After saying farewell to our first home together and to some friends for the last time, Matthew and I headed to Access RV to pick up Matthew's last paycheck and to drop off his keys to the joint. Along with the paycheck, one of Matthew's co-workers, Marcie, gave him a bag full of goodies as a driving package. After saying our goodbyes we headed towards the Bowen Homestead for the night.
Above: Matthew and I in front of our first home together. The entrance to our apartment is up some orange steps that you can't see on the left side of the house.
Aboce: left- Matthew near the entrance to our apartment. right- the stairs that lead to nowhere right below our old kitchen window. One of the many things that made our first home so creepy and yet so loved.
Early Wednesday morning, Matthew's parents sent us off towards Seattle. Matthew did most of the driving while I did most of the sleeping which is the usual pattern of things. And for the most part our trip was uneventful, but we were able to find joy in some simplicities.
Above: left- This semi truck made Matthew and I laugh. It has a picture of a cow that is winking and saying, "DrinkAMugAMilkAMeal." right- Matthew was sucking on a DumDum and when he took it out of his mouth he and the sucker were making the same expression.
The plan was to make the trip in two days. We could have pulled it off in one, but the drive is 18 hours going the actual speed limit and since we were in a moving truck pulling a car we were only able to go 50-55mph, especially when we were met with anything resembling a hill. That combined with the fact that it was just the two of us we decided it best to take our time. Our goal for the first day was to make it as far as we could and hope to get into the state of Washington.
We traveled most of the day without stopping except to fill the truck up with gas and to go potty. We kept our bellies appeased by snacking on the snack bag from Marcie and other various munchies, but when we got closer to the dinner hour, we were anxious for something more filling, so we stopped to eat at a little fast food joint. We decided to eat inside so we could get out of the truck and stretch our legs. When we got back to the truck Matthew wanted to double check the chains that wee keeping our car tied down and discovered that one of the chains broke. I wasn't really sure of what to do, but Matthew thought he had the right tools to fix the chain. Unfortunately he didn't but he found a way to re-chain the car so that it wouldn't topple off.
Near the end of the day we knew that we would easily reach our goal and decided to stop and find a hotel in Kennewick, WA which is one of the cities of Tri-City. We didn't want to get too far into the city because we wanted to stay close to the freeway and Matthew's parents gave us great advice on how to pick out a hotel to stay in. They said, to check out the front lobby; if the lobby doesn't look good, there is no way the room looks good. So we decided to first give the La Quinta Inn and Suites a try and they did in fact have a nice lobby so we went to the check in desk to see if they had anything available. The clerk said she had a room with two beds available for a little over a hundred dollars. As Matthew was saying, "Well we don't really need the extra bed... (but if that's all you have we'll take it)," the clerk said, "Well, maybe I can give you a better deal" and then promptly cut the price of the room. She then asked us not to discuss the price of our room with any other guests. As we walked out to the car to get our bags we kind of chuckled because we were willing to pay the first price, but we think the clerk thought we were going to walk away. So now we had more beds than we needed for a lower price and we were a-okay with it!
Thursday morning we ate breakfast and headed off to finish the last leg of our trip. While getting ready I noticed that my legs, specifically my left leg was pretty swollen. About a year ago I had a blood clot in my left leg, so Matthew and I decided that we needed to make a more conscious effort of stopping at least ever two hours so I could get up and walk to help bring the swelling down. While sitting in the truck I also tried to elevate my feet, which seemed to help.
As we got closer to the Seattle area, we realized that we were actually ahead of schedule and so we called the manager of the apartment complex we were moving into to ask if we could come a few hours sooner. The manager said she could help us at 2pm, which meant we had plenty of time to get to Bellevue, return the trailer our car was on to the Budget lot and get ourselves to the apartment complex, which is just what we did.
Above: Me in front of our new apartment in Bellevue, WA. The windows to our apartment are directly above the Budget Truck.
Above: Our first "head" board
After signing some papers, writing a check and taking our first official walk through of our new home, Matthew and I started the drudging task of unloading the truck by ourselves. Before making the move, Matthew found out what ward we would be in and contacted the Bishop to see if they could rally some people to help us unload upon our arrival. He said he would spread the word and we would hear from someone soon. Well, although we believed someone would be there to help us we still hadn't heard from anyone so Matthew called the Bishop again. He gave us the phone number of the Elder's Quorum President and we called him, but no answer. Matthew left a message and we continued to unpack. We soon got a call back saying that help would indeed be coming that evening. After a few hours of going up and down 3 flights of stairs, we only had about half the truck unloaded and I wasn't sure how much longer I could go on. My legs were shaking with every step and I told Matthew that I was going to quit if we didn't have help soon. Within a half hour help arrived and they had the rest of our stuff unloaded within 45 minutes. It was a definite blessing. So, we are here safe and sound, although a little sore. I start my new job tomorrow and we hope to have a great adventure here in Seattle.
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