Living Room Camping

Before I begin the actual blog portion of our show, I want to explain why I haven't been here. My dad had been ill with lung cancer, so it was important that I be there, back in Orange County, for him and for my mom. So there were several (scratch that) many car and air trips back and forth until his passing at the end of June.

A week after my dad died, my mom went to urgent care, not feeling well. We found out that she had lung cancer, too. Her illness was quicker than my dad's and she left us at the beginning of September.  I stayed almost a month after that to help my brother and my sister-in-law wrap up the lives of Mary Lou and Earl Coots. Although we are now settled back in Northern New Mexico, it took quite a while to move in. I still don't know where everything is because we worked in fits and starts, either me or both of us leaving for SoCal. But I will pick up where I left off, which was when we actually moved in to the new place.

Remember when we were looking for moving companies how we warned them about the dirt roads? We chose (Name omitted) Moving Systems, connected with (Name omitted) Van Lines, because the salesperson assured us that yes, they would be able to move us and yes, we would probably need a shuttle because of those dirt roads. A shuttle is when the company must transfer our stuff from the big van to smaller trucks, like U-Haul sized. She even wrote it on the contract. "Shuttle will probably be necessary." She said the price of the shuttle was built into the total cost of the move.

The driver, Frank, unhooked in Las Vegas (remember this is the Las Vegas in NM) and drove the truck minus the trailer to our place. We were already there, camped out in the living room, where the night before Bonnie the cat had fallen off the stairs in the middle of the night. Luckily she just shook herself, looked annoyed, and was fine.

Miss Pearl and me waiting for the movers

 Frank decided after much conversation with his dispatcher that he would not be able to shuttle our stuff to the house. Roads were too muddy, snow was forecast for the day he was supposed to leave, couldn't get even a smaller truck in, blah blah. So on move-in day, instead, 40 miles away, (Name omitted) Moving Systems left our stuff at a storage facility in Las Vegas.

The dispatcher/manager  didn't accept Tom's suggestion that they send the driver (who said he had to go) on his way and in a few days, when the weather was to their liking, send out some guys to take the stuff from the storage facility and deliver it to our house.

The local people we met scoffed and said, "They could have delivered it. The previous owners used Ryder trucks to move stuff in and out in all kinds of weather."

So we spent another night camping on our living room floor.

Bonnie didn't fall off the stairs that night, so that was the good part.