On the Road Again

How many times have you thought about moving and then decided it was too much work? Haha, my husband and I went through this for years while living in Virginia. Of course, it was much more than just “hard work” that stopped us from moving a few times; but those times when it didn’t work out, it was always a bit of relief that we wouldn’t have to pack up our entire life and move it across the country. 

The first time we moved, it was from a 940 square foot 3 bedroom, 1 bath house in an incredibly unsafe neighborhood, into our brand new build, 2200 square foot, 4 bedroom, 2 ½ bath home in a much safer neighborhood. Now, when I google map it, the two houses are literally less than two miles apart. It’s still amazing to me how in some areas, the neighborhoods safety can change so drastically within such a small change in location. 

This was our new home. I added a picture because it was definitely my favorite place we’ve called home and I wanted to share. 

For this move, we rented a 17’ U-haul for 1 day and were able to fit all of our big furniture in one trip. We didn’t even have to put gas in it because if I remember correctly, we drove the truck about 10 miles total. The rest of our things, mostly boxes, we just loaded up in our truck, our car, and a few friends’ vehicles. 

We had been looking for houses for almost a year, so we had ample time to plan the move, the packing, and the decluttering. So for my first tip, if you have time, go through everything and decide what you don’t need or don't want to take to your new home. We didn’t have time to do this for our cross-country move, and almost a year later I’m still trying to get rid of crap we could have left in Virginia. 

We stayed in this home for about 3 years. Since we had over 1,000 more square feet, you can imagine the amount of furniture and stuff we accumulated over those short years. With the all of the things we accumulated, we knew the 17’ truck wasn’t going to cut it once we did decide to move. 

Now to explain why we moved on such short notice. In December of 2016, the local Police Department released a job announcement and my husband reluctantly applied for it. Our thinking was, if he got it, then we could really discuss moving; but of course he didn’t have to take it.

In January of 2017 we found out that I was pregnant with our little sweet and sour patch kid, Maverick. We were so excited! The same night I took the pregnancy test, my husband said, “well, it’s a good thing I applied for that job in California. Now that we’ll have another kid, it’s probably a good idea we move closer to family.”

Later that month he was contacted to take the physical and written test for the California job. Y’all, my husband is so sweet. We were in the grocery store deciding what we were going to make for dinner and he was in a different isle than me when he got the phone call. He came around the corner and said, “Let’s go out to eat.” I was surprised at his change in demeanor but figured he just got a craving or something… you know; those sympathetic cravings the husbands get during our pregnancies?

We went to Outback Steakhouse, which we typically didn’t do because they’re expensive and my husband’s steaks are significantly better than anything from a restaurant. We were in the middle of eating our blooming onion, I lived for those during my pregnancy, and he dropped the bomb. I started crying right there in the middle of dinner. Damn pregnancy hormones. 

So, we made reservations, and he flew out alone and stayed with my family. He was told he should hear something within a month, came home, and when a month had passed, we moved on thinking it wasn’t happening. It took them about two months to contact him, but finally they called and told him they wanted him to come out for an interview. At this point, we’re thinking, it must be happening since they know we’re shelling out thousands of dollars for these plane tickets, rental cars, etc.

Toward the end of his interview he was told he wasn’t actually interviewing for an open position, but more for them to have a pool of applicants when a position did open. Oh my goodness y’all. I saw red. I couldn’t believe that any employer would jerk us around like this. Of course, they had a plan, they just weren’t sharing it with us. With the information I did have, I was furious. Plus, I was pregnant and everything was the end of the world to me. 

Shortly after that call, we decided to use the money we’d been saving for the move and buy some paint for our bedroom and a new bedroom set. I do NOT recommend doing this. LOL Before I continue, I have to digress. We had been joking about how every time we’d given up on moving and would do something opposite of someone trying to move, that’s when we’d get the phone calls. So sure enough, we had just finished painting the bedroom and were almost finished putting all of our new furniture together when my husband’s phone rang. 

It was the recruiter. Of course it was. He asked my husband if he’d started the process of transferring his certifications from Virginia to become POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training, I think) certified. Of course he said no because he didn’t know that’s what their plans were. So the official process began, finally. Now, this was only around March or April, so in theory we still had plenty of time to do all of the things to make a smooth move. But nothing was ever definite. And I was pregnant, so packing and decluttering when I wasn’t sure it was necessary was not high on my list of things to do.

My husband worked on his POST certification all year. These people only use snail mail so it’s an incredibly slow process. He discussed with the recruiter that we would like to try and move before the baby was due, but they just continued to pussyfoot around when they would want him. So again, we weren’t really sure it was even going to happen.

Shortly after discussing the pending birth, they decided they didn’t want to add stress on us and told him they would like to shoot for December if possible. Okay, does that mean we’re moving in December? No. Not necessarily, they’re just hoping they’ll have an opening. UGH. So again, we discussed it and looked at houses for fun, but nothing was looking for sure.

It wasn’t until the week of Thanksgiving that they finally received all of his paperwork and decided he was POST Certified. They called and said they wanted him to start at the beginning of the new year. Whaaaaaaat!?!?!? That was in 5 weeks! We had jobs and three kids and a new baby and a 2200 square foot house to pack and sell. Woah. It was overwhelming to say the least.

I immediately started doing research on moving trucks, companies, where I could get boxes, etc. I looked at hiring movers vs. doing it ourselves. I looked at the companies with the boxes that they drive across the country themselves. I read dozens of blog posts describing other peoples adventures of moving and as many tips and tricks as I could find. In the end, my biggest recommendation aside from purging your life, DO NOT sign up for the websites where they promise to find the cheapest route for you. I got so many emails and phone calls and they wanted so much information I didn’t even have yet. And in the end, it was easier and I found better deals, comparing companies myself.

We chose to use Penske. I don’t remember if they were having a special or if it was just cheaper than all the rest, but at the time they were the cheapest option. We chose the biggest truck they had which was a 26’. Again, I did so much research on this truck. How much does it typically hold? What are the best ways to pack the truck to make most of the room? Are there ways to pack the truck to make it even and get better gas mileage or to be safer? 

One of the best things I found was this info-graphic from the Penske website.

Though, we were on a serious time crunch and we only really followed it until we were running out of time and ended up just throwing things in. When we were unpacking, I found a few “fragile” boxes under several heavy boxes and furniture… oops!

We ended up leaving a day later than expected AND we had to rent an additional 6’ x 12’ cargo trailer from U Haul. Initially, I wanted to fit our entire house in two of those. It’s a good thing I listened to my husband for once. 

The only boxes I paid for were boxes specifically designed for dishes. Otherwise, we gathered boxes from friends, from our workplaces, and I called every store in the area. Many times I would have just missed them compacting their boxes to recycle but what I eventually found was a God send. There was a recycling dumpster behind our grocery store shopping complex that all of the stores would throw their boxes into. I know this typically means we went dumpster diving for boxes, but it wasn’t quite as dramatic as it sounds. We found the majority of our good moving boxes here.

So if you’ve been counting, we had three vehicles to get across the country. We had my husband’s truck pulling the above U Haul housing the driver and the dogs; my Explorer housing myself, my step-daughter, the baby, and the cats; and the Penske truck housing the driver and my older son. We were so lucky to have his family helping out. My Mother-in-Law flew up to Virginia, spent a few days with us, and drove his truck.

We had our entire trip planned, or at least we thought we did. We had planned on taking two days to drive down to Louisiana to spend Christmas with my in-laws. Then I was going to fly with the two boys to our destination while my husband, his brother, and his father drove the vehicles the rest of the way over two more days.

Have you ever heard the saying that if you tell God your plans, he’ll laugh? Well, that’s basically what happened. We ended up leaving the night of the day we intended on leaving. The plan B was to drive through the night and straight through to Louisiana. We were so tired, we made it to about 2 or 3 in the morning before we had to find a hotel to stop at. Unfortunately, because we waited so long to stop, we only got a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and start driving again. Which of course then meant we had to stop the next night too.

Typically, on our trips from Virginia to Louisiana, we could share the driving and make it in about 21 hours without stopping. It took us 3 days to get there this trip. So this is my next piece of advice. Plan your trip conservatively. Don’t think that you’ll be fine driving through the night, when you know you’re not a night person. Don’t plan on assuming the baby will be fine in the car for days on end when you know the baby hates the car seat. Don’t be in such a rush that you plan things against what you know to be true. 

Similarly, the trip from Louisiana to California had bumps as well. As I said, they had planned to take two days with one stop to get there. They ended up stopping twice and taking an additional three days. We were really cutting it close with our amount of days with the rented truck and trailer.

For my last piece of advice, I would say try not to stress. I know that’s basically impossible in a situation where you’re moving no matter the reason. But what I learned was that it doesn’t matter how much you plan and plan, and it doesn’t matter how many backup plans you have either. The trip will eventually end and it will not likely go exactly the way you planned. 

Let’s recap.

11.      DECLUTTER – I can’t stress this enough. If you listen to nothing else I've said, listen to this one.

22.     DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF – Don’t rely on the companies because you’ll be getting phone calls and emails forever, and they’re not even always that accurate.

33.     PLAN CONSERVATIVELY – Save yourself the trouble and just plan on taking your time.

44.     DON’T STRESS – I know it’s much easier said than done, but it’s something to keep in mind.

55.     TAKE PICTURES – We really didn’t take any pictures, otherwise I would’ve shared them. At the time it seemed kind of silly, but now I wish I had them. After all, it is a huge part of our story. :-)

After all of this, we are less than a year in, relatively happy in our new home, and only slightly missing all of the green and the four seasons. ;-)

Here’s a picture of our new home just to show that we are in fact moved in. LOL We're slowly making it our home and we've had some pretty good trade-offs.