Tuesday, June 28, 2016

FIRST U HAUL MOVE PART TWO GETTING SETTLED

We arrived before noon on our third day and immediately began to unload the truck. Our contractor Randy came by that afternoon and helped Dave to unload some heavy furniture pieces and get the barrister bookcase upstairs into his hobby room.The two pieces of furniture I was most concerned about, the antique secretary and curio cabinet with curved glass, traveled beautifully! Dave had done an excellent job of protecting them and placing them within the truck. I had taken photos of their contents before I packed everything so that I knew immediately where everything was to be placed. It cut the time significantly when it was time to unpack those things! I have the curio cabinet in the living room so that I can easily access my pink glass depressionware serving pieces. I purged through my collection earlier this year, choosing specific pieces for our daughters and daughter in law and gave each of them a write up on their history. We brought up a new log floor lamp and placed it in the living room between the rockers Dave assembled last September. The antique secretary was put into the living room as well but I'm not certain it will stay there. I may choose to put it in the craft studio over the garage once it's remodeled.


Randy's lady love Chris came over later in the afternoon and brought all the fixins for a nice dinner which she cooked for us. What a treat to already have friends waiting for us and are eager for our move!

Randy drove Dave down to Kalispell the next day so they could load our new snow blower from Home Depot into the back of his truck; while they were gone, I surprised Dave by bringing his boxes into the living room that were stacked out on the porch. Randy had put in a new kitchen door and screen door over the winter and I installed a new lock set for them.The new door still needs to be painted but the screen just slides right up into the frame allowing wonderful air to come into the kitchen. He also finished closing up the exterior of the house, replacing boards, etc and repainted the upper level. The house is completely done ow with the exception of my closet upstairs and probably installing new toilets.

Randy had also closed off an open area under the front porch. The gable point over the front door was open with exposed roofing paper. He closed it off and installed cedar shingles giving it a more finished look.

BEFORE (porch has not been redone in this photo):

AFTER:


This trip was a short one since we were using one of Dave's weeks of vacation for Charlie's wedding in Florida. It was mostly a working trip but Dave did manage to sneak off one morning and get some gorgeous photos like this one of Stanton Mountain reflected in the still waters of Lake McDonald!


Randy and Chris invited us over to their place which sits right on the Flathead River. They had a pair of Osprey on their property and Dave was excited over the prospect of photographing them. They were being discouraged by the power company from building their nest on top of these poles. A couple of days after Dave took these pictures, a Canada Goose vacated their nest that they had built last year and the pair began occupying it once again.

We enjoyed good friendship and a good meal with them as well!

To be continued...

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

FIRST U HAUL MOVE: PART ONE: WINTER STORM COMPLICATIONS

This has been an incredibly busy season in our lives! Sadly, we lost a treasured family member March 30th so we've had a Memorial Service, a destination wedding, a Springtime in Yellowstone vacation and our grand-daughter stayed 9 days with us while her folks were in South Africa; now we are working on U Haul Move #2.


I picked up our 20 foot U Haul on April 14th and backed it into the driveway on the very first try! Dave had created a loading diagram for where all the boxes and furniture items should go and so we managed to load the truck in under 4 hours!


We had one major complication though, a winter storm called "VEXO" brewing out in the mountains of Colorado. We had planned to make the drive in 3 stages, arriving the first day in Castle Rock, Colorado just south of Denver where I had used Travelocity to make a reservation. We ate the cost of that room when we canceled and took a different route than our usual Interstate 25 one that takes us up through Colorado and into Buffalo, Wyoming. We decided to drive Interstate 35 north through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, leaving on Saturday, April 16th.

We managed to drive 500 miles before we had to use the windshield wipers. We drove into a rain which eventually changed over to snow. We managed to make it to Scottsbluff, Nebraska where we called it a day!



We awoke the next morning and hit the road early, the snow had began to fall heavily around 5 AM. Since we had driven so far the day before we were able to stay even with the storm system that had dropped up to eighteen inches in parts of Colorado!


We continued our drive north and west, eventually connecting with Interstate 90 in Gillette, Wyoming. Once we crossed over into Montana it was if the clouds parted and I'm pretty sure I hear a chorus of angels sing, well maybe I imagined that part!


We drove as far as Bozeman, Montana, checked into our room and walked over and ate a nice dinner at Outback steakhouse.


Dave and I got a good night's sleep and we were on the road before 4 AM! We made one last rest stop, west of Missoula and were eager to finish the last 125+ miles!


We knew we would be at the house before noon, barring any complications and that also included a quick grocery stop once we got into Columbia Falls. We arrived safe and sound, giving thanks to God; we only added an extra thirty miles by skirting the winter storm! The U Haul truck was surprisingly comfortable, handled well and had about 10,000 miles on it when we picked it up.