We said goodbye to the Charlotte skyline, which I really liked while there. My office was in the green, glass rectangle building behind the Bobcats arena. The day before I moved, they moved my cubicle from the 10th to the 14th floor. I thought that was mean.
Stop #1 was Alabama. Why? Because they told us to come. Duh.
Since we were in the state, we stopped at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, AL. This is the place that all your bags go when the airlines lose them, and don't get them back to you. This place buys the lost luggage from the major US airlines for a few bucks, opens the bags and then sells everything in them. I smelled the chance to beef up my work wardrobe and was not disappointed. I got 6 new Brooks Brothers shirts for $50 and assorted other items, and Craig picked up a new SLR for Sara on the cheap. In retrospect, I probably should have paid for that for Craig since he didn't charge me for the taxi service...
We made it St. Louis on the first night and stayed with my high school friend Jake Fjeldsted and his family.
They have great kids and are living the medical school dream!
Day #2 looked a lot like the picture below. St. Louis got pounded with snow the night we stayed there, and the tail end of Nebraska was icy and snowy. We switched off driving every two hours or so, and listened to "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. It was a great story about a modern-day Job, and I highly recommend it.
We gave up trying to navigate the icy roads in Sidney, NE and called it a night at the local Motel 6. Our thought was that surely (surely!) they'll plow the roads during the night. Silly us. We started day 3 with the same roads just now a little colder and icier after the night. Lots of trucks were blown into the medians like the one below, but luckily we had the beefy Mazda Protege to keep us safe.
At least it was daytime... About this time I realized that I was coming down with a cold or flu or something, so Craig's driving times starting to increase, while mine decreased. Yep - should have chipped in a little for that camera.
We got to Kaysville just in time to see the Superbowl, and to watch O'Reilly interview President Obama. Much rest, sleep and food was to be had.
Having successfully passed on my Flu germs to Craig, we rented the Budget truck and drove over to the storage unit where our possessions had been holed up since leaving Ann Arbor. Luckily, Dad, Mom, Sara and Craig don't have ANYTHING else going on in their lives on a Monday morning, so they could help me unload the storage unit and load the truck. Craig was the only one to 'accidentally' drop something before reaching the truck, but I was too sick to care and he did do more driving than me. Plus he now had the flu, and was probably a little bitter about the camera thing...
The driving duties were passed off from Craig to Dad, who - little did he know - would drive the ENTIRE way from Kaysville to Seattle, with an overnight stop in Boise, without me helping one bit. I meant well, but haven't been that sick in a long time. I'm glad that the ward provided some elders to help us move in.
Final Statistics:
Total Miles Driven: 2,971 Miles
Total driving time: 4 1/2 days - ish
Total cost of gas: $346
Number of States Visited: 13
