I’m writing from the cab on a 17 foot moving van speeding through the Mojave desert. It’s dark, it’s cool, the air smells of rain and heat, and we are our own small pocket of East Coast time in California. I can hardly wait to cross the state line, and really feel like I am underway.
Loading the truck went surprisingly well. For some reason the whole process seemed very easy, compared to my last moves. Everything was pretty well packed and ready to go by the time Dad got there with the truck, so it was all just a matter of working out an arrangement of boxes and furniture that would fit. Just like a big game of Tetris. We got it all in though, with a bit of room to spare even, and the only thing I forgot (that I know of anyway) is my bag of snacks pilfered from the office. I am mourning the loss of my chocolate covered espresso beans, but I’ll find a way to move on without them. I think.
Here you can see the heap of crap that I donated to the stupid Salvation Army.
And here is my living room just before the truck showed up:
Anyhow, we left the city at about 1 pm, after grabbing lunch at the corner taqueria and making a not-so-quick stop by the post office to pick up my package of Ubuntu Cds and fill out a change of address card. I am bribing people to help unload with beer and linux ISOs. I really am a huge geek.
Traffic sucked. I will not miss crap bay area traffic. We saw three separate accidents before getting out of Hayward. Truly sad, especially for a Saturday. Getting to I5 felt pretty good though. It’s hot in the central valley, not really humid but man was it ever warm when we got out of the truck! One of the best things to do when driving down the highway is look at other cars. Of course, it’s the only thing to do, aside from play with the iPod, in most cases. We saw a semi towing another semi cab, which was very strange. It’s vaguely unsettling to find yourself facing down the front end of a semi truck while going 70mph down a highway. Never mind the weirdness that results from a convoy of no less than 10 identical school busses in perfect convoy formation passing the strange backwards semi towing thing. Very odd. If ever the government takes to uses a fleet of school busses as a “secret” convoy, I will be very afraid. Not exactly subtle.
By the time we got to Wasco, huge thunderheads had formed over the mountains. Very huge. They looked beautiful, rising up at the end of a long stretch of road, but somewhat intimidating after we found out that there were thunderstorms and flash flood warnings for the area ahead of us when we stopped for coffee in Wasco (not even at a Starbucks, I am proud to report). Eep. By the time we got to Tehachapi, the storm was in full force. We pretty much drove through sheets of water for what could only been about 5 or 10 minutes, but feel like a small eternity. Poor Dad was freaking out. I was driving, which always seems to make him nervous, and he hates driving in the pouring rain. Not that I blame him. The first memory I have of that kind of rain was a trip he and I took to LA when I was a kid. It was dumping down rain on Sunset Blvd, and Dad lost control of the car. We spun across 3 lanes of traffic and ended up with the nose of the car stuck in a shrub. Somehow, we didn’t hit anyone and the car wasn’t damaged, but neither of us has ever dealt well with that kind of rain ever since.
After the rain, we came down in to the desert. The desert after rain is an amazing thing. Fresh, clean, and glowing. The sun was just beginning to set as we came over the mountains, casting a golden glow everything, and bringing up all of the variations of green and pink and gold. It’s a magical thing, all the colors and the smell of rain on warm air, with the sun setting in flurry of pink and gold clouds.
We’re planning to push on through the night so we get through most of the desert when it’s cool. Probably a good plan, seeing as it’s July and all, but part of me regrets not being able to watch as the desert changes and passes by. We just got through the horrible stink field before Barstow, I can only imagine how awful that smell would be during the heat of the day. So really, it’s all for the best.
So far, the cat is doing very well. She was not at all happy when we tried to give her her Xanax, I’ve never seen a cat produce that much drool in my life. She must have gotten some into her system though, I was able to put her in the crate with no trouble at all about 20 minutes latter. She meowed a few times, but settled down quickly, and has been quite since. I did try to let her out when we stopped in Mojave, but she refused to come out of the crate. She took a few steps out, tried to go under the truck (thank god we have her on a leash), then bolted right back into the crate where she arranged herself like the Queen of Sheba and seems perfectly content to stay. Probably this is all a very good thing.
The further East I get, the calmer I feel. I still have a lot to do to get through this move, but the end is finally in site, and getting closer by the minute (of course, we just passed a sign that said “Washing DC 2553 miles”, which seems a bit daunting), and so much opportunity is waiting for me. I know it won’t be without its struggles, but there is so much hope there, so much promise.
Here we have Dad doing his impression of a long-haul truck driver:
