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.