Moving Daze

Life has been one crazy, slightly overwhelming, chaotic mess for quite a while.
After moving into a small (but comfortable) two bedroom home on a dead-end road close to the outskirts of Cody on February 1, LC and I began to closely watch the weather and contact moving companies.
 Trying to figure out how to get all of our belongings moved over from Idaho to Wyoming.
We had a huge picture at the public library in Challis.
We had a Suburban, a boat and trailer, and a camper in Atomic City.
We had two 200 sq foot storage units in Moreland just outside of Blackfoot.
With our belongings scattered to hell and back, figuring out how to get everything here to Wyoming without breaking the bank proved to be a challenge.
After contacting a number of moving companies we finally settled on an up-and-coming small company based in Idaho Falls.
The cost would be about half the price of larger and more nationally recognized movers, and after a few emails back and forth (as well as contact with the State of ID, the BBB and the local police department) we decided to go with them.
Fingers crossed and hoping for the best...........

In the middle of February the company (which sounded like one ambitious guy and his three best buds) was flexible in terms of schedule, and so LC and I began to closely monitor the weather forecast.
By the end of February we found a break in the weather.
The forecast called for mild and dry and (if the weather held) it should have successfully sandwiched us between two minor snow falls.
We decided to go for it, and confirmed arrangements with the movers.
Here was the (overly ambitious) plan:
1.  Travel Wyoming to Idaho one day.
2.  Meet with company owner next morning to make partial payment.
3.  Drop LC to Atomic City so he could put battery in Suburban, leave camper with mechanic in Blackfoot for some work so it would pull easier (and use less gas) and leave it until summer, return to Atomic City, hook boat/trailer to Suburban.
4.  While LC was in Atomic City I would drive up to Challis (picking up friend in Arco on the way), pick up picture and meet LC back in Atomic City.
5.  Meet movers at storage facility at 7am next morning.
6.  Load truck and trailer until early afternoon.
7.  Drive to Bozeman MT - spend the night - arrive back in Cody early afternoon the next day ahead of movers.
So much for best laid plans.................

The plan went out the window almost from the get-go.
Instead of mild weather, temperatures on the way to Idaho were freezing cold with blowing snow and winds that were extremely strong (making for cold gas-stops and squirrely driving).
We ran into near white out conditions in Montana and had to detour off the Interstate just outside of Idaho Falls and take back roads because of heavy snowfall.
The next morning the young company owner had to drive back to Idaho Falls to get much needed paperwork that he had forgotten, and our meeting with him was rescheduled for later that day.
It had snowed overnight and the winding roads were so treacherous leading to Challis that the trip to get the picture was canceled.
The stop in Atomic City was the one uneventful piece of the trip that actually went according to plan and we were in and out of town within an hour.
I pulled the boat with the truck.
LC pulled the camper with the Suburban.
Hugs, handshakes and thanks-for-watching-our-stuff and we were outta there.
 Good-bye Atomic City............
 
Mid afternoon  we met up with the young newbie company owner for the second time that day, and after only a few minutes and a few signatures we were good-to-go for the next morning. 

 Originally we had been scheduled to meet with the movers at 7am.

The time to meet appeared to be a constantly moving target, because it was changed from 7 to 7:30 to eventually 8:30.

OK.  Good enough.

8:30am sharp we would meet the movers at the storage unit.

With that we all shook hands and went our separate ways, with business and details all finally.......finalized...........

 At 8:45 the next morning I called the owner to ask where our movers were.

It was freezing cold and it had snowed again overnight.

We should have known better.  Why on EARTH did we put our faith

 in a weather forecast in the west at this time of year??

We should have known better.

So it was cold.  OK - it was what it was.

Where were our movers?

They were on the way.  it had taken longer to pick up the truck and trailer than they had expected.

Sigh.  

It was going to be a long day.

The three guys finally made their appearance at 9:15 and immediately got to work.

They assured us multiple times that they would get everything in the truck and trailer, but privately LC expressed doubt right from the get-go and we both started to load up the Suburban and bed of OUR truck as a hedge, just in case.

While still at the house in Atomic City I had expended a huge amount of time and effort, carefully packing and labeling everything with one thought in mind.

To make it easier to separate the personal from the business when the time came.

I asked (and the movers agreed) that house stuff would all go in the truck and business stuff would all go in the trailer.

By 3pm the moving guys finally acknowledged what LC had sensed from the get-go.

Regretfully they looked as us and told us they would need another (albeit small) trailer.

LC headed into Blackfoot in search of another trailer.

By 5:30pm on a very cold late afternoon, we were done.
One 26 foot UHaul moving truck, one large UHaul trailer, one small UHaul trailer, one full truck bed, one full Suburban, a boat and a boat trailer.
I would drive the truck and pull the UHaul trailer.
LC would drive the Suburban and pull the boat.
We would meet the guys in Cody WY sometime the next afternoon.
We made it as far as Butte MT that night...............

After arriving safely back in Cody by lunch time the next day, LC and I unloaded the trailer we had been pulling and waited for the guys to call us.
At 6pm we got the call that they were just outside of Cody and (tired but grateful to finally get this move wrapped up) we met the guys at the store.
As we all unloaded I inwardly groaned in disappointment.
By the time the trailer was unloaded at the store and the truck was unloaded at the house it was 10:30 at night.
Half the store stuff was at the house.
Half the house stuff was at the store.
The store was crammed full of boxes.
The storage building behind the house was full.
All three of our vehicles were full.
And our house was Fire-Trap-Scary full of stuff.............

Every single room in the house was crammed and piled 8 feet high, with narrow aisles built in, in order to get around.
We looked like those hoarder-people you see on A&E.
The next morning I looked around the house and wanted to cry.
In truth, it was overwhelming.
There were so many boxes everywhere you looked, piled so high, and I had no idea where to even begin.
It has taken us three weeks straight to get a handle on it all.
We quickly sold a few things.
We quickly rented a larger storage building.
We moved store stuff to the store and house stuff to the house.
We donated a box full of items every day for over a week.
And some things we kept and actually placed inside our small rental house.
Three weeks later it is now (mostly) under control.
The store?
Not even close.
But at least now it is all here.
Except for a huge Native American picture and a camper.
Which will both have to wait until the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park opens this summer...................

 Stopping for Kory in Clark, WY (only 30 minutes from Cody)............

Blowing snow and strong winds between Billings and Bozeman MT..............

Gas fill-up in Bozeman.
A beautiful town surrounded by mountains.
A town that LC and I had always absently talked of potentially living in one day.
While LC was inside the store paying for gas and making coffees, I wandered in the parking lot with my restless dog.
A homeless man that had been standing at the corner holding a sign begging for money (Anything Helps - God Bless You) had wandered down into the parking lot and I was mildly on alert.
A minute later I heard a yell, looked across the parking lot and saw what looked like Homeless Man #2 who yelled an obscenity and then made an obscene gesture at Homeless Man #1.
Homeless Man #2 continued to head in my/our direction and I was reminded for the 100th time over the past six months, just how much I really (really) like quiet, quaint, pleasant, safe, welcoming Cody..............

Desolate highway between Bozeman and Butte, MT.................

Outside the motel in Blackfoot ID............

Iconic Idaho paintings.
Found is one corner of a restaurant in Blackfoot ID.................

A sight I hadn't seen in almost six months - the Twin Buttes outside of Atomic City................

Our old house, seen through the trees.
I miss my house.
I miss my yard.
I miss nothing else about this town.................

 Two kayaks in the boat, a truck and Suburban eventually loaded up.
A very cold moving day.................

 A great little convenience store in Lima, MT on the way back to Butte MT.................

 Lima is a GORGEOUS little town in the middle of nowhere and nothing.
Surrounded by mountains, very isolated, very lovely.................

 From the moment we learned that our home in Atomic City had sold, and from the moment we frantically packed and moved everything into storage, and from the moment we left the state of Idaho and moved to Wyoming, we knew that we would eventually have to deal with the lives we had left behind.
It was as hectic, time consuming, and energy draining as we knew it would be.
But now it's done.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings' end..............Unknown