As I said before, the drive itself was not bad. We stopped at a motel that allowed animals (no sneaking down the hall with a large dog
or cat carrier). There were no
screaming fights in any rooms around us.
The only thing that happened was, when I let Annie out of her carrier,
she immediately crawled behind the bed frame and refused to talk to anyone (and may I say, it was a pain in the
patootie to get her out and back in her carrier). Sparkle, on the other hand, got out of her
wet carrier, settled on one of the beds and was ok-fine. Gus took travel sickness pills and nothing
went in or came out until we got to the house.
Honestly, that dog must have had a bladder the size of a basketball. 
We drove straight to Ellen’s house in Houston and then I
headed south to Galveston. When I pulled
into the driveway I was greeted by one of the most frightening sights ever ---
boxes everywhere, stuff everywhere. The
moving truck had gotten there earlier than scheduled. The horrible sight that greeted me
downstairs, was worse upstairs. Obviously,
nobody tried to make sure boxes or even furniture got in appropriate rooms (and yes, the boxes were marked and numbered). That was a close one – I seriously thought
about turning around right then and heading to parts unknown. MHN was waiting for me with more unpleasant
news. Part of the furniture (including
the beds) had not arrived. Oh joy! And, the moving company didn’t know exactly
where the rest of the furniture was.
Double joy!
All the houses on the west end of the island are built up (we do have a threat of storms, upon
occasion) and ours was 23 steps up and 23 steps down. I spent my time unpacking boxes, going
up/down those 23 steps at least 94 times every day, moving furniture, and
generally dealing with everything necessary to make a disaster area into a
home. At one-point MHN groused that he
wasn’t getting any days off to relax and fish – wrong thing to say, wrong
person to say it to. Actually, I did
handle it well enough. Didn’t hit him, toss him from the deck into the canal, or
otherwise injure him bodily – told him “that’s right and he would probably be a very old man before he could sit and relax”. I hate to move.
It was three weeks before the missing furniture showed
up. Three weeks of daily phone calls to
the moving company. Three weeks of
sleeping at a motel. When the missing
furniture finally showed up, just about everything was severely damaged. I was in tears as they unloaded furniture and
antiques, in pieces, from the truck. We'd had the movers take 2 very large terracotta pots when leaving Arizona. Those had been broken to bits, the pieces
swept out and no mention made until, some weeks later, I realized they were not with everything
else. Several other things were
missing. It was awful. I swear the moving company must have put everything from the second truck into a container and then picked up and dropped the container 8 or 10 times to have caused as much damage as there was. Then followed many months of phone calls,
letters, threats (mostly by me) and general annoyance to get things repaired
and/or replaced. You want that
replacement value insurance, if it’s still available, and hope you never need
it.
Conclusion
These first three moves (Houston
to Boulder; Boulder to Tempe; Tempe to Galveston) do fit into the original description
of what a MOVE is: going across the
known universe to strange and unusual places.
Each was difficult and painful and although I never started ripping off
clothes, many times it was a close thing.
Take care.
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