Keep on truckin'

Yahoo! The biggest part of the move is behind us. We rented a 24' truck (the biggest rental truck I could find) and filled it ceiling-to-floor right to the rear door with furniture, books and boxes from Boise. I drove it up to Montana while Tom followed in the Wee Beastie, which was also full. The big diesel truck gave me a new appreciation of the effect of fuel prices! I drove slowly to conserve fuel (55 mph) and averaged around 12 miles/gallon (considerably better than the rental truck guy predicted), but still ended up using about $250 worth of diesel. And this is after the prices have come down from their high point. Diesel cost around $4.65 per gallon on the trip, down from over $5 a month ago. Still, it was impressive, to me at least.

Once we got here, we unloaded all the books and most of the bookshelves into a storage unit I had rented in Livingston. Then, since it was night and we weren't sure about trying to take the big truck up the road to the cabin, we left it at the storage unit and drove the Beastie home and fell exhausted into bed.

The next morning, we sized up the narrow spaces between trees in our driveway, the low branches and narrow, steep turns on our road and decided not to risk bringing the rental truck up to the house. You were right, Mom. I think the truck could have handled the road, but we were worried about doing body damage with trees and limbs, so we brought it up to the bottom of the hill where people park their cars in the winter, and backed the Beastie up to it. We pulled the ramp from the big truck right onto the tailgate of the Beastie and unloaded things into it, then drove it up the hill, unloaded from the Beastie to the house, then drove back down for another load. I didn't get a picture of the ramp/catwalk in operation because I was too busy hauling things over it. It required about 12 loads and two full days of work to get everything in, but now the house is full of boxes and our furniture is all in, and the hardest part is done! I wasn't sure I was strong enough to do this still, but I guess we aren't too old yet.

We returned the rental truck intact and started right in on unpacking. This picture is for Jason, who commented on how tidy everything was in the middle of our move in previous pictures. Here is the real truth of what the middle of the move looks like:

Tom has his office set up already, and has spent the weekend working on reviewing a paper that has an impending deadline. I unpacked the kitchen and found places for (almost) everything we want to keep. The cupboards are full to bursting, but everything has a place.

The only damage sustained in the move was the dining room table, an heirloom from Tom's family. One of the legs came apart where two pieces of wood were joined. It will be a simple repair, but it means that we can't put it upright and use it until we have time to fix it. Otherwise, we came through amazingly unscathed. Mind you, it might have been better if some of our possessions were ruined - less stuff to cram into the cabin.

There are still many boxes to unpack and a couple of furniture items to shift around, but it's all a downhill coast from here. Well, almost. Tomorrow we will drive back to Boise. The Salvation Army is coming Tuesday to pick up some furniture and a huge pile of clothes and kitchen items that we are donating there. Wednesday, we'll drive to Whidbey Island with the car and the pickup truck full of things. After a few days there, we'll drive back here to Montana, hoping to meet up with the excavator who is going to install our cistern, septic tank, and water lines. Then, it is back to Boise to get the last load for La Porte. There's lots of moving craziness left to do, but none of it requires the sheer back-breaking labor of this part of the move.

Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday, Dad!