The Road Trip...Half Way Across the Country...

...was an interesting one. 2 days before closing on the house we realized that my father in laws truck had a rusted through frame and would not be able to pull the trailer. Earlier that same day, my husband and I had sold my car to Carmax. My poor husband found out hours later that he needed to go back and look for a vehicle... About 7 hours later, my husband and my father in law come back with a truck, I was still packing up the house and we were all up till 3 or 4 am. An early morning Sunday rise rolled around and we were all at it again. My husband gave the new truck a test drive around the block with the trailer hitched to it only to find that the transmission in this "new to us" truck was hosed... it would not make it to Texas with what we needed it to haul. I'm telling you, our patience/endurance, etc was being tested. Mostly husband's in my opinion, poor guy... he had to consistently find me in a matter of a few days to give me bad news. 

We decided Monday after we closed on the house, we would take the truck back to Carmax, got our $ refunded and start on another truck hunt. My husband already had a few contacts who were trying to help him find a truck since he'd reached out to every place he could on Saturday when we'd originally went looking to buy a truck. After test driving a few in Leesburg at a wholesale dealer, we found one that would make it to TX! :D The trailer hitch would need to be rewired to work though... we managed to find some shade near our "old house" ;) and my husband set about rewiring and hooking up the lights for the trailer to work with the new truck (see photo :)).

All this set us back some time but we were all pretty optimistic about it. We had no particular place to be and my husband knew how to wire the brake lights for the truck (I'm so blessed). I basically stayed out of the way and was there for morale support as he worked... time and again I wondered to myself if there was anything he couldn't do. I'm telling you, there are many things that you just can't anticipate when you sell a house, pack all your belongings and move halfway across the country. But with the help of some amazing friends we made it happen!

 We ended up hitting the road for Texas around 8PM the night of closing - here is our convoy somewhere between Virginia and Texas! ;)

A few hours into the drive, and the guys working their CB's (yes CB's :), they were absolutely necessary ;)) My father in law wasn't responding to his at one point, he then pulled ahead of us and pulled into a truck stop, as we followed him we saw him drive through a deep puddle that rocked the trailer and nearly gave us both a heart attack. My husband got out of the truck and went over to make sure he was okay. Luckily his dad was fine, when he went to gave him a hard time about the puddle his dad didn't seemed puzzled, apparently he hadn't seen the puddle. Turns out he had stopped because his CB went out. At the next truck stop my husband bought a new one and replaced the old(er) one that was being faulty, we needed clear lines of communication!! :D Back on the road! 

We stopped every so often and made sure to stop to rotate tires or change them out when they looked low. Okay, so this was all my husband - the changing of tires, and inspection stuff :). I'm so thankful for him. At one of the tire check stops, my father in law spotted a dragonfly our one of the trucks antennae! :)  For him, this held sentimental value... a late girlfriend of his loved dragonflies... naturally I made sure to freeze this moment in time.

The last night of driving we had stopped at a vacant lot to give the tires another look see, I took this time to take a few photos of what was at the road side. A teddy bear that was apparently left behind ( I feel like real photographers would kill for this shot ;)) and some beautiful flowers in the Texas sand!

The husband changed out a low tire and as we let my father in law lead us back onto the road... unfortunately he missed the exit to get back on the highway, as he went to correct this, he jumped a cement median with both the truck and the trailer. Sparks literally flew and the trailer rocked hard from side to side. It was very scary to watch. :( The guys bantered over the CB, basically my father in law didn't know the median was a cemented one... his night vision was not serving him well, but he was okay - he didn't take out any poles or signs as he had done this, so that was something to celebrate. We were fortunate everyone was in one piece.

With about 300 more miles until San Antonio we stopped once more to see if any damage had been done to the under belly of the trailer that jumped the curb... the gas station we stopped at was full of grasshoppers! They were good sized ones too! The weight of them jumping on you hurt! lol I don't' remember the specifics about the trailers here, but we made it to TX without it falling apart and we were able to unload the trailers into a storage unit before long too. A significant part needs to be welded - the trailer is setting until we get a chance to get it to a repair shop, a big piece is broke and will need to be welded. One things for sure though, we were definitely being watched over during our travels! So thankful the guys were able to push through the travels here... many more adventures to come!!

The Beginning

We were in Virginia for nearly a decade together, my husband and I. I'm originally from Iowa and never really felt at home in Virginia. I lived in a few of the suburbs of Washington, DC through the time I was there, originally I had gone to Virginia with intentions of only staying for 3 months to nanny and raise money for a mission trip. But 3 weeks short of me leaving for the trip a friend I made at a church asked if I felt I'd be good at ministering to people in a third world country, to which I replied, "No." It seemed like the next step in my life but after realizing this, I sent all the money I'd raised back to those who had sent funding and continued to nanny in Virginia. I later met my husband a few years later and while he'd been in the area for years, NoVa was not his pace either. If you've ever visited DC you might have enjoyed the monuments and the Mall. If you enjoyed the metro... well then bless you. ;) (I'm not one for public transportation :)). In any case, my husband and I worked on our career paths to enable us to springboard from Virginia to God only knows where when the timing was right. About this time last year I was starting to accept that we might never leave the DC area and we'd be there til retirement. It seems about the time I have accepted something God moves me onto the next chapter I'd been anticipating for a while... February of this year we visited Texas. It'd been on our short list of places we thought we might want to live...and if my husband had to travel for work he'd always keep an eye out... did the area look like it was thriving or decomposing? We'd been on a few road trips as well and stayed mindful of the people we came in contact with while visiting.

San Antonio was awesome to visit. The people we came in contact with were friendly. Granted, yes, San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the US but it didn't really feel that way. It didn't seem crowded. It breathed so much different than NoVa.

While visiting a buddy of ours took us out for breakfast. They sat all four of us at a square table and once the drinks had been ordered and brought out, I realized our table was too small for food. I had ordered coffee and they brought out a thermos with my mug. I thought to myself I should put it on the floor to be out of the way, but thought I don't want to get anyone in trouble in case that was a sanitary issue. A few minutes later our food came out, and what did the waitress do with the thermos?! She put it on the floor next to me! This woman was my hero! That was practical! That made sense! So of course I had my sister take a picture of this awesomeness with my thumbs up approval..

We later walked an outdoor mall and you better believe I talked up some of the staff at the stores just to see how they interacted. They weren't snobby or short with me like I was used to from the hurried people of NoVA. I was really beginning to like this place! 

The views were lovely... everywhere we drove I could not get over how beautiful the sky was! It reminded me of Iowa somehow, maybe it was the blue hue, I really don't know. But for a change I could see the sky. NoVa has so many trees and shrubs always lining the roads. Give me some open spaces! :D

Fast forward to our trip being over and we were back with our luggage at NoVA. My husband asked me if I was glad to be back. This puzzled and slightly annoyed me. When you don't know if you have a choice to leave or not, you kind of don't want to dislike the reality you're in. I told him as much. He explained that was a litmus test to see how sold I was on Texas. Makes sense. :) (He usually does. ;)) The following week was pretty telling, my sister was given a two week notice, budgets had been cut on her project. We told her not to look for opportunities in VA unless she loved it there because we were moving to Texas. My husband asked for approval to work remotely in Texas that same week as well, and was granted this approval. Now to sell the house!

UP next will most likely be me sharing about our road trip to Texas, the house selling went relatively quickly once it was on the market and that being a very stressful time I'm opting out of sharing in detail the remodeling that was done before putting it on the market too. We were busy... some nights I'd be up till 3 or 4 am working on cleaning or painting and then up for work again the next day. No way was I taking any time off. We needed the PTO payout to help out later on :)