The Blast Shelter

[ Reading time: 2 - 2 minutes ]

How NOT to Move Cross Country

By Richard A. Fleetwood – May 2001

PROLOGUE:

This document was written in the middle of a family move from Alabama to Wyoming, a move we made on our own, using our own vehicles and labor. It was hard. Really hard. And scary. Writing about helped to deal with the problems a bit better. At least we finished what we started with most of what we left Alabama with. Read it and cringe.

Richard
May 2001

The Story….
October 17, 2000
5:52pm

The title of this story … The move from Hell.

As I am writing this, we (my entire family and I, and my best friend Dave, are sitting in a motel room in a little town in northeastern New Mexico, having been here a couple of days…waiting. Waiting some more. And a little more. We are tired, a little irritable, worn out, and quite frazzled. But we are alive. We are STILL in the midst of a move from Alabama to Wyoming. If all works out as planned at THIS moment, we should be pulling into the driveway in Lander, Wyoming this time tomorrow.

Like that song from the age of the groovy 60s and 70s, what a long, strange trip it’s been.

All we wanted to do was simply move our family and our few, valued possessions on a trailer, and in the bed of a pickup truck, from Birmingham, Alabama to Lander, Wyoming, in a few enjoyable, if cramped and crowded, days, visiting our relatives and friends in Tyler and Plano, Texas. We’d then hit the road, and get to our new home in relative peace and quiet, tired and exhausted, but safe.

Well, what can I say. It has been anything but. A small list of happenings SO FAR? Get your popcorn…