The past few weeks have been incredibly busy.  I flew back to Seattle on a Friday night and, since I got in so late, I went straight to the hotel.  By Saturday afternoon, Sandi, my mom, my sister, and my niece had all joined me so we could catch the cruise ship on Sunday.

As an aside, there were two ships docked in Seattle that day, both boarding at the same time and both following roughly the same itinerary for their 7-day Alaskan cruises.  Our trip was terrific, but the other ship was the scene of a homicide,  delays caused by the resulting FBI investigation, and another death due to a heart attack.  There is no phone or Internet service on the ship unless you pay extra for it, so we didn’t know anything about it until we checked our phones a couple of days later and found several frantic messages wondering if we were okay.  We were, and as I said; we had a great time.  We got to spend time together, ate very well, enjoyed our port calls, and have some fun, new experiences to remember.

For those who haven’t done one of these trips, I highly recommend it.  This was our third cruise and the second visit to Alaska.  It’s not cheap, but you unpack once, visit several different places, and they take very good care of you.  I’d prefer if there were fewer people, but that’s just me.

We got home a week later and dramatically shifted gears.  We had begun packing and sorting some time ago, but it was time to get serious about it.  Mom stayed to help pack boxes for a few days and Jack and my girls showed up to help load the truck.  Speaking of the truck….  we had a tough time even finding one to rent.  We went on-line to reserve a U-haul and the site told us there were no trucks available until September.  There’s no point describing all the phone calls and e-mails that followed, but we eventually reserved a truck with Penske and later managed to find a truck through U-haul for almost $1,000 less.  We ended up cutting into that windfall a bit at the end of the trip, but I’ll wait to explain that.

While we packed and loaded, we also smoked almost 100 pounds of pork shoulder.  Aly wants pulled pork for her upcoming wedding, so I ran three different batches.  Each batch was four large shoulder roasts, smoking for about 14 hours.  We pulled it at night before going to bed and then vacuum sealed it all so it can be ready for the reception.

We finally ran out of time and space and needed to get on the road.  I had scheduled the furnace guy and the electrician for the next week, so we really had to be in Colorado by Sunday night.  We hit the road on Friday evening and headed south.  We stopped at a rest stop just before we got to Portland and decided to try ‘walking the cat’.  She rides pretty calmly in the car in her little carrier, so we figured the trip would go pretty well, but we didn’t know how potty stops might go.  Sadly, we found out just an hour into our trip.  Sandi set her down just as a semi pulled in and scared her to the point that she panicked, managed to roll out of her little harness and bolted for the tree-line.  The brush was very thick, the thorns and stickers were very sharp, and it was quickly getting dark.  It broke our hearts, but after searching for an hour and a half, we didn’t have much choice but to get back on the road.

The next 1500 miles went very well.  We spent the first night in Pendleton Oregon, and made it to Kemmerer, Wyoming the second night.  Along the way, we learned that we had a signed contract for our house, so that took a little pressure off our shoulders.  This is the second time I’ve driven away from an empty house and sold it from the cab of a U-haul.

The last half mile is where things sort of fell apart.  While the weather in Washington has been hot, clear, and dry, Colorado has been experiencing record rainfall during this years’ monsoon season.  In fact, we hit rain as soon as we left Wyoming and entered Colorado.  As we approached our driveway, I was focused on the on-coming traffic lane, pulling wide to make the right turn, and just didn’t realize how much of our driveway approach had been washed out by all that water.  The front wheels made it, but the rear wheels dropped into the newly created ditch and the rear bumper landed on the pavement, which basically meant we were high-centered from the rear.  U-haul advertises that they have the lowest loading decks in the industry.  That’s helpful when you’re hauling heavy boxes and appliances up the ramp.  It’s less helpful when you need the clearance to get up your driveway.  It was dark and raining and we were blocking both lanes of the county road.

We met a couple of Cripple Creek police officers and a Teller County deputy who showed up to help with traffic control while we waited for the tow truck.  All of them were very helpful, concerned, and seemed like good guys.  Keep in mind, we were in a 26 foot, fully loaded truck towing a trailer, so a regular “little” tow truck wasn’t going to cut it.  We got one of those big wreckers they use to tow semi trucks.    The driver was great.  He pulled us out from behind and got us back on the road really quickly.  We went up to the gas station and turned around so we approached from the other direction.  There was enough of the driveway still intact from that direction that we were able to make it rather easily.  The tow driver went up the hill first just in case we got stuck so he’d be able to pull us up the rest of the way.  It turned out that we didn’t need him, but it was sure reassuring knowing he was there.  We parked, paid the bill, and finally relaxed a bit that we had made it.

A couple of final notes for this post….  the bill was nowhere near as high as I was expecting; $262 seemed really reasonable considering the circumstances.  There was no damage to the truck and the damage to my trailer can be repaired very easily and cheaply.  Also, we got ahold of the city on Monday, and their plan is to come out on Friday and replace the plugged culvert.  Fingers crossed.  Oh, and no word on our cat yet, though we’ve filed missing pet reports with Clark County Animal Control, the local Humane Society there, and the company that monitors her micro chip.  They were going to put out a live trap and let the rest stop hosts know to watch for her.  We’re hoping she turns up soon.

To be continued……