CairisRin: Eh all! *bg* Before I get into my big long tale of 'What on Earth Happened to Me!' Aka. 'My Moving Adventure,' I want to let you know that if you just want to get on with reading the very much overdue chapter, go ahead and skip ahead. If your curiosity is like mind, twisted, I'd thought I'd write this little (and not so little) intermission to tell you all about my strange moving experience which was so riddled with strange luck that for a while I seriously wondered if I was becoming a method writer. O.O
Katchi: I'm in a box!
CairisRin: Ahhhh…so before I get into all the odd little details, I what to introduce you to my muse, Katchi.
Katchi: I'm in box!
CairisRin: Yes I know, but-
Katchi: I'M IN A BOX!!!
CairisRin: ^.^ Needless to say most of my stuff is still in *Katchi glowers at CairisRin* er…boxes. Normally my little buddy here sits on the monitor of my compy, which thank Hipthar is now fully up and functional…minus one internet connection. :\
Katchi: At least you're not in a box!
CairisRin: Right, moving on. This all started just over a month or so ago, not long after I posted chapter 16. My life went wacko, but we'll skip all that and go straight to the fact that I suddenly had just one week to pack and move me and my puppin-
Katchi: She's not in box!
CairisRin: Of course she's not! She's a dog, you're a muse, it's totally different.
Katchi: -.- You're mocking me aren't you?
CairisRin: Pay no attention to the little furry muse, folks, he's just a little cranky. ^.^ So moving day comes, my dad shows up in a borrowed pickup truck -somehow it was decided this would be cheaper than renting a U-Haul, and the next day with one rather full truck we head on down the road. Now, this isn't just some move around the corner, we're leaving the small hicksvillle of Ogden, UT, for the much larger hicksville of Gilbert, AZ. Man, I'm telling you, there are times I really miss the North. I'm a city girl! I don't belong outside a well nourished transit system!!!
Katchi: You're getting off the story now.
CairisRin: Right, okay. So for anyone who's never driven to Phoenix, AZ from Utah, you need to know that it's a about a 12 hour drive of which 11 hours is nothing but desert wasteland with one especially cool, yet dangerous, mountain pass right before Vegas that they call the Gorge. It's really not so bad, just don't forget to fill up on gas at the right spots. ;)
We were only about 3 hours out when the truck suddenly lost power. And so here begins the adventure, but rather than write it all out, which would take me time I don't want to bore you with, I'm going to list what happened with bullets.
Katchi: Hee, bullets are good, bullets are our friends.
CairisRin: Er…okay then! Actually, I'm not sure if ff.net allows for bullets, what with the whole anti-lists movement, so we're going to do this with pretend bullets :D
Katchi: Hee, pretend bullets are good, pretend bullets are our friends.
CairisRin: o.O I think maybe he's had a little too much heat.
Katchi: -.- And who's fault is that? The box is in a storage locker! CairisRin: *innocent whistle* Um…ya…right, list…okay then...look for all the 'buts.' These are my way of telling all the bad + good = strange luck happenings. :P
Truck broke, but is would have been much worse had it happened in the Gorge.
Engine is smoking and power is suddenly gone but we're able to coast to only half a mile from the gas station. Coolant cap was popped, coolant everywhere. Smoking continues.
Walk to gas station and discover a service station next door. Walk back with bottle of coolant and galleon of water. (And oh boy did my shoulders feel that one!)
Katchi: I can imagine.
CairisRin: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Katchi: Of course my shoulders are made of wood and I don't think I actually feel pain, but…
CairisRin: -.-
Water goes into the radiator…water comes out of the radiator (at this point I'm thinking of that one MacGyver ep and wondering if the gas station would have any eggs), but it retains just enough to get the truck to the service station before it starts smoking again.
Wait a couple hours for mechanic, who was at church, but we got to watch the NASCAR with the guy on duty till the mechanic showed up. ;) (Perhaps moving on a Sunday wasn't the smartest of things…*shrug*)
Mechanic says the rad will have to be replaced and the store with the part won't be open till the next day. So, the nice guy that he was, the mechanic gave us a ride to the local motel. Now, this local motel was next to a gas station and a Burger King, seemed to be family operated, and of the ten or so rooms there, I'm pretty sure we were their only customers. And while technically I think we landed in a town, I'm not sure which one. All the people were all spread out and didn't spot even a single office building.
Katchi: You are a city girl, aren't you?
CairisRin: Ya think? I just don't get how people can live so far from each other. I'm sure a lot of people enjoy it, and we obviously need towns like that, but as long as I'm living on a land with cities…I'd rather be there thank you. Still. This little place we were at seemed to be full of friendly people. :)
Catch the check-in person (and only employee currently there) right before they leave for a couple hours on errands. Dad's cell phone dies, and he's forgotten the charger.
Walk to the gas station for a phone card but discover the phone in our room doesn't work.
Go for dinner, come across motel employee on our way back and they fix the phone but then we couldn't actually get a hold of anyone we called.
The friend who owns the borrowed truck just happened to be moving and doesn't have his phone connected yet. Actually, the whole calling this person and that person just trying to figure out what to do, how to borrow the money to do it, and readjusting appointments (my dad was supposed to be on a job the next day) was an adventure in and of itself that continued on through the next morning. x.x
At this point we turn on the TV and the arm of my glasses falls off.
Katchi: You're always breaking your glasses!
CairisRin: But I didn't do anything! I swear! It wasn't even at the screw, it just suddenly fell off!
Katchi: Suuurrree it did.
CairisRin: -.-
So, back to the gas station to buy Crazy Glue (aka. Super Glue). It worked rather well, much better than I would have expected.
The room on the whole was nice, included cable, that was fun, but we couldn't for the life of us get the heater to turn off…so instead we had the window pushed wide open. (While it is spring, we're still out in the desert. Oiy!)
Next morning mechanic calls, found parts at less than half the price, fixed the radiator but on the test drive discovers that the engine head is cracked. This would be another 3 to 4 hundred and would take 3 days to actually fix. ^.^ On to Plan B!!!
Call the local U-Haul. They only have two trucks, but one of them is the perfect size and is even practically brand new! Only 500 miles on it! Yay! Unfortunately they don't have a tow bar so we can't take the truck back with us, but the mechanic offers to baby-sit it for free until was can come back for it.
Discovered this later, but almost every call that came into the motel, somehow ended up reaching another room instead. Lol. We eventually got everything sorted out and was once again ready to go! By this point it was actually a couple hours after the check out time, but the motel employee didn't mind in the slightest (we were their only customers after all). *g*
Friend of mechanic drops us off at the U-Haul which happened to also be a gas station and a Subway. O.o But the U-Haul guy was out to lunch. (Apparently not at the Subway)
Eventually we got the U-Haul, repacked my stuff, and got back on the road. From here on things remained good. The gorge was absolutely beautiful, and we reached the Dam at night so there was practically no traffic, which was a first, and all went rather well with no happenstances until we reached Kingman.
There we stopped for a late dinner at Wendy's…hehe…and the employees gave my puppin a couple free patty's, she loved that! :D And we tried to call ahead to report our status. Looked like we'd be reaching Gilbert at about 2 am. Phone Card died on us, but we had some quarters. Of the two phones available, the first ate our quarters and didn't work. Honestly, I practically expected that to happen. Thankfully the other phone worked just find. And it's a good thing we called mom, she had the house key for my sisters, which was where I was going to be dropped off. We'd have gone straight there and woken up all her roomies. :P
We picked up a lock for the U-Haul, I got dropped off, and the next day we put my stuff in storage and even had a few miles left over to help our friend move. :D
Katchi: Great, you're moved! Now get me out of this box!!
CairisRin: Well…I'm out of Ogden moved…but I'm still just camping out at my sisters until I can get a new job (which I've had a few interviews for now. Yay!) and get my own place. Sorry Katchi, you're just going to have to stay there for a bit.
Katchi: *grumble grumble*
CairisRin: You're still doing a good job as my muse, even if it is at a distance.
Katchi: *grumble grumble*
CairisRin: It's not like I've replaced you or anything, and it shouldn't be too much longer before things finally settle back into place-
Katchi: I'M IN A BOX!
CairisRin: ^.^ Er…and this concludes our little intermission. Now go on to the next chapter to read the continuing adventures of Jack, Mac, and friends! :D
Thanks also to all you wonderfully patient readers. I didn't mean to just drop off the face of the Earth there like that, it's just that the last two years of my life have been somewhat…unpredictable. ^.^ You probably all thought I'd abandoned it. Well, I haven't, and I've only got about 8 to 10 chapters left to go, so we're almost there. Whoohoo! :D
Katchi: And then will you get me out of this box?
CairisRin: I promise, as soon as I can, I'll come get you…honest! ^.^