Arrive

My husband and have finally arrived in Chicago. It was a long, arduous drive. Well, it was at least for my husband who had to drive the 25 foot truck loaded with our furniture. It was a diesel driven truck with over 101,000 miles. It was slow, noisy, and bumpy. We left Tucson at 2pm Thursday afternoon, having finished loading the truck and cleaning the house. We drove east toward New Mexico and then north toward Albuquerque. That drive, which normally takes 6 hours took us 8 hours, in part because it is a slow up hill grade the entire way. The truck groaned along.

Most disconcerting was the oil pressure gauge which kept dropping to 0 and scaring my husband. Finally, around 10pm, in Albuquerque, we pulled over and called Budget customer care and road side assistance, unsure what to do. They thought we should take it to a registered repair shop Friday morning. So....We spent Thursday night in the car in a Wallmart parking lot. In an effort to be prepared for anything I brought sleeping bags and pillows, thinking we'd be warm enough if we had to stay in the car. But the dogs and cats were not warm and even I got cold as the temps dropped to 28. We clearly had forgotten what it feels like to be in temps below 40...

Friday morning we called road side assistance and got the number for the repair place. We were told that it was probably nothing, just a computer glitch in dash board...and we were also told to just drive on for awhile and see what happens...

Still,we called the repair place and were told that they couldn't see us until maybe late Friday afternoon. So, we decided to go on, and see "what happens." The oil pressure continued to fluctuate and so we stopped once again in Santa Rosa, NM and called Budget road side assistance, again. This time, after talking to my husband, the agent told us to just "drive the truck." (I got the impression he was a little irritated with us...)So. We did. And, like I said, it was slow, arduous, shaky...my husband literally shook from head to toe whenever we stopped for gas or a break.

As a result the 1800 mile trip took us three days and three nights, but the second two nights we made sure we found hotels that would take pets, places where we could sleep in beds, rest, and shower. The animals were real troopers - travelled amazingly well.

Soon I will write about the book on CD I listened too on the trip - it was a really good book and made the trip "enjoyable" for me despite my worry for my husband in the truck that we came to call the "beast."

Now the beast has been returned to Budget. All of our things are in storage, except the few items we need to live. We are settled in with our daughter, and beginning to recover.