At Last

10/28/06 Saturday
We are finally on the road. We are in Rolla, Missouri as I write this. Of course the final days were a mad dash to get things done and figure things out. I called Calvin to see if he could help us get our furniture carried down from the third floor and loaded. He not only could but brought his cousin and Suzie’s sixteen year old son. They worked for four and a half hours to get this done. The trailer, truck, and Cherie’s car are all packed to the gills. We loaded the trailer and seeing it all wouldn’t fit took it back to the storage unit and unloaded what was least important. We have a whole load to come back and get later on.
Here's Cherie's sister, Cathy, with some of the stars she put on the trailer. She wanted to do more of them but time was getting short.


It has been a pretty lousy drive for the last two days. Rain and more rain. The truck is doing a surprisingly good job pulling this overloaded trailer. It struggles to make it up hills but gets there. I am really glad I spent the money for the electric brakes cause otherwise I am sure we would have had a wreck.

We just got online this morning. The hotel wireless wasn’t working when we checked in last night which added to an already high frustration level. Had planned on getting the blog updated and I wanted to E mail everyone we knew about the move but couldn’t. When I checked my E mail I was saddened to see a short message from my son, Adam. I had tried to contact him and my other son, Bruce, so I could say goodbye. I didn’t hear from either one and didn’t push because I feel like I just make them uncomfortable. So I let them know and waited. Yeah it breaks my heart but what can I do? Most of this is a result of my actions five and six years ago when their mother and I were splitting up.

The weather is going to be great for the rest of this trip. We will get home today barring any unforeseen events. Just saying “Get Home” feels good for now we have that place of permanence where we can put down our roots. We are both looking forward to distressing but there is tons of work to be done at the farm so I am sure some stress will remain.

We stopped by the folks house and said our goodbyes. Cherie’s dad got emotional and cried as he told me that if I didn’t take care of his daughter he would look me up and kick my ass. As he stood there hanging onto his cane and trying to look intimidating as he said “I’m serious. I’ll make you regret it” I tried to assure him. It was kind of cute to see his small frail self threatening my big fat ass but was the wrong time to laugh. We had a good send off and here’s a picture of the whole gang together.

We look forward to pulling into the farm but are wondering what we will find. Locked the house up before we left but who knows. Relatives broke in before but they had a key then. Time to hit the road folks.
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That was this morning. It is now midnight in Oklahoma City. We were making good time and wanted to at least make it to the Texas state line before we knocked off for the day. Didn’t happen. As we were approaching the city my battery light came on. It would blink on and off so I kept tabs on it for the next ten or fifteen miles. “Cherie, I think we need to stop in Oklahoma City so I can figure this out” I told her and we started looking for a hotel. Unfortunately it seems that Oklahoma City doesn’t like or approve of billboards so we weren’t able to use that as a way to locate a hotel. As I watched my voltage gage go down I realized I was running on battery power. Being dark out I was running my headlights so knew it wouldn’t be long before the battery died.

“Look! There’s the airport. There’s got to be some hotels around that” I exclaimed and took the exit. NO HOTELS Visible anywhere. I kept on driving towards the airport with the vain idea this was a logical place to find a hotel at. The lights kept getting dimmer and I could barely see the speedometer. When it also quit working I knew the end was near so turned off the highway to find a safe place to land. The truck died right when I got it off the road. I had Cherie call AAA and with some difficulty got some help. Because we needed both the truck and the trailer towed they had to call for a bigger tow truck to haul them both. The driver was a great guy and quite good at his job. He towed us to this Best Western hotel where we will stay till I get the truck fixed. I hope it’s the alternator cause I can change that out with no problem. If it’s a short in some of the extensive wiring I did to put in the electric brakes, trailer lights hookup, and CB radio, that may be harder to trace down. Especially if it’s buried behind the three tons of stuff we’ve jammed into the trailer.

Tomorrow I’ll get started on figuring this out.