Here’s how the days broke down (with a bunch of photos):

Friday afternoon I went with Vic to pick up the moving truck and the car dolly. Originally we were going to hook up Vic’s car to the dolly, have her drive them both out there with The Partner riding with her, and I would follow in our rented car.

The U-Haul place we went to was the most ghetto U-Haul site I’ve ever been to, with the office stuffed away in the back-back office of a local RV dealership. Noticing my face as I glanced around the small room, the dude said, “We’ve only been doing this for three months now.”

We asked a few questions and the dude could not answer them. “Eh, whatever price you were quoted online is what I guess you’ll be charged. I don’t know.”

We walked outside to survey the truck and dolly, the usual deal where you mark all the dents and scratches on a little piece of paper so you’re not charged for them. The dolly was not connected to the truck, so we asked about how to hook it together.

“Beats me,” says the dude. “You know about as much as I do. Why don’t you read through the instructions on that sticker there while I go get some of the paperwork. It might tell you how to hook it up.”

Star service, let me tell you.

Vic and I looked at the dolly instructions and I decided we’d be better off having this dude attempt it, seeing as how we were paying over $600 for it, and at worse I would walk back in to the front of the store and ask the army dude that was hanging out with the cashier if he could do it.

The office dude comes back out with some papers for Vic to sign and he kindly hooks up the dolly to the truck anyway.

I really should have taken pictures at this point, because Vic had never driven a U-Haul before, let alone one with an attachment that stuck out an extra foot on each side.

Once the papers were all signed we left believing we’d figure out the dolly later. We had more pressing work to do, such as packing up all of Vic’s shit because even though she knew for weeks that she was moving, she didn’t pack anything.

We get to Vic’s place and we manage to unhook the dolly so that loading the truck would be easier. We then spent the remaining afternoon and night packing up all of Vic’s shit. Luckily for me I had previous plans to go see Resident Evil: Extinction and when The Partner got off of work I went home and he came over to continue packing.

The movie was great, but I’m pissed because the ending of the movie means there will be at least one more in the series, and now I’m going to have to wait another year for any hope of completion.

I get back to Vic’s and she and The Partner have loaded almost everything onto the truck, along with the help of a couple other friends. The house was a shit storm, though, and we spent another hour or two cleaning it up.

All was said and done and we were now ready to load up the car onto the dolly. It was a huge hassle, one I don’t want to recreate, but I will tell you that it took us about an hour and a half to figure out the dolly wasn’t going to cut it and finally say ‘Fuck it’ and at 11:30pm we returned it. Our new plan was to have Vic drive the truck, The Partner drive Vic’s car, and me drive the rental.

Exhausted, the three of us went to our place to sleep for a few hours. I got roughly three hours of sleep, as we woke up around 4am so that we could all shower, eat breakfast, and head out early.

This brings us to Saturday morning. Vic’s mom came down from Chicago and met us around 4:45am to say goodbye. I think we got on the road around 5:45 or 6am.

We were then on the road for 10, 11, or 12 hours, I’m not sure. We made maybe four or five stops, and on one of them we bought some energy drinks because we were all tired as hell from only sleeping three hours.

Here I am in Pennsylvania all cracked out on energy drinks:

Here’s Vic in Pennsylvania cracked out on energy drinks and ’bout to kill somebody:

All I can say about Ohio is that it sucks. It’s a fat, wide-ass state that goes on and on and is flat and boring. The Partner and I believe the only good things in Ohio are Natalie and Drew. Otherwise, we hate Ohio.

Pennsylvania, on the other hand, turned out to be a very beautiful and hilly state. I did that thing you’re not supposed to do and took pictures while driving.

The trees in Penn are beginning to change color, something we’re not yet seeing here in Indiana.

Here in Indiana, and Ohio, when you’re driving on the interstate you probably see some trees. They may not be very tall, or very supple; you mostly see little towns and a shit-ton of billboards. Pennsylvania is nice.

It also is not flat.

At one point, as we neared State College, I freaked out a little. The road becomes a lot more curved and at the edge of that curve is a steep cliff. In a lot of places, due to construction, there were no guard rails. I envisioned myself going momentarily insane and driving off the road, flying for a few seconds, then crashing into the trees below. These are the things I think about while driving. That, and all those stories about cars from the on-coming traffic that somehow crash and flip up into the air and land on cars in the other lane, without those people ever knowing what hit them. And semis jack-knifing.

I must state that this was the closest The Partner has ever been to New York.

We got to our destination around 7:30 or 8pm, I think. We were all pretty much delirious. We then had to figure out where to park our vehicles because Penn State/State College has strict parking. As do some of the residents.

One highlight of the night was that I noticed Em’s shower curtain looked a lot like the opening to the BBC show Coupling.

The other highlight of the night was Em cutting Vic’s rat tail. Em was so happy and Vic was so sad.

R.I.P.

Around 9 or 9:30pm we ordered some sandwiches and cheese sticks from this local sub place. It sucked. We didn’t get the cheese sticks and when we called back they said they wouldn’t be able to run them out that night. I think I passed out around 10pm.

On Sunday, we cooked breakfast and started unloading the truck.

Em lives in a really nice neighborhood and her apartment is fantastic for a graduate student. It is not fantastic for four bodies. Although The Partner made Vic go through every single item before we packed the truck, Vic still had a lot of stuff. We tried to prep Em for the opening of the truck, so she wouldn’t go into shock when she saw how much stuff Vic brought. It worked, because Em wasn’t too upset when she saw everything.

Em did, however, make Vic go through everything again and toss/donate things that weren’t necessary to keep. Like novelty items from her high school graduation and suckers in the shape of penises that would never be eaten.

By the end of the night, after I had awoken from a nap, The Partner and Vic had unloaded the truck and almost everything was either unpacked or put in the basement storage and the truck was returned. For dinner we ordered some delicious Indian food and we all passed out around 10pm.

Monday, The Partner and I got on the road around 9am and made it home by 7:30pm, sans energy drinks this time.

Given the circumstances, this was a good trip and we didn’t hit anything, die, or get a speeding ticket. ROCK.

We arrived home to not just The Ginger and The Canadian, but The Ginger and Dr. Canadian. Monday afternoon The Canadian gave his doctoral dissertation and after more than a decade of schooling he is now packing and preparing to move to Australia. Right on!

(Here are more photos from the trip.)

1. Erykah Badu (feat. Lenny Kravitz) — Back In The Day (Puff)
2. Love Is All — Busy Doing Nothing
3. De La Soul — Me, Myself and I
4. GOMM — Don’t Take A Chance
5. Andrew Bird — Oh So Insistent
6. The Strokes — Under Control
7. Eurythmics — Sweeth Dreams (Are Made of This)
8. Gogol Bordello — Baro Foro
9. Finest Dearest — Idaho
10. Casper Fandango & His Tiny Sick Tears — Little Lamb Is Terminator