On the Road!

 Monday the 17th finally arrived, whether we wanted it to or not...  A final night in our home, and then we were off to the sunnier shores of Toledo OH for an evening.  We had a not-too-hard time wrangling the cats into their respective boxes, dropped a bunch more stuff off at Aunt Dorothy's for her yard sale, Greg packed the cars with the precision of a Tetris master, we stopped at my dad's to bid him "see you next time!" (more than a few tears did I shed) and we were on our way.  

Our first big stop was in Buffalo for ramen.  It so happened that one of my college BFF's lives in Buffalo, so I sent him a message once I knew where we were stopping and asked him to meet us.  We enjoyed a really lovely lunch together and Leah enjoyed 'real' ramen.  She seemed to like it, as judging by the fact I was treated to listening to some sort of Japanime the whole way to Toledo from there on.  She also seemed to like Todd, having snooped through his and my private messages on Facebook and chatting with him a bit.  She declared him "the kindest man in the whole world." 

 

 

The main issue we had while driving is that although I knew that I90 in NY was a toll road, I wasn't aware it was basically a toll road through Illinois.  I put my EZPass up and prayed the entire way, but I kept getting passed through, so it seemed to work.  In fact, just a couple of days ago, I got an email that I'm only $3 in the hole to whoever the EZPass company is, so I paid that off and we can call it a day!  

We arrived at our AirBNB with no trouble.  The owners let us block them into the driveway so we didn't have to leave the car on the street.  In no way, shape, or form were we prepared for the spectacle that awaited us at this place.  It was a feast for the senses, to say the least.  Every last surface was covered with artfully arranged memoribilia and bric-a-brac and it was just absolutely fascinating to look at.  Like a museum, honestly!  We talked to the owners about restaurant recommendations and wound up downloading the DoorDash app and ordering Greek food for dinner.  What a world we live in, honestly!  It worked out just great--came quick and couldn't have been easier.

 

The cats were miserable having been locked up all day and then locked into a small bedroom, but we didn't dare let them run loose.  We were up bright and early the next morning, cats in boxes, breakfast procured from a local Panera, and I backed into their neighbor's car, which was parked at the end of the driveway.  I got out and didn't see any damage, so I decided to keep going, but we got a text later in the day asking if we knew anything about it, and I 'fessed up' and let them know it was me, and filed a claim.  It was a good learning lesson for Leah to see me take responsibility and I don't think I'd have felt very good about myself if I hadn't told the truth.

A few hours into the drive, we had a jailbreak.  Leah's cat Stepstool decided she wasn't riding in a box, and she chewed her way out the side of one of the soft side carriers we had brought.  She was swiftly followed by Lord Furrington, Leah's other cat, who manipulated the zipper on the other carrier and managed to get out.  Consequently, we were forced to make an unscheduled stop in Michigan to buy a new cat carrier, which REALLY made Stepstool angry, as it was one she couldn't get out of.

 

That night, we stayed in Rochester MN, home the Mayo Clinic.  We got another AirBNB and were greeted by the hostess, who lives next door.  As crazy as the other place was, this particular place was absolutely pristine and austere.  We decided to let the cats run wild as there was nowhere for them to really go and hide.  They were happy to stretch their legs and get away from each other.  We used DoorDash again and enjoyed a nice dinner together before relaxing on our last night before arriving in South Dakota.

Driving through MN the next morning offered some unexpected delights.  First off, we found signs for the Spam Museum!  We didn't know that there was such a thing, or that Spam hailed from MN.  We were 30 minutes early to actually go in, so we didn't get to take a tour.  But we stopped for photos and when we got out, Greg said, "I was thinking "Awww, we don't get to go to the Spam Museum!""  We're on the same wavelength for sure :) 

Then we continued on down the road and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sign suggesting we visit Blue Earth MN's Green Giant.  Turns out Green Giant foods is also out in MN!  They've built a massive Green Giant and we for sure had to go check that out.  Turns out there was a geocache hidden nearby, so we had fun finding that as well!

All the while, our mortgage representative had been calling me with last minute information about things that needed doing before we could close.  She called once to stay that I had to sign a particular paper before close of business that day or the sale wouldn't go through on time, so I pulled into a service area and took care of that.  Then a bit later on in the middle of BFE, MN, she finally called with the final closing amount for the down payment, etc.  I had to pull into a dirt patch and call my bank, who said they needed 24 hours to complete the wire transfer--we had 18.  Needless to say I was very anxious!

Me making real estate deals like a boss in MN!

 

Eventually we crossed into South Dakota.  We stopped at the Welcome Center to pick up bunches of brochures and take some pictures of our triumphant entry into the state.  I emailed one to my fellow senior librarian and captioned it, "You're stuck with us now!"  She emailed back "haha!"  

We stopped in Sioux Falls for a trip to Barnes & Noble for Leah's newest stash of manga novels and a quick lunch before getting back on the highway for the last stretch.  I thought it would be a quick trip between SF and Pierre, but it's actually nearly three hours.  We saw beautiful rolling grasslands all along and lots of wide open spaces which Leah and I were not prepared for, having never been to this part of the country before.  We stopped at our last AirBNB of the trip, dropped off the cats, and then headed over to our new house to meet up with our realtor, Bob Gill, to see that everything was in order for our closing the following day.  I asked him to bring a "sold" sign so we could have one of those stereotypical pictures on the front steps.  

Once we got inside, we found beautiful banners and signs and posters all over, as well as cards and gifts from Mary, her kids and grandkids, and some anonymous benefactors who wanted to welcome us to Pierre.  I've never had a nicer welcome, honestly!  We checked out the house and I honestly just fell in love with it immediately.  It is absolutely perfect for us, the right size and lay out and everything.  If you'd like to see a video tour of it, you can click here.  I immediately fell in love with the place, and I couldn't wait to move in!

We rolled back to the AirBNB and used DoorDash a final time to order from a local BBQ joint before collapsing and going to sleep.  The next morning, Greg and I headed to the title company and completed the closing for our house (the wire transfer went through just fine) and became homeowners together for the first time!

We picked Leah and the cats up from the AirBNB (the cats were not happy about going back in the boxes) and drove 10 minutes to the new house (the cats were very confused about such a short day in the boxes).  Our neighbors, Harlan and Yvette, came over and introduced themselves and we had a really lovely chat about the neighborhood and the house and they were happy we are cat people who like to garden, and vice versa!  We unloaded our cars and ran to a local big box store to get chairs to sit, as we had gotten rid of most of our furniture and we had no idea when the moving truck might arrive.  A co-worker at the library lent us air mattresses, and we were as furnished as we were going to get for a while!

That afternoon, we went to the local hospital, which was having a Covid vaccine clinic, and Leah got her first shot.  She gets her next one mid-June and we'll be able to relax a good bit more after that!

Afterwards, Mary had us over to meet her whole family and have a BBQ, which was incredible and really took the pressure off the Door Dash people!

And with that, we are now Pierre-ians.  Or is that Pierre-ites?  Pierre-isians?  Whatever it is, we are!  Four cats, three humans, two cars, nine states, 1800+ miles, and we did it.  I'm so proud of our little team.  What an adventure.

The Final Push

Tonight is our last night at #17.  Tomorrow, we head out on the open highway and by Tuesday, almost all traces of our time here will be erased when the movers and cleaner come, the septic and leech field guys do their thing, and we close this chapter on our lives.

The last ten days or so have been incredibly stressful.  We hosted a huge moving sale last weekend, and I thought we had gotten rid of everything there was to get rid of.  Little did I know!  Thankfully Greg's mom and dad were able to come up and provide much needed organizational support--I had thrown everything in a lump on the garage and it was all chaotic and disorganized.  Greg's dad did a lot of moving, his mom was good at categorizing and organizing, and then I was able to go through when they lost steam and price everything.  Good teamwork!  Once the sale was done, we took our leftovers to "Aunt Dorothy", a local woman who runs a huge sale every year to benefit the local nursing home residents.  And all week, we've been bringing her things.  It's wild. 

On Monday, we took Greg's car in for service, which wound up needing an extra day due to some repairs, which meant we were a one car family for several days, because after we got his car back, my car went in.  That meant driving both Greg and Leah to school and back, as well as trying to navigate pick up of the cars.  

Also Monday was our last Lion's Club meeting and I will miss those people so much <3  It was the first club I joined after I got home, and I was welcomed with open arms.  I have enjoyed serving with them and spending time with them, and I hope to keep in touch with many of them even from afar!

Thursday morning, my car was still in the shop, and I had to travel to nearby Carthage to sign the sale papers on my house, so I had to get my dad's car, go sign the paper work (40+ minutes each way for an 8 minute appointment!), pick my dad up, we drove to get my car, and then finally home.

On Thursday evening, our moving company called to say they couldn't do our move after all.  This left us 72 hours to get ourselves together and find a new way of moving our gear.  We ultimately found another moving company, only to have the charges declined on Greg's card.  He called his card company, and they have placed a 7-14 day security hold on his bank card, which meant having to use other funds (which we had available, thankfully!) to pay for the move.  UN-fortunately, however, we won't get the points from his card for our honeymoon next year!  Doubly unfortunately, our gear will not arrive for 4-21 days.  Anyone care to guess that ours probably won't arrive for 21?  So we had to scramble our packing plans--we'd gone from "Pick up Sunday and deliver Thursday" to "Pick up Tuesday and deliver sometime before mid-June".  

On Friday, both Greg and Leah finished school for the year.  Greg graduated with his AAS in land surveying technology.  Leah is no longer a sixth grader.  Leah also finished the sixth grade production of The Wizard of Oz, in which she had the lead role of Dorothy.  I'm so proud of them both.  It was a tough year for Greg especially, and I know Leah is sad saying goodbye to the kids she has been friends with for the 3 1/2 years that we have been here.  She had the benefit of a small school and a small group of kids who welcomed her into their midst so warmly.  She has had a great time at Clifton-Fine, even if I wasn't always satisfied with the way things were being done. haha

So to celebrate, on Friday night, we sparked up our fire pit and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, chased each other with the house, sword fought with sticks, and generally let out a lot of emotion. 

Sword fighting and fire in the yard--we live on the edge!

So then, I finally had some help getting packed.  And we had 48 hours to pack, because despite the moving snafus, we still have to leave tomorrow morning because of our closing on Thursday morning on the South Dakota house.  And because I didn't correctly estimate how much stuff we actually owned, our bill shot up a few hundred dollars, and we've been trying to cram as much as we possibly can into our cars, while leaving Greg plenty of open space for the cats, who are all traveling in style in the Gregmobile.  

Today was a whirlwind of packing--we had a massive mountain of clothing.  So much so that we actually donated eight giant trash bags full and still have filled a bunch of space bags and suitcases!  We sat down to dinner at 8pm, sandwiches from the local convenience store, and ate on 'the good china'.  I can't even remember the last thing I actually cooked here!  

Dinner on the 'good china' our last night in NY

My dad has wanted to spend as much time with us as possible, and we've been without basic supplies or food, so we've been running up and down the hill to his place to eat meals, watch football (SDSU was in a championship game of some sort but lost by 2 points :( ), and play games. We've also had people in and out to get furniture, much of which we wound up giving away, and a cleaner in to give us an estimate because we won't be able to clean after our stuff leaves.  Plus friends and neighbors have come over to say goodbye.    It's been an absolute whirlwind.

That's the mechanics of our last week in NY.  The emotions I'll cover in a second post...  Because I have a lot of them.  I've been waiting for this weekend since the end of March when I went to Pierre.  Now that it's here, I can't believe how much we've had to do!  Holy smokes, it's been crazy.  I can't wait to get out there and maybe be able to relax a smidgen--albeit on the floor as we'll have no furniture.   But we'll be there, and that's what will matter.  See you all from SD!

Too Much & Not Enough!

So much has happened that it's hard to believe it's all gone on while I've largely been sitting in my dining room in NY working the phone and computers.  My dad and I had a discussion about how I couldn't just buy a house I'd never been in before and that I needed to go to South Dakota in person and really get down to looking at places.  Well, that's the new way of things, because the big news is, we've had an offer accepted on a house!

Our lovely new home

 We are presently putting in the finishing paperwork and getting our inspection done (happening today!), but it's looking pretty darned good that we're going to own a sweet little yellow house in a nice neighborhood in Pierre--just a few short blocks from the Governor's mansion, even!  

This is a video tour our realtor made for us of the house--one of four houses we 'toured' this way.  We had put in an offer on an old Victorian style fixer upper early last week, but the issues in the house made us leery, and ultimately we rescinded our offer on that place and decided on this sweet place instead.  Leah and I seem to be moving to progressively smaller homes--our place in Virginia was 2400 square feet, our place in NY is 1800 square feet, and our new place is 1400 square feet.  But I think the layout of this home is really excellent and compliments our lifestyle well and I might be able to get a good night's sleep if we lock the cats up every night!!!  We have a few improvements to make on the place--most notably, Greg and I don't want to share a shower/bathroom with Leah, so we'll be adding an extra full bath.  But these things don't have to be done immediately and I'm just so excited we won't be homeless.

Of course, knowing that means a new set of issues to sort out.  But we now have a place to tell our movers to take our gear to, and we know which items we can take and what we think will fit well with the decor of our new home.  

Greg also did an exceptional job of finding places for us to stay along the way that would allow us to bring all four of our cats in from the cars.  We've got lovely little AirBnB's plotted along the way and one woman even waived her $30/pet fee and is allowing us to stay for only an extra $30 instead of an extra $120.  I don't know what the cats will make of this entire situation, but I guess we'll find out!  Additionally one of my dear friends from college has offered us his place as a pit stop along the way to freshen up and say hello--as I haven't seen him in nearly 10 years, I'm excited to be able to do so now that we're all vaccinated and feeling a tiny bit safer!  My tag line is becoming "Four cats, three humans, two cars, one epic road trip."

Downsizing also means sorting and getting rid of things and our moving sale pile is growing substantially!  I thought I got rid of everything when we left Virginia, but either I didn't get rid of as much as I thought I did, or Greg had more than he thought he did, or Leah has shopped more than we thought she did!  (OK, I confess--my quarantine hobbies of baking and gardening did NOT help with the load!).  Our moving sale will be on Saturday, May 8th.  Greg's mom has graciously agreed to come help organize everything for it, and it will be a great time to come and say goodbye to us if you are so inclined!  The movers arrive May 16th and we roll out on May 17th, arriving in Pierre on May 19th and closing on the house May 20th.  Our gear arrives on May 21st, and I start work on May 24th.  How's that for a timeline?!

Moving sale pile o' stuff

My friend Mary has been keeping everyone at the library apprised of our progress and whenever I ask her to run a secret mission or check something out or give me a report on things, she's been so full of information.  One thing I really wanted was a picture of my cubicle as I've been watching such videos as "35 Cheap Ways to Decorate your Cubicle for Maximum Productivity!" She sent me some great pictures and one of the view.  I'll get to look out at the state capitol building every day, which I think is pretty neat.

The view from my cube with the Capitol in the distance

And we can't forget that we are still getting married in October and still have a wedding to plan!  Leah and I went and met with the florist two weeks ago, and tomorrow I'm meeting with the new wedding coordinator at the reception site.  Owing to Covid restrictions, the wedding has been downsized considerably, and so we've made big changes along the way that require coordination, and as such have hired a wedding coordinator for the day of, separate from the resort's event coordinator.

Meanwhile little tidbits of SD are popping up unexpectedly... My neighbor phoned yesterday to tell me about the latest episode of American Experience, which was about author L Frank Baum.  He wrote The Wizard of Oz (the school production of which Leah has been cast as the lead), and lived in Central New York, where they still have a festival yearly (or at least did pre-Covid) in honor of the books.  Well, it turns out he also moved to the Dakotas, where he started a newspaper.  I don't think I'll rename the blog "The New Baums" though. ;-)  You can check it out at https://www.pbs.org/video/american-oz-cvqd3p/ if you want to watch the program yourself.

So saying, I'm still so anxious to get out there and get going.  I know it will be painful to actually leave, and will come with no shortage of tears, as leaving behind my family and friends on the East Coast is not something I am looking forward to.  Thankfully unlike the pioneers of old, we have it much easier for keeping in touch.  And I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to make more friends in SD and be more social as HOPEFULLY the pandemic wanes.  

That's all for now!  Keep checking back for updates.  We love your comments here and on Facebook.

Moving Out and Fitting In

This weekend we started getting serious and getting organized for moving.  We finalized squaring away our finances to pay for our future party pad, as well as working out how we were going to pay to physically move three humans and four feisty felines halfway across the country.  The timing is also going to be challenging, as Greg doesn't finish school till May 15, and I start work May 24.

We've decided to have a moving sale in early May, as well as starting to clear out things to go to charity that we don't think people will buy (people don't tend to buy adult clothing at yard sales in my experience).  

To that end, tonight Gregory and I went through our shirt drawers.  Each partner was allowed to vote to toss a shirt or keep it, and it was based on how it looks on the person, what condition it was in, and our personal sense of style, as well as how we feel we might fit in while we're there.  (For instance, while I'm not getting rid of them or hiding my liberalness, I maybe don't always need to poke the bear with my extensive collection of political tee shirts, so the rattiest ones went adios!).  Our pile was pretty impressive (I can now shut my drawers!),  and we did the Marie Kondo method of honoring the items and thanking them for their service in our lives, which made me feel a bit better about tossing so many things that a month ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about.

This led to a conversation about how my experience in the Pierre WalMart indicates that there does not seem to be a reusable bag/paper only policy.  We are running low on plastic bags here and were trying to decide how to bag up these shirts.  So I told Greg that when we move, we'll have all the plastic bags we can possibly handle.  He said, "Well, I think I'll still want to use my reusable bags."  To which I replied, "Greg!  Do you want them to think we're a bunch of hippies!?"  Apparently yes.  Yes he does.

So I said, "Ok, but can you at least do it wearing a cowboy hat?"  And he said he would if I got him a cowboy hat.  So look out, Pierre, because this tough customer is going to be strolling through a grocery store near you sometime soon.

Then he decided I should try out this look...  So being the excellent sport I am, I did.  

George is dubious.

Of course, this is all very stereotypical, both of South Dakota and of the East Coast.  I find myself wondering a lot about what it will really be like to live there and if we'll fit in.  I liked all the people I met there at first blush, so I'm hopeful that we'll find our squad eventually.