Life has been crazy. I'm sure I've mentioned the deadline I had at work. Because of that, my last three weeks of work were over 50 hours each. Mon-Wed of this week I was at least 12 hours a day. Normal fare for a deadline really, but not at all welcome considering I was supposed to be packing. So there was stress.
On top of that, my ear started hurting. It's hard to go to the doctor when you're working 12 hours. I finally went Thursday, once the deadline was over. Turns out, I have two ear infections, and inner and an outer, in one ear. Oh, and a fever. Lovely. Apparently that's enough for two different kinds of antibiotics. It's a little better now, but not great. At least I can touch my ear without screaming.
Thursday night Luke had one last wine and cheese party. This one was much more low key. No fancy clothes, and fewer people. It was a sort of "end of the deadline" celebration mixed with "oh crap, we have like 4 more days before we're gone". We spent the evening watching Animaniacs, which including about 10 showings of the Nations of the World song.
That night while we slept, we got about a foot of snow.
Friday, my last day of work, wasn't really work at all. It took most of the day to backup my computer for the tech people and clean out my office. Something I had planned on doing a little at a time, but stress helped me forget. I had a paper airplane a day calendar at work, and because of that, I had a HUGE mound of paper airplanes in my office. Luke and I had forgotten to do Jim's office for his birthday, which fell during the deadline freak out. Jim was late because of the snow, so the airplanes are now all over his office. Clean my office? Check! Destroy someone else's? Check! I had an exit interview, my keycard was confiscated, and then I went to the annual Christmas party. Work parties are generally fairly boring, but the food is good, and I got to hang out with my friends one last time. It was a good time for a party.
Friday night, DS and I finally got around to packing. But I was exhausted from the past week, so we stopped early. The pods to move our stuff were delivered Thursday, and DS was absolutely sure our stuff wouldn't fit in them. So we also spent some time Friday night debating which things could be left behind. Saturday morning came, and DS left early to get the u-haul trailer we're going to pull behind the car (since the earliest our stuff will be delivered is new year's eve, and that's a little longer than we'd like to be apart from some things; like the cat stuff... they're freaked enough as it is"). What should have taken an hour at most ended up taking at least two, so he came back even more stressed.
We had until 1 to finish packing, and then friends arrived to help us load the pods. We weren't exactly done, but the greater majority of things was packed and ready to go. Four people came to help, and it was the most amazing thing ever. I cannot tell you how much of a difference help makes when you're moving. The first time DS and I moved while we were in Wisconsin, we did it alone. It took over 20 hours, and we finished when the sun was rising the next day. Of course, I had to work the next day. This time, we had the pods loaded in like 4 hours. And that included stopping to eat dinner. Even more amazing, everything that has to go in the pods is now successfully in there, and we still have plenty of room. I really can't believe how much stuff you can fit into a 6x7x8 space. Now the trailer really will be just for the stuff we can't live without, because we certainly don't need the space.
So today, we're packing up the leftover stuff scattered around, and then cleaning. Later tonight, we have dinner plans with our closest friends, and I'm secretly afraid I'm going to cry the whole time. Then all we have to do is make it through the night, and we're off first thing tomorrow morning. We'll spend the night somewhere around North Platte, NE, and then make it to Salt Lake City the following day. We'll spend Christmas there with some of DS's friends. They have dogs, but we've been assured we'll have the basement to ourselves, and that the dogs won't be able to get down there. The cats are already disturbed, and they HATE the car. So I'm hoping just being out of the car for a few days will be a blessing enough that they won't have heart attacks about the dogs upstairs. They've never encountered dogs before, but judging from Winston's disastorous encounter with a kitten, I can't imagine seeing a dog would go well.
Depending on when the landlord will agree to let us in the new place, we'll leave SLC either the 27th or 28th and make one last push. This is the leg of the trip I'm most excited about, since it goes through the desert, Las Vegas and LA, three places I've never been. Then we'll get "home" just in time to go to bed. Internet gets turned on the 29th. We'll have a couple of days to do the necessary evils, like going to the DMV (BLEH!!!), and then our belongs should arrive and we'll have to unpack everything. Unfortunately, this will probably be alone, as the only person I know there is someone I haven't seen since high school.
All in all, I'm both excited about the new place, and terribly sad that going there means leaving this place. There have been a lot of transitions in my life here in Wisconsin, but right this moment, life is very good and very happy. I will miss a lot of things, like my job which I loved despite how nuts it could be, and the town itself. But mostly, I will miss my friends. Especially Luke. If there were one person I could put in a box and take with me, it would be him.
Goodbye Madison. I love you.
DS and I debated over the purpose of these fences, which we saw all over the place on Day 2. Originally, he though they were to stop snow drifts from making it to the interstate; but then he decided they were just wind barriers. Anyone know? They definitely always seem to be keeping something from the interstate, but they certainly weren't solid, so it wasn't for people or animals.
This one was somewhere close to the Nebraska/Wyoming border, where things started to get interesting.
This giant coyote sculpture was pretty cool, though this picture of it isn't.
This is the Sinclair refinery in Sinclair, WY, makers of Sinclair gasoline. It was HUGE, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and had the smallest little town consisting of, we assumed, only the people that work there. The only thing it looked like that had other than a few houses and a water tower was a building near the interstate with the word BAR written across the entire roof. Yeah... I'd probably drink a lot too if I lived there.
The cats were drugged each day they were in the car, but it usually took 1-2 hours for them to calm down enough to actually be knocked out. Winston really fought going to sleep, and occasionally protested by laying down in the litter box. Let me tell you, the car smelled AWESOME after this trip.
