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Published: October 29th 2009
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Avalanche
After a full day of packing we found a bit of humor in just how full our rental truck was! Mark posting:
It's a beautiful day at the Icenogle Lakeside Villa where Liz and I are regrouping before the rest of our trip commences. We will spend the week organizing our belongings, carving pumpkins, attending a Camdenton High School football game (Liz is beside herself that any high school game be played on Saturday morning/afternoon as Xaverian often does) and even constructing a headboard for Liz's bed here at the Villa. I will cover our tentative travel schedule at the end of the blog - in the meantime, here is a recap of the second leg of our move:
On Sunday we finished our move by driving the U-Haul and Civic from Memphis to Harrisonville, MO where most of our belongings will reside for the next several months. The second leg of the trip was half as long in terms of both distance and time compared to the DC to Memphis leg. It was also roughly 1/10 as tiring and stressful. We started out with Starbucks in hand as we'd planned and officially got started at 6am, a half hour later than we'd intended. The roads were clear and the speed limit was 70 allowing us to make quick
Looking out the Rear Window
Liz is an excellent driver. So good in fact that she was able to take this photo of me in the U-Haul through the rear window of "Betty", my Civic. work of the first 100 miles or so. The road was a bit slower through the winding hills of Northern Arkansas but traffic was light and we encountered few, if any, problems. The highway opened up again not long after we crossed into Missouri and before we knew it we'd passed Springfield and would soon meet Liz's mom, Vicki, for lunch.
Shortly before our lunch stop with Vicki we faced our most harrowing incident. I was leading the way in the U-Haul with Liz following close behind. At one point I was behind a mini-van and we both moved into the left lane of a divided four lane highway to pass an 18-wheeler. As the mini-van completed their pass and mine was in progress I could see a dead animal in the road about a hundred yards up. I quickly determined that this was a large animal and I NEEDED to get over. However, there was not enough room between the truck and the mini-van to where I felt comfortable moving all the way into the right hand lane. I was able to edge over enough to miss what I finally determined was a large dog covering half of
Icenogle Lake Villa
A look off the back porch on Wednesday morning at the lake - beautiful right? the passing lane. It was at this point that my attention turned to my side view mirror knowing that Liz was likely going to find herself in an even worse position. I was correct as I watched her deftly center the car over the dog, which unfortunately was her only option. It was apparent the dog was too big and the Civic would not clear it unscathed. From talking to Liz it hit pretty hard and made a loud thud. At the time we were not sure if the impact had thrown off the alignment but at this point the car appears no worse for wear. I will be taking it in for an oil change and check-up before we leave for Jackson though!
After our lunch stop we had a little more than an hour remaining and I was fortunate to have a found the Patriots game in London on the radio. It rained intermittently until final the skies opened up and it poured right through until we arrived in Harrisonville. The rain would last for several hours and we were forced to move our belongings in the rain. Fortunately we were able to back the truck right
Mark w/ Beard
During my time working in Germany I grew out a beard...I'm trying to decide whether to grow it back out for our time in Jackson up to the garage and move the furniture and large boxes in without incident. Smaller random items were carried through the house and down into the basement where space had been cleared out. After it became clear everything was not going to fit in the garage we moved the truck around to the side of the house and carried the remaining boxes up a hill, through the rain, directly into the basement. We owe a debt of gratitude to Ed and Nancy Long for providing us with the space to store our stuff and Graham for helping with the heavy lifting - in spite of a hangover.
On Monday, we returned the U-Haul, picked up Liz's Toyota Corolla in KC and packed up both cars before departing for the lake late in the afternoon. We stopped to get some golden delicious apples on the side of the road - $2 for about 10 - which Liz has since turned into an apple pie. Upon arriving at the Villa we were provided with the essentials, a margarita and a home cooked meal. As mentioned earlier, we will be at the lake all week before we depart on Sunday for Harrisonville. We will stay there for a night, pick up a final few items out of our boxes and then start the trek to Jackson on Monday. We will stay at a location TBD Monday night and continue on to Denver first thing Tuesday morning. After a couple days in Denver and Ft. Collins we will leave on Friday, November 6th for Jackson Hole.
We have had technical difficulties posting pictures to go along with our blogs. It's our intention to iron out these problems and have some great supporting photographs soon. Thanks for all your comments....keep them coming!
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Mom
non-member comment
Amazing
Hello Mark and Liz, I'm so happy that we get to join you on the trip to Jackson by reading the blogs. Very interesting and I love the pictures too. Nice beard Mark!!! Heard that the west received LOTS of new snow. I will be following you all the way. Sending lots of love and hugs to you all, Vickie too. love mom/wendy