The Road Trip

Hi Everyone! It occurred to me that I never did get a chance to share with you about our long trek out to Vermont. Today's post will be about our journey out to our new beautiful home and a few photos I took on the way.

Our journey began in the Columbia Gorge, on June 11th at 5:30am frantically looking for somewhere that would take our garbage. All of our furniture and belongings had been packed and sent on the road to Vermont on the 8th. We had a few items that we couldn't fit in the car despite our best laid plans. Plus, we wanted the new owners to have a clean and welcoming new home. Thankfully, our realtor was an early riser and responded to our text a little later. No amount of careful planning can adequately prepare you for a cross country move. For those of you that already know us, you know that we are usually very organized and try to plan for all eventualities. Neither of us were prepared for the amount of driving and dog whining we would have to do over the next four days.

Matthew with our two pups on moving day.

Our view leaving our home in the Columbia River Gorge.

Our first day on the road was pretty relaxed. We listened to our true crime audio book and were able to really catch up with each other. The weeks before the move had been very hectic between selling our home, packing, saying goodbye to friends/family, and getting ready for our new Vermont journey. Matthew and I are definitely more on the codependent side of the scale. We don't look it from the outside, but we are best friends and love to talk with each other about whatever is happening in our lives. Needless to say, we had plenty to catch up on during our drive. We arrived in Salt Lake City around 8pm, ate some room service, and crashed.

We chose to stay in some nicer hotels mainly because the chain we booked with accepted large breed dogs without weight restrictions or fees. Our German Shepherd mix is around 100 lbs. so you can imagine how costly it could be to transport him. If we wanted to fly the two pups, it would be around $5,000 with all of the large dog restrictions etc. Plus, I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to my pups and the thought of not being able to travel with them gave me nightmares.

Our German Shepherd chilling in the back of our car.

One of our views while leaving Salt Lake City.

Our second day started out much like the first day except it was supposed to be the LONG day. I had calculated it to be about 12 hours, but it ended up being closer to 15. Between the road construction and storms we had to navigate, it was a very long day. Plus, both pups were really stressed and barely ate anything when we stopped in Omaha. I was so excited though because we were finally able to go to Perkins restaurant. I loved going there as a child with my grandparents in Minnesota so this was my chance to introduce Matthew to Perkins! At the end of the day I barely remember the food except it took us both around 2 minutes to eat before falling asleep. I'm going to have to revisit Perkins at some point when we aren't moving our lives across the country:)

Our lab mix enjoying a few minutes on the bed when Matthew wasn't looking.

The third day was much like the others. More driving, more random storms, more audiobook. We made it to Cleveland around 8pm and crashed in our room once the pups were taken care of. You really don't realize how tiring driving is until you do it. When you think about it, you are just sitting there for hours without anything to do other than look through the window. By day four my leg and back muscles were so incredibly sore. Matthew was fairing better, but he was also accused of getting sleepy while driving so I had a few more hours than he did. As soon as he gets into a car now, he gets sleepy. He has been judged harshly for this:)

We made it to Albany, NY on the fourth day and stopped at a Target to get a few necessities. At this point, our car was crammed full and I had cleaning products and groceries shoved under my feet and in my lap. We must have looked like quite the interesting couple driving into Bennington, VT. The best way I can describe it was like the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath movie. We picked up a pizza and headed to our new home. Since we only viewed the property once back in February, our memories were a little fuzzy. It made me nervous getting to our new home and introducing ourselves like we were meeting a new member of the family. What we found was a bit surprising.

One thing that I have learned through this process is that people's standards can vary widely. Our cleaner had a very different definition than I had. Needless to say, after driving for four days, I was a bit disappointed to find the house a little worse for wear. Thankfully, we were able to run to town the next day and pick up some additionally needed cleaning supplies to get started. That's all for this week. Next week I will start showing more pictures of the outdoors of our property as well as some of our before pictures of a few rooms in our house. Have a good week everyone and don't forget to rest:)