Now I am sure anyone reading this can relate to how much effort goes into packing your belongings up to move to a new home. It’s not an easy process. Making sure you have not missed something is very important.
I have become somewhat of an “expert” in packing for a move. My wife and I moved a total of 16 times in our first 15 years of marriage. That is an average of more than one move per year.
Our first move (to our very first home) was simple. We just stuffed everything in the car. It was only a temporary home at a camp ground, where I knew that at the end of the summer we would move again. So we even had a few items that we left behind, to retrieve at the end of the summer, when we moved again.
By the time we made that “end of the summer move”, we used a small pull behind trailer, (U-Haul style.)
Most of our moves involved renting a large truck, and towing our car behind. Only one time did we use professional movers; my company paid for that move.
One move from a small town, to a rural location just a few miles outside of town, was done by friends from our church, using their farm trucks. My wife was teaching high school at the time. Knowing that our friends would do all the work, we did not do “any” advanced packing. She left for school in the morning, from one home, and arrived at our new home that evening. No packing, meant “no” plan, as to where things would wind up in the new home. That was a very interesting move, trying to find things after the move.
Finally after 16 moves in 15 years, we settled in to stay, at least temporarily. We told our kids, this would only be a temporary home, as we were going to move again as soon as we found a more appropriate home. We stayed “temporarily” in that home for eleven years.
Finally, as our last daughter went off to college, we packed another truck and moved again. Our oldest daughter came home from college, and seeing the moving truck, made the comment “you really are moving this time”, since we had be saying we would, for eleven years.
By the time we made our last move, to our current home (the 20th one) we again hired a moving company. Even after getting rid of as much “stuff” as we could, we still used two full sized moving trucks.
So like I said in the first paragraph, I have become rather an expert on packing for a move. However, here is where you might ask the question “You didn’t really do that, did you?”
This move was from Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, to our new home in Oak Grove, Missouri—a little over 600 miles. This move was because my boss was transferring me to a different office. We had the largest U-Haul truck we could get, chained a couple items on the back end of the truck, and stuffed our car, and towed it behind the truck. By that time our four kids were 14, 12, 10, and 8. All four of them and both of us traveled the entire trip inside the cab of that U-Haul.
If we forgot anything, there was no going back. So I was extra careful to not forget anything. In those days, if you are going to tow a vehicle, you had to disconnect the drive shaft. I crawled under the car, un-hooked the drive shaft, and using baling wire, tied it up to make the 600 plus mile trip.
Just before we arrived at our new home, I made a stop at my company’s office, to let my boss know we had arrived—only 10 miles to go to our new home.
The first words from his mouth were, “Did You FORGET something?” Puzzled, I asked, what did I forget? He informed me that my wife’s aunt, who lived directly across the street from us in Aurora, had found the drive shaft of my car laying on the street where I had carefully tied it up under the car—so much for double checking before we pulled away from that home. He loaned me his car, while we had to wait another day or so for the drive shaft to arrive by UPS.
How EMBARRASSING, for an “expert” packer.
Stay tuned for more Crazy Tales of those 20 moves, you will laugh out loud at them.
I just read all five of your blogs, Curt. I enjoyed them all — please keep writing them!