Cross-Country Road Trip: Leaving New York

We left New York in the middle of April - on a Friday.  We spent the two weeks (and more) leading up to that date sometimes frantically and sometimes lazily packing up the apartment.  It was a long and stressful (relatively speaking) process, especially because I'm a hoarder and I never like to throw anything away.

Conversations went a little like this:
Me: Why would I throw out the plunger?  It's perfectly good and I don't want to buy a new one in Seattle.
Marek: Because it's gross.  It's a plunger.  They're not that expensive.

(We tossed the plunger.)

And then finally moving day arrived.  The movers were scheduled to arrive between 8 and 10 AM, so we figured that meant 9:30.  We figured way wrong.  We were up until about 1 AM the night before, packing up the last odds and ends, and Marek had to make an emergency run to the FedEx to buy more boxes because we were running low (after we'd ordered a huge pack from online and then bought some really overpriced ones at a local box store).  I was planning on getting up around 7 to finish up the last bits of packing.

Around 7:30 we heard the buzzer going off and we had to scramble to get up, let the movers in, muzzle the dog (oh, Claudius), and oh yeah, finish packing as the movers start taking our stuff out of the apartment.  Luckily we got it all finished, and at about 9:30 they headed off, with most of our stuff safely stored away in the truck.  I was worried we'd never see it again.

Then I had to make a "quick" trip to Brooklyn to drop some clothes off at the friary that our friend Chris used to study at, and then it was time to pack up the car and drive to Massachusetts.  The car was STUFFED.  Now, the Yaris actually has a pretty decent sized trunk, and we managed to cram that full of stuff (mostly "valuables" (and yes, "valuables" include my Peyton Manning jerseys and other clothes that I would cry over if they got lost (especially now that Peyton plays for Denver!))), and then we filled up the backseat as well.

We were basically going to be living out of the car for the next two and a half weeks, so in addition to all of the things we didn't want to send in the truck (jewelry, laptops, mementos), we had a couple of suitcases and a couple of bags for travel as well.  For some stupid reason I decided not to put the clothes hampers in the truck (for sentimental reasons - one was the one I've had since I was literally five years old and another was my mom's that she gave me when I went off to college so we've also probably had it FOREVER), and those took up way more room than we could afford.

So at around 2:30 PM, I got the passenger seat ready for His Highness, buckled up, and we were off to Massachusetts.  Marek was staying in New York for the night because he was hanging out with his friends the next day and then going to his parents' house after to spend some time with them.  I was hoping that 2:30 PM would let us avoid most of the "It's-Friday-let's-get-the-heck-out-of-the-city" traffic, and for the most part, it did.

Poor Claudius could not get comfortable at all in the car.  Normally he's very insistent that he must sit on someone's lap - preferably the driver's (so safe!) - and he usually just goes to sleep.  We think he gets carsick.  But on this particular day he was just all over the place and I just about had it with him.  Then he started throwing up on the passenger seat, the poor thing!  Someone (we won't mention any names) apparently let him go to town on his Easter hambone while I was in Brooklyn.  When we finally were able to stop at a rest stop, I also found out that he was incredibly thirsty (probably from the salty ham :(), so after he drank a lot of water and I cleaned up his mess, he happily settled in and we continued the ride in peace.

Gross