We officially closed! The last paper got signed, a sizeable chunk of money disappeared from our coffers and we found ourselves in possession of a key… or rather our agent has our key. But it’s a real key, to a real house, on a real piece of property with three ponds and 50+ acres of trees (and a ton of pokeberry and poison ivy, but who’s counting). It’s so amazing Jim and I keep having to pinch ourselves.
We’re currently en route across the country. I’ve ceased to have any feeling in my legs. The car is packed so tightly the space at my feet is actually filled higher than my seat. I also forgot to pack any toys or books for the kids, so it’s a good thing we all love road trips and are used to driving across the country often(ish). Granted, we aren’t used to crawling at 57mph, but that’s because we’re towing Muffler Man. Jim and his brother spontaneously concocted a scheme to find a trailer, so I wasn’t sure what Craigslist or Offerup would cough up, but Jeff worked his genius and found us a great deal on a 14 footer that will hopefully live a long life as a temporary garage, shed, appliance mover and eventually cow/livestock carrier? It even came with its own built in mascot: (cue music) Muffler Man. Half the kids want to keep him on the side of the trailer, and half of them want to scrape it off….it’s also led to several musical renditions of “Do you know the Muffin Man”.
The only problem with the trailer (if you can call it a problem) is we couldn’t fill it up all of the way without maxing the Suburban’s weight capability. Jim actually weighed all of our boxes and built a spreadsheet. He numbered and catergorized each box and item by type, sorted it to the vehicle it was to be packed in, and then made a pivot table in Excel that showed how to distribute the weight evenly between all of the axles and optomized for the suburban’s unique strengths and weaknesses.
...and if you read and understood any of that then both you and my husband need a more fun hobby (Jim objects to this and says it’s also what he does for a living, but I double object because he really does find it relaxing and fun.) .
All that to say though, we are driving the most carefully packed, slow-moving apparatus across the country ever. Semi-trucks are passing us like we’re standing still. Google map’s “estimated ETA” has given up trying to figure out when we’ll actually arrive at our little homestead in Missouri.
I’d say we’ve almost gone full Laura Ingalls, except that our suburban has its own wi-fi and I’ve pretty much Black Friday shopped across the country...so yeah, clearly roughing it.
