moving day

8am Monday morning found me sitting on by my bike outside the thrifty rent a truck office. I had made the reservation the week before so I expected no delays in leaving the parking lot. I had used the time before the employees arrived to remove the push trailer from the bike. The bike and trailer sat beside me while I finished my McDonald's coffee.

The middle-aged woman arrived first. She had my paperwork completed before the mechanic arrived for work. I had to wait while he found the truck and pulled it to the front. He was good enough to help me load and tie down the bike. He even provided a couple of short pieces of light weight ropes left by a previous customer.

I know I said I wasn't supposed to drive but I kept my driver's license active. I told Maggie that it was in case of emergency. Well I considered saving five hundred bucks an emergency. That was the approximate difference in cost between doing it myself and hiring someone to do the move for me.

I had reserved the smallest truck available with a trailer hitch on it. The rental company had provided insurance for the truck and for the trailer I would be towing. It was expensive but I thought it would be a good idea to be careful since my driving lacked a lot to be desired.

I wasn't too dangerous when I didn't drive in traffic but the trip to the coast would be in traffic. Not so heave since it was on a Monday but still traffic.

I had allowed extra time at every stop since things never went exactly as planned. I got back home to load my junk from the house well after nine when I had hoped to be there before nine. Still it was only forty minutes or so.

I loaded my dad's large wooden tool box first. It had a pillow from Goodwill that went on top of it to make a bench. I made the decision to carry only those tools which I could pack into the toolbox. Space was going to be a premium.

I managed to pack a great deal of tools into the coffee table sized tool box. The box had a dozen coats of cotton mill green enamel paint on it. I had purposefully left it alone. It was the last reminder I had of him and where I came from.

After the toolbox came the Walmart dorm sized refrigerator. It was still packed in the unopened box. The receipt was taped to the box just in case I had to return it. beside it on the floor of the truck I placed a toaster oven from Goodwill. Then the sleeping bag, camp bed, some clothes, a five gallon plastic water container, my spare pusher trailer, the expensive electric bike, and its trailer, my large school desk with built in chair, my electronics stash and finally a couple of boxes of odds and ends which I had bought at Walmart. I bought them at the same time thatI bought the dorm frig. The truck still had room for a lot more. It seemed almost empty but that was okay, I wasn't going to have a lot of storage space.

It was after eleven when I pulled the car from the drive. I drove the ten miles to a subdivision just outside of town. It took me a couple of minute to find the place. I had been there previously of course but only once. I found it after only one wrong turn. I spotted the old style camping trailer in the drive. As promised he had moved it to the front so that I could move it out without damaging his truck.

I had never driven a truck towing a trailer so it was no doubt going to be an adventure. The trailer was from the 1950's according to the previous owner. He had started the restoration but ran out of money so had it for sale.

He had restored the running gear and even modernized it some. He had rewired it bringing in a second circuit with breakers instead of fuses. That is the point where he ran out of money. There was no plumbing system or bathroom. Not even a closet in the trailer. Just one open room 6.5 feet by 16 feet. It was only six feet tall at one end the other was about four feet. Obviously that was meant to be the bedroom area. One spot on the wall by the door did at least have rough shelves with a wide top. It would have to serve as a dry sink for a while at least.

With the trailer attached and the safety chain hooked, I headed for the highway.