The Mountains are taller than ME: The Long Road Home

The adventure began the moment my dad pulled up in front of my LaGrange residence towing a trailer behind him that was meant to carry my car and possessions across the country side to Colorado. My first heart pounding moment was seeing the trailer and thinking: "Dear Lord my car will never fit on that thing."

I had already packed my car to the gills earlier that day (or so I thought until Rob, my sister's fiance, hopped in and proved he was the king of packing Tetris. Thanks again, Rob. :) ) leaving only room to hop in a drive it up and onto the trailer. Which brought on heart pounding moment #2 as I slowly pulled my car up onto this tiny trailer, watching as the back end of my dad's huge truck LIFTED OFF THE GROUND, and waiting to hear an awful screech and scrape as the sides of my car hit the sides of the too-small trailer. The sound never came, the truck settled back to the ground and the car fit. Hallelujah.

I will never forget the sight of all my stuff in the back of my dad's truck. The Beverly Hillbilly jokes started and didn't stop until the truck was unloaded in Colorado Springs. Because of the huge favor everyone was doing me in helping me to move 995 miles away, I just smiled and laughed along...all the while thinking in my head "Excuse me, but I believe my stuff is a little better than that. After all, most of it is from Target."
Heart pounding moment #3 hit when, while driving down the expressway away from Chicago and towards the Quad Cities, my mattress decided it didn't want to go and made a mad leap for freedom. I screamed, Sylvia smacked me and told me to settle down, and my dad just rolled his eyes and pulled over.

The mattress never made it out of the back to the truck, but it did give a convincing show of trying. After stopping at a Target (yay!) along the way home and buying some more securing devices, we settled in for the trip to my parent's house: our rest stop before the long journey, and where we would pick up another lovely volunteer for the trip, my Uncle Jim.

The next morning we were up with the dawn securing my stuff once again and plastic wrapping the bejesus out of things. Settled in the back of my dad's truck with Sylvia, I said my goodbye's to my mom and to the log house I love so much, and started my journey out west. The trip was long to say the least, and all of us got close to cracking at one point or another. Before I knew it, I was standing in my apartment with Sylvia, looking at the amazing IKEA couch my dad and Uncle Jim had finished wrestling into submission and saying my thank you's and goodbye's to them as they drove off to start the long journey back to Illinois.

The apartment set up is another story entirely, and that's coming next. :) Enjoy the pictures

In LaGrange, packing up. *Sigh* Go on, the Beverly Hillbilly jokes are just bursting to come out of you. It's fine. :)

Sylvia took a picture of my house so her city friends would believe that I really did grow up in a log house.

Early the day of the long trip! Wrapping my mattress with the 45th or 46th layer of plastic. I was just being thorough.

While packing I had discovered many 'lost' sunglasses and had stashed them in my purse for easy access. Then I wore them all at once. UV protection is important!

While driving through Kansas we came upon fields and fields of these massive wind mills. They went on for miles. Beautiful and impressive, we need more of them!