Our Move

So, here's how the move went.  And even as I'm typing this, I'm thinking, "Boy, I'm sure glad that's over!"  It's so much work, and we are all still recovering.

We packed up our house with the help of my sister and her girls.  Spiff and Stephanie wrapped furniture in plastic wrap and hauling boxes into the truck, while I ran around finishing the packing and cleaning.  Her girls were amazing!  The oldest, who just turned 13, carried countless boxes out of the depths of the basement up the stairs and outside to the driveway.  The 9-year-old helped keep an eye on the little kids.  It wasn't until later in the afternoon when all of our doors were wide open while we were carrying everything in the house outside that I decided I could not keep track of Hobbes!  I called up Kalie and she most graciously agreed watch him while I waited for my other sister to arrive and take the younger kids away.  Seriously, Kalie, I don't know what I would have done without your help!  Little Hobbes would have been smashed by a furniture dolly without you.

Anyway, the elder's quorum showed up and loaded up the furniture.  The thing about using ABF is that you are charged by the square foot of space you use.  So, we tried to pack everything as densely as possible.  It's like a hunormous (that's Gunner's word) 3-D puzzle.  We did have a few casualties.  The kids' play structure didn't fit.  I'm still a little sad about that.  And we left Gunner's crib behind.  Actually, Spiff tore it apart and used it as packing shims.  I think the rest of it was just used as firewood at my family's annual camping trip.  We bought him an IKEA big-boy bed when we arrived.

So, all said and done, it was the world's longest day.  We were exhausted, but we got it done, and I'm so very grateful for all the help!   Then we said goodbye to our little house and got on the road.  We sure will miss our house, fabulous neighbors, family, friends, mountains, and glorious glorious weather!

We drove through Wyoming this time, instead of heading East on I-80, in order to avoid the longest straight section of road in the country, and the rest of Nebraska, too.  And I didn't regret it for an instant.  Driving north east in Wyoming was wonderful.  It was such a beautiful drive!  In fact, I'm fairly certain that my breath was taken away as we drove past Alcova, WY.  Seriously beautiful country.  You probably have to see it to believe it; the pictures just don't do it justice.

We stayed the night in a fairly excellent hotel in Gillette, WY, and rewarded the boys for their outstanding traveling behavior with a late-night swim in the hotel pool.  We had a good time, were able to relax and stretch out after a long day of driving, but didn't get the kids in bed until after 10:00.  This resulted in a looooooooooong day the next day.

We started off the day by driving to Devil's Tower.  I have never been there, and I thought it was great!  There was a little mile-ish hike that we took the boys on. I thought the kids would be happy to get out of the car, stretch their legs and enjoy a little adventure.  I was wrong.  Well, Hobbes was fine.  Look at him happily hiking along!

Gunner, on the other hand, was awful.  He whined and complained the entire time we walked!  "Are we done yet?"  "Why do we have to BEEEEE here?!"  "I want to go back to the car!"  Etc.

That is, until he found the perfect little gun-sized/shaped stick and started shooting every person who hiked past us.  Good thing most people were good sports about it because he shot every one of them dead.

Devil's Tower = Beautiful

From there, we headed East to Mount Rushmore.  I have also never been there before.  And it was...meh.  I didn't love it.  The Mount was cool.  The history behind it's creation was cool.  The opportunity to get out of the car and walk around was nice.  But I was underwhelmed by the whole place.  Perhaps if Gunner hadn't been whining, or if we had been able to spend more time in the Black Hills instead of just seeing this one sight, perhaps I would have liked it better.  As it stands, I don't think I'll ever return...willingly.

The thing about it was that everything in the whole area was entirely over-commercialized.  There is this one main highway that runs from I-90 down to Mount Rushmore.  There are approximately 30,000 billboards along that highway trying to get you to come in and have FUN at this man-made sight, or more FUN at that man-made water park, or even MORE FUN(!!!) at that museum!  Museum of Gutzon Borglum, who built Mt. Rushmore (that's understandable).  Museum of Reptiles.  Museum of Birds.  Museum of Bob Loblaw.  There just isn't enough natural fun to be had in that part of the country that they have to man-make it, and they have to cram it all down your throat as you drive by.  I wanted to see the sights and enjoy the area, and it was ruined for me by all the man-made stuff.  I guess I'm completely spoiled growing up in the West where there is no lack of splendid natural beauty to be had.  What South Dakota had to offer paled in comparison.

Oh, that then there was Rapid City.  After touring around those two sights all day, we decided to stay the night in Rapid City.  We must have just hit the wrong parts of town, and I hope we did because otherwise that place is a dump!  Our Garmin landed us at a park in the Ghetto, we ate dinner at a Subway where all of the workers behind the counter were missing some teeth, and we could not find a hotel room for under $230/night.  What?!  I know.  That's insanity!  We decided that there must have been an event and that the hotels were hiking their rates because the nice hotels at Snowbird Resort, you know, the ones that you can ski to the lift from your hotel room door...they don't charge much more than that to stay there.

We were tired and hungry, but we decided that there was something wrong with Rapid City, so we meandered down the highway to Wall.  Yes, we stayed the night in Wall, SD, home of the made-famous-by-billboard-advertising Wall Drug!  I feel so honored, and grateful to stay at an inexpensive Econolodge.  Thank you, Wall.

The next day found us at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.  The Corn Palace!!!  Look at the link for pictures of the outside of this landmark.  Here's one of the inside.  It's entirely decorated by corn.  Pretty neat.  This place was the home for us of a nice stretch of our legs and a picnic lunch.  Not much more than that.

So from there, we drove to Minneapolis to stay with our gracious friends who put us up for a few nights until our ABF truck finally delivered our stuff to our house.  It took two days longer than we had hoped.  We will probably not use ABF again, unless we are planning a week or longer vacation in the mean time.  It was a big time waster and frustrating to feel like we were in limbo.  Oh, than then there was a monsoon that arrived and dumped rain on us for the evening.  We had to postpone the elder's quorum another day.  More delays.  But even in the rain, Spiff and our good friend, Dan, unloaded boxes in the rain, saved some books and the piano from rain water that had gotten into the truck, and we were on our way to getting settled in our new house.

Spiff has since started his new job.  It's good and hard for him at the same time.  The kids and I have enjoyed being reunited with Maggie and her kids!!!!  Not enough exclamation points for that one.  Gunner has a new friend from church.  I have met some nice people, but it sure is hard being the new girl again.  We miss what we had, and change is hard, but we're slowly slowly slowly getting there.