Moving Bruises

Not too many people end up with cuts and bruises all over their bodies when they move from one state to another.

Not too many people are like Barb and me.

Even though the sale of our house has not been finalized, we decided to take a truck load of our stuff to Nashville last weekend. The loading process went fine ... for the first hour. I was pulling a filing cabinet up the truck ramp when I decided I ought to turn around. It "seemed" like a good idea! It wasn't. My feet got all tangled up and before I knew it I fell off the loading ramp ... face first onto the brick sidewalk and landscape wall. The best I can say is that nothing was broken. I did end up with a fat lip, three bloody fingers, cuts on my arms and legs, and one huge bruise that covered my entire upper arm.

Now I am not whining, because if I thought I won the prize for worst experience during a move I was sadly mistaken. It didn't take Barb long to top me.

We started our trip to Nashville in the morning. I drove the truck and Barb followed behind in the PT Cruiser. All was going fine. We got around Indianapolis and were headed toward Louisville. I was periodically checking on Barb in the rear view mirror when all of a sudden she disappeared. How could she possibly disappear in the middle of the interstate? I had no answer, but she was gone!

And then she reappeared.

Out of the tall grass in the median I saw her emerge from the ditch ... cross the road ... and go into the other ditch! I was in panic mode and stopped the truck, but then she came out of the second ditch and pulled up behind me. The cause of the problem was apparent ... a blown front tire. She assured me that she was okay, so I walked around the car to check for damage on the other side. There was damage. Lots of damage. In fact, the other side of the car didn't exist anymore!

We wait for the police and the tow truck, since the car wasn't going to be going anywhere. Nothing noteworthy in this experience, other than I had to unload everything we had packed in the car (including Parker and Willie) and reload it into the truck.

Once again we headed off toward Nashville, leaving our car behind in some small town in Indiana. I only made it a block before I realized I had not shut the back door on the truck. What an idiot!

But we made it to Tennessee ... far from in one piece ... but we made it. We spent the night comparing black and blue marks. Barb won. She had bruises everywhere.

With an adventurous start like that, things can only get better. Right?