Cross Country Journey

For being only 2, Tacy has sure been in a lot of states!  Previous to our move she has been in Nevada, California, Idaho, Montana and of course Utah.  Now she has been in another 8 from our move!  13 is pretty good for 2.  For our move we drove through a total of 9 different states.  I figure I better write all this down before I get too busy and forget.

Thursday, July 24th was my very last day at work.  It was surreal and sad.  I worked with so many great people and really loved my job (overall).  One of my managers bought cupcakes from the Sweet Tooth Fairy and boy, I had this amazing blue raspberry one!  Even though not every day was great at work, some days were filled with crazyness, mean patients, rude family, lots of problems...it was a great place.  Not to mention, having so many great co-workers who I became good friends with and really enjoyed working with makes it so much harder to leave.  I did try to convince all of them to move with me.

Friday, Brad and I went to pick up the moving truck in the morning.  Driving in our Mazda, within a few minutes of leaving the house an alarm went off in the car with a warning light stating we had low tire pressure in at least one of the tires.  Great.  Brad pulled over and found a nail in one of our tires.  He filled up the tire with air and decided we were close enough to the place we were picking up the truck to just finish driving there.  Once we arrived, Brad changed out the tire on the Mazda.  As un-fun as this was to happen the day before our move, I was grateful it was the day before and not while moving.  Plus, I now know how to change a tire on our Mazda!  After putting the spare on, Brad then went and got the moving truck.  After we both got back home, Brad then took the Mazda into the dealer and got the holy tire fixed (it actually had two nails in it).  Thankfully that did not take very long.  While Brad was gone, I worked on packing the last minute stuff.  When he came back, I went to work to pick up a paycheck and say by to more co-workers.

After this, Brad and his Dad loaded everything into the moving truck.  I cleaned our place while Brad's mom watched Tacy.  With all of our things packed into the truck, we still had a little room so we took some things with us we hadn't planned on because we thought there would be no room (Brad's grandpa's easy chair and a shoe rack).  Brad's Grandma and Grandpa Taylor came over to give Tacy a birthday gift, give us snacks for our drive, and say goodbye.  That was one of the saddest goodbyes since we cannot be sure that we will see them again.  That night we slept upstairs in Brad's parents house and we got up nice and early to start the drive.  Brad wanted to leave by 5, we left about 5:30.  I actually woke up first, before Brad's alarm and was all ready by the time Brad woke up.  Yup, I was a little anxious.

Our bed on the floor after Brad took apart the frame

The Mazda was the girl car with Tacy, Christine (Brad's sister), and me.  We had our suitcases with clothes for the trip, the portable dvd player and movies for Tacy, food, and toys.  The truck was the boy car with Brad and his dad.  We had walkie talkies so we could talk back and forth.  Day one was the most boring day.  The west sure is dry, yellow, and flat once you get past the Rockies.  We took the lowest pass so we did not have to push the moving truck too hard.  Following behind the truck was not easy because the fastest we ever went was 70 (but usually we topped at 55) and we went as slow as 20 sometimes.  Day one took us from Utah, through Wyoming and into North Platte Nebraska.  A very boring drive.  The most exciting it got was the bird that the truck killed.  We did eat dinner at this little diner in North Platte that had good food for great prices.

Day 2 took us through the rest of Nebraska, down through a corner of Iowa, and down and over to St. Louis Missouri.  I gotta say, I never new corn was such a big product!  We saw lots of corn in Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri (with some still in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina).  I wanted to take a picture in a corn field, because that was mostly all we saw those first two days.  After so much yellow, it was nice to enter Missouri and finally see green and trees!  St. Louis was beautiful with the old bridges, the St. Louis arch, and the muddy Mississippi river.  Brad loved showing us some of the places downtown from when he had served his mission.  We waved at Busch Stadium.  Tacy learned to say Budweiser (it was only ever said once and hasn't since been repeated).  We stayed at a nice Courtyard Marriott thanks to my uncle Val.

Day 3 we spent the morning at the St. Louis zoo, which is completely free!  We then went to Ted Drewes for frozen custard (and they had the perfect combo for me: reese's and banana!).  After a quick stop at White Castle for the men (way too gross for Christine and I), we dropped Brad's dad off at the St. Louis airport.  Tacy sure misses Papa.  Then we drove south to Jackson, MO where some friends of Brad's from his mission offered us a house to stay in and fed us dinner.  We met a couple different familys that evening.  And boy, the pork steak we ate was the best pork I have ever had in my life!

Day 4 we stayed in Jackson area.  We went to Steak n Shake for lunch, drove around Brad's old area down there, took long naps, and then went to Lambert's for dinner.  Brad has been talking about this place the whole time I have known him.  He was not kidding about the giant portion sizes, the great "extras" they bring around all the time for free and the throwed rolls.  The rolls were both exciting and terrifying because I seriously thought I was going to get hit by a roll.  But those rolls were delicious.  The potatoes and onions were great, the ocra was yummy, and my meatloaf was a loaf!  Tacy loved when they threw the rolls and she loved all the food she ate.  We had so much fun with Clifton and Laura and their kids!  They are such an awesome family!

Day 5 we drove out of Missouri and through some small, zombie looking empty towns of Illinois and Kentucky, then we drove through Tennessee and into Asheville North Carolina.  It got greener and greener the farther east we went and the trees got thicker.  We also enjoyed the Smoky Mountains.  Thank goodness Brad now will say that the Applachains are a mountain range, they are just short (before he always called them hills).  

Day 6 was the conclusion of this long road trip with driving through North Carolina, past Kernersville (where I lived for 7 years and Brad promised we will go visit) and into Cary.  We had one ward member come help us move our stuff in from the truck (thank goodness he came and luckily between Christine, Brad, and Ben that was all the help we needed).  We were blessed to have a sunny day and that it was only in the 70's because we were already sweating pretty good from the humidity.  We seriously had great weather for our whole drive!  Day 6 was Thursday, July 31st.  

Friday, August 1st, we worked on setting up more stuff and arranging furniture.  Then I had an interview in Raleigh.  Then we all drove to UNC Chapel Hill's bookstore and then we went to the Originial Q Shack in Durham.  After eating yummy North Carolina BBQ we drove to RDU and dropped Christine off.  I'm so grateful Christine could go all the way with us and help so much with Tacy.  Tacy sure loves her Aunt Christine.  It started raining pretty good when we drove to UNC and it rained Friday and Saturday.  We are very grateful we moved in Thursday before the rain hit.  We have since gotten even more rain to the point there was flooding Tuesday night.  Brad keeps saying that if Utah and California got all this rain we have gotten since moving here, they would no longer be talking about a drought and empty reservoirs.  

This definitely wasn't the easiest trip/car ride for Tacy.  She had her fussy times.  But she was a trooper.  She got to swim a lot and spend time with family.  Thank goodness for family, technology and pools!  We are happy to finally be here and so grateful that we had a safe journey out here!