Miss Brenda and I spent the week remarking over and over again on the ease of our move from the Redneck Riviera up to the Free State of Tallahatchie. We should have kept our mouths shut.
Everything did go very smoothly--Praise God--Monday through Thursday of Move Week. The movers packed all of our worldly belongings on a moving van Monday without incident, closing on the house in Florida went very quickly Tuesday morning, the drive to Mississippi Tuesday evening was uneventful. Well..., we did take 2 hours longer than I normally make the trip by myself, but I was pulling a boat, and Miss Brenda was following in her car and needed to stop and get her daily mandatory nap in.
Closing on the house in Mississippi went just as smooth as the other in Florida--USAA is simply the BEST! We made our way from the closing attorney's office up into the hills and onto our property, finding it very hard to believe that we were at last realizing our dream of nearly 36 years. We happily slept on the floor in our new home Thursday night, secure in the knowledge that the moving van would arrive on Friday and bring our bed and everything else that has made houses homes for us for three decades.
Friday morning, the moving van driver called and I drove out to the highway to escort him the last 5 miles of winding twists and turns on country roads. We got him to the last turn onto the last stretch of county road and then the problems started. The last turn is a tight 131.3 degree (by my calibrated eyeball) hairpin turn to the left and the big ole semi and trailer just couldn't make it. A short jaunt on up the road, a three point turn on a gravel driveway and the truck came back in a direction to navigate the turn with ease. Now our stuff was only a mile and a half from home. The next 1.4 miles was easy enough--the last tenth of a mile took another 32 hours to complete.
Our gate at the road was plenty wide enough, but the sharp right turn just inside the gate to navigate around the lake proved our undoing. The trailer (gross weight exceeding that of a main battle tank) centerlined on the edge of the gravel road and became a very effective road block. Six hours later the tow truck showed and, with some Rebel Ingenuity, managed to yank the trailer back out the gate. The final conclusion of 15 further minutes of head-scratching and rock-kicking was that unloading our stuff up at the house was going to have to wait one more day and would require a smaller van to shuttle our belongings from the front gate up to the house. For the second time in 4 days we watched our worldly goods and chattel drive away on a truck.
Saturday morning the semi-trailer and a U-Haul moving van showed up at the gate and general unloading began. I couldn't help but think that this reminded me of the last leg of ship to shore movement of equipment and supplies from a ship to a landing beach, complete with Miss Brenda acting as Beach Party (for you non-naval types, there is no beer or bonfire at that kind of beach party) directing traffic at the front door.
By 1700, unloading (to include successful reassembly and positioning of Miss Brenda's baby grand piano) had been completed and the movers departed the Amphibious Operations Area.
As promised, I spent my unpacking supervision time thinking of a name for our new place. Under final consideration by the selection committee (Miss Brenda, of course) is (appropriate drum roll and cavalry bugle fanfare here): Eegeebegee, MS (Unincorporated).
No comments:
Post a Comment