Wednesday - April 22nd - 2015. Partial move today, I left Alabama at 4AM and drove the U-Haul nonstop to Ashland - about 550 miles. Needed to get through Nashville before the morning rush hour because I feel a little shaky about driving this big of a truck. It has taken some getting used to, especially the blind spot on the right side. After about 200 miles I noticed myself getting a little too aggressive and made a conscious effort to rein in my confidence. I had expected to stop and nap at a rest stop in Kentucky but had no trouble staying awake and made the trip nonstop except for two refueling stops and a rest room break. The good part was that this put me in Ashland by 3PM. I broke down and hired a two-man crew to load my 15,000+ cargo of books yesterday. I'm too old for that kind of thing, especially when coupled with doing the driving. I have another two man crew scheduled to come down from Elyria at 10AM tomorrow to do the unloading, then the next day it is back to Alabama.
It was a rush to get into the truck in the predawn darkness and begin this adventure. Scary stuff, I keep reminding myself that I did essentially the same thing 12 years ago when I moved from Oxford, Ohio to Bowling Green, Kentucky to begin my two years of video production classes.
It is very cold here, but I rescheduled the trip for a clear day and this time of year those tend to come the day after a cold front has passed through. Unfortunately it is too cold for me to walk around the old neighborhood so my feelings about being back are not as intense as I had hoped they would be. Instead of going out I have done a small amount of unloading and am reading a Lois McMaster Bujold fantasy paperback which has me pretty engaged. Which is a good thing because thinking about the implications of this relocation can quickly send me into anxiety attack territory.