was in bumper-to-bumper traffic as I started to make my way across 4 lanes of traffic to the shoulder of the highway to check on her. Then she started gagging. I glanced over my shoulder to see her choking as she vomited like something out of a horror movie in the reflection of her mirror across from her rear facing car seat. I was terrified! I don't remember how I got over to the shoulder as fast as I did, but I'm certain that I am probably very lucky I did not cause an accident. I also called Raven who was following me in the 26 ft moving truck to scream the details of the situation to him. Before either of the trucks probably came to a full stop on the shoulder of the 15 freeway, my feet hit the pavement and I yanked Quilla out of the 5 point harness of her car seat.
Scary. Super scary.
I hate the rear-facing dealio! I know it's safer in an accident, but had it not been for the mirror I have facing her, I might not have gotten over in time to help her. Raven cleaned out the car seat while I got Quilla calmed down, stripped down to a diaper, and nursed her. My poor baby! The highway patrol came to "check on us", but once Raven mentioned baby barf, they felt quite assured that we had our situation under control and could handle it without further assistance. We're still not sure what made her sick. It could've been her lunch didn't agree with her, or motion sickness. All I know is that I'm thrilled that it seems to have been an isolated incident, and she has been perfectly fine since then.
So fine, in fact, that I am convinced my daughter is actually a little angel.
I feel that most people don't smile enough at one another. In a world where people are so skeptical of one another for being too nice, too cold, too loud, too quiet, too black, too white, too rich, too poor ... I sometimes feel that it is such an accomplishment to smile at a stranger and get one back in return.
Not anymore!
Quilla has the ability to turn even the greatest perma-stink-eye person into a smiling mushie puddle of Luva-luva! They can't help themselves! She is just too stinking cute, or has magical powers ... Or both! All I can say is that all of interstate HWY 40 must've gotten the memo that "behold the sun doth shine out of the wee babe Quilla's arse" because we have been gifted smiles by everyone all day long at every rest stop/truck stop we visit.
Sigh
She IS pretty fantastic. Quite the little charmer!

Well, this road trip is going super slow,  but we are having a good time ...  minus Quilla blowing chunks ... even if our motel tonight does smell like an unkept nursing home with an old smoking-friendly casino inside, and the only restaurant nearby is called the "Road Kill Cafe".

Moving Day(s)

Well, just tell me when it's over! I have been packing for one month now, and finally finished at 2am Thursday morning.
We were supposed to pick up the moving truck at 9am Friday morning.
however ...
At 11pm Thursday night as I was gathering together our important documents for the trip, I realized my drivers license had expired while I've been busy trying to fit our life Into a box. So, first thing the next morning I dressed Quilla, gave her some fruit and cherrios, took a shower, threw some clothes on and dashed out the door (wet head, no makeup of course!) to the DMV to get the license renewed. As I was "dashing" I scooped up my happy babbling toddler only to realize that she was cold and wet. Apparently, she had taken a morning swim in the dog's water bowl. So, back in the house we went for a wardrobe change. Seven minutes later my accomplished wiggler and I were In the car and on our way. Luckily, it was raining, and since most Angelino's either don't know how or are scared to drive in the rain, there was no one at the DMV. There was no line and I was able to very quickly finish the renewal process. The only hiccup was that they needed to take a new photo of me for the new license. So, need less to say, for the next 5 years I will carry a drivers license with a terrible wet head/no makeup/dark under eye circles mug shot photo that also looks like I have a bit of facial hair because I was holding Quilla when it was taken and the top of her head was just at my chin! Pffff!
With my new trans-gender looking drivers license in hand, we went to pick up my husband so we could go get the moving truck. All in all that went smoothly, except for my credit card was declined because the bank had a fraud warning hold placed on my account. So, I had to call the bank to verify some recent activity which took another 30 minutes. By the time we got back to the house to start loading the truck it was 10:45am.
And then the sky opened up.
It poured.
It rained cats, dogs AND elephants! It was cold and miserable .... And then eventually it was dark and time for Quilla to go to bed. So, we called it a day.
And did it all over again on Saturday.
And Sunday.
It's now Monday morning. I'm climbing the walls and loosing my mind in a hotel room just down the street from our empty house while Raven finishes tying up a few loose ends so we can finally hit the road.
The truck rental was for 6 days, so we now have 3 days left to drive to Texas and unload it on the other end. This will be virtually impossible since we are traveling with a one year old.
We're not off to a great start.
Poop.