Our move to Utah is complete! We had to make the 22-24 hour drive twice, but hey– there’s nothing like a good road trip!
Drive #1
We left Indiana as November rolled into December.
Nov. 27
We picked up a 16-foot Penske rental truck on Monday morning before Tim had to work. He drove the truck home (I refused to get behind the wheel!) and parked it in his parent’s driveway. I stayed in town to run some errands, get some writing done, and treat myself to half-off a bowl of Panera’s autumn squash soup. 😋
Nov. 28-29
We loaded the truck. This involved tracking down the boxes we had spread between both of our parents’ houses (and the week before, we collected some furniture we loaned to friends). Dad made sure the big stuff was securely roped in so nothing would slide around as we drove.
Nov. 30
On Thursday, we packed the final odds and ends, made sure we had plenty to eat (thanks, Mary!), and by 4 PM, Tim was pulling out of the drive.
This first leg of the trip was a short one. We only covered about 4.5 hours and stopped in Iowa to spend the night at my aunt and uncle’s. Tim used this part of the drive, which was mostly state highways rather than interstate, to get used to handling the truck, especially as he got on and off ramps or pulled into gas stations.
It was lovely to see my aunt and uncle again, do some catching up; it’d been almost two years since our last visit! They fed us a delicious spanakopita for our second dinner and made sure we had breakfast for our early start the next day.
Dec. 1
We left by 7 or 8 AM (I can’t remember which; I was too tired), and spent the day on I-80, stopping about every four hours to fill up the gas tank. It was tedious going (Iowa and Nebraska are BORING), but the truck was more comfortable than I expected, we were able to make a quick flat penny stop, and we had an audiobook to listen to.
Because of this drive, I FINALLY got Tim to cave and give Harry Potter a go. I had a hunch he’d enjoy Jim Dale, and I was right! He’s spectacular, after all. We finished Sorcerer’s Stone by the time we’d reached Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Tim was definitely invested. He didn’t predict the ending, enjoyed the story, and was excited to start book two!
In Cheyenne, we grabbed dinner at an out-of-the-way Thai place just off the interstate. We had planned to stay the night in town (Tim had preemptively booked a hotel), but we both spent dinner on our phones checking the radar, looking at WYDOT travel advisories and road closures, and checking wind speeds.
Based on this research, Tim concluded that it was best to keep driving – if we didn’t we could have been stuck in Cheyenne in the morning waiting out the weather. So, Tim called the hotel to cancel and we ended up with almost a full refund (how!?). Then he spent another four hours behind the wheel, totaling about 16 for the day.
I turned on Chamber of Secrets, Tim had more caffeine, and we set off – Tim’s dinner unfinished. The wind was strong, but not too strong yet, and we hit blowing snow for about 30 minutes near Elk Mountain. Sometime after the lights of the Sinclair plant faded into the distance, I slept – only after Tim promised he’d stop or wake me if he had to.
I woke well before we made it to the day’s destination: Rock Springs. We stayed at the historic Best Western, which was more than I had wanted to pay for a room (but if it meant one night here instead of two in Cheyenne, that was fine), and I consoled myself that there’d be a full hotel breakfast the next morning.
Dec. 2
The extra distance put us ahead of schedule and only about four hours from Provo, our final destination. This meant we could sleep in a bit, but breakfast was early so not too much. And that breakfast we both had been looking forward to – AWFUL. It was the worst hotel breakfast I’ve ever had, not even joking. Everything was like rubber, the sausage, the eggs, the pancakes. Tim didn’t even clear his plate, which is something I’ve never seen. Good thing Mary packed us plenty of snacks!
We chilled at the hotel until 11 AM (checkout time), resting and playing Wingspan. And because we still had more time to kill, I talked Tim into visiting the Rock Springs Historical Museum (it was free and they had a flat penny). The museum is housed in the original city hall which was home to the police station, jail, fire station, and judge’s chambers. On our walk-through, we could see each of these.
Turns out, Rock Springs is a pretty important place. It developed as a coal mining town whose product supplied the Union Pacific Railroad. Due to the need for labor, it played host to a large immigrant population, boasting about 56 nationalities. Rock Springs was also home to Butch Cassidy (he worked at a butcher shop in town) and Calamity Jane. On display at the museum were a slew of artifacts from the town’s development and industry. Of these, we found most impressive the map of the area’s coal mines. They were extensive!
By noon, we were once again on our way. The last bit of the drive got pretty windy, especially as we hit the downhill road that entered the Utah Valley, but Tim was a champ, and it was no trouble at all. When we arrived at our new apartment (just minutes before the woman who had our key), Harry and Ron were escaping from Aragog.
We did the new apartment walk-through, supervised by the woman who had our key (I think she was the sister of the owner who was out of town?). And though we don’t normally like people hovering, Tim and I were glad she was there.
The previous tenants, though lovely people (we had met them on our tour), had not done a good job cleaning. 😬 The kitchen cabinets needed wiping out, the shower was dirty, the air vents were clogged with dust, walls needed wiping down. It wasn’t awful, but it’d delay unpacking. Plus, the carpet was scheduled to be replaced on the 8th, which meant all our bedroom furniture (minus the bed) would be living in our living room for a week, further delaying unpacking. Tim and I are the sort of people who like to knock out tasks like this ASAP, and we found the delays frustrating.
But Matthew and April drove up from Kanab, arriving only about 15-20 minutes after we did, and with their help, we had the truck unpacked and the cabinets wiped out by 8 PM. We’ll forever be thankful for their help! ❤️ Then (as if the last few days hadn’t been long enough), we returned the truck, went to a Ramen restaurant for dinner, and then went shopping at Walmart, filling a cart with a week’s worth of food and restocking all our household cleaners.
Moving In
novaturient (adj): desiring power or change in one’s life or situation
Dec. 3
We slept in on Sunday, way in! And then we spent the morning looking for the pizza stone so we could make frozen pizza for lunch. The stone was, of course, in the last box. 🤦♀️ But the good news was that so far, nothing was broken! All of our drinking glasses and coffee mugs were intact.
Matthew and April left after lunch. Tim scrubbed the shower; I scrubbed the pasta sauce splatter off the kitchen walls. Neither of us could find the shower curtain hooks, though we found the curtain, so we walked about two miles to the Family Dollar for some new ones.
Tim finished his leftover Thai food. 😄
Dec. 4
Yay. Monday. Since Tim’s company runs on Central Time, in Utah that means he’s on the clock from 8-4. Normally, this is perfect – our afternoons and evenings are free – but we both wanted to sleep. And Tim was busy! It seemed a new call would come in before he was able to finish documenting the previous one! And this would go on for the next two weeks…
I attended to my own work and continued putting things away.
In the evening, we gave our new public transport cards a go and traveled to IKEA and four other furniture stores to look at couches. No winners.
We finished Chamber of Secrets on the train home.
Dec. 5
I scrubbed the bathroom walls.
Dec. 6
We looked at more couches after work – this time we bought one! It doesn’t arrive until January, though. 😕
Then, Tim took me on a date. We walked by a couple of ice cream shops and he didn’t stop, which had me VERY confused, but then we ended up at the library! We both got cards and as excited as kids in a candy shop, both found something to check out.
Dec. 7
I roasted pumpkins – more on that later.
Dec. 8
The carpet man came! It’s really nice carpet, too.
After he left, I swept up the biggest threads before Tim ran the vacuum.
I scrubbed the bedroom walls.
We moved all the bedroom furniture out of the living room and unpacked our clothes! I thought it’d be weird to not live out of a suitcase anymore, but I’m used to it already. However, I do still tend to keep wearing the same clothes as I was before…
Dec. 10
We walked two miles to Mass since we didn’t have a car. It was a nice walk, but it wasn’t a great Mass. We both felt uncomfy – every Mass in Europe felt more comfortable than that one did. 😬 We had been looking forward to becoming members of the local parish, but now we’ll have to “shop around.”
I made pumpkin muffins before bed, so we’d have breakfast for the week.
Dec. 11
We attended a Christmas concert by a community choir at the library. It was fine, and I grabbed another book.
Dec. 12
I went to a LDS temple open house. To keep a long story short, I was less than impressed. Plush carpets, fancy upholstered furniture, big vases, crystal chandeliers. I couldn’t decide if I felt like I was in a hotel or a manor house, but it all gave off “sitting room.” Much disappointment there.
Tim went back to the library for another Christmas concert, this time with a different choir. I stayed home to read. He liked this one better and is considering auditioning.
Dec. 13
My package of Christmas gifts that I wanted shipped to Indiana got forwarded here, but I had to go collect it at the post office since I now owed new shipping fees. 🤦♀️ But it’s a good thing we checked the mail before going for a walk, or the post office would have closed, and I would have turned up to my family’s Christmas without a gift for my sister.
My brother’s stocking stuffer was also in the box, but as it was a putty, I couldn’t take it on a plane (it’s a liquid apparently), so I had my sister order him a new one for me so it ended up at the right address. Good thing I can make use of the extra one.
Dec. 14
My alarm didn’t go off, which turned out to be fine. But then we *just* made it to the bus stop in time – they were running fast since there wasn’t much traffic yet. We were headed to the Salt Lake City airport via public transport, a bus, train, tram journey that would take two hours, and we didn’t want to miss a transfer.
It probably would have been fine though. We made it through security in 15 minutes and had almost two hours before our flight. We spent 15 of those minutes waiting for the clock to tick to noon – I had a 50% off Starbucks coupon I intended to use. My eyelids were heavy already!
Soon we were boarding, headed back to Indiana once more!
The Logophile's Bookshelf 
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