Our moving day was scheduled for Monday, June 1. PODS don’t pick up on Sundays, so we scheduled to have the POD picked up on Saturday before. Here’s a movie I made crudely showing the “patented technology” of how they load it onto a flatbed truck while keeping it level. I was overseas when they dropped off the POD originally so I was really excited to see it in action for the pick-up:

It is very simple yet effective, and the entire process took less than ten minutes. The POD took about two weeks to get to Portland and now lives in a storage facility somewhere near the city, where it will stay until we call them with our new address and pick a date for them to drop it off. For those moving somewhere ahead of the POD and needing all of their things right away, this timing might be an inconvenience. But since we don’t need our stuff right away it was not a big deal to us.

So, with the POD gone, we had two days in an empty house with just the essentials that we’d be taking with us to our temporary dwelling. And thus I created a makeshift workstation (because I worked til the last minute!):

After one night on an uncomfortable, leaky old camping air mattress that was basically sleeping on a hard floor, we invested in an AeroBed so we could be well rested for the long trip the next day. Those things are pretty nice! They have a cord attached so you just plug it in, hit a switch, and it inflates in about a minute. Deflates in seconds. It costs a lot more than cheap-o camping mattresses but the quality reflects that.

So after a better night’s sleep, it was finally June 1st, Moving Day!!

Some of our dear neighbors kept us company as we were packing up and snapped these photos. So you can see the last minute prep. These photos are by Bob LaRouche.

Yeah, we decided to take two trees with us!! We planted them as seedlings a few years ago on Earth Day and it’s always been a dream of mine to plant them in the yard of our first home. They’re an Oak and a Maple, so obviously our yard may or may not be able to accomodate such someday-large trees, but I’m not ready to let them go yet.

Also pictured here is Peter earnestly tying that tarp down to shield the scooter and some other items from weather we may encounter. That tarp did not even make it through half of the first day before becoming utterly shredded from the winds of driving on the highway. We picked up a better tarp at a truck stop but that tarp also bit the dust within a few hours, at which point we shrugged our shoulders and let the contents of the truck bed face the elements for the duration of the trip. And for the most part they were fine.

The leaves of the trees were but little stubs when we got to Portland but I think they will be okay with some TLC. They’re hardy trees.

Above – Peter tying down the items, me walking to load stuff into the cab of the truck for our ride. Not pictured – my car, stuffed silly with boxes (the “bare essentials” take up a lot of room!). We put it on the towing dolly for the trip. The dolly was rented from U-Haul and cost $510 for the one-way rental plus full insurance for 9 days.

Our goal was to pull out between 6am and 8am. Final departure time: 11:30am. Oh well, at least we missed traffic! Next post: The first 700 miles – St. Louis, Missouri to North Platte, Nebraska.