Yippee...we've arrived...let the adventure begin.! We're now in cowboy country...time to shop for snake skin boots, a whole new set of clothes, Southwestern furniture and most importantly, a new blender to make margarita's (the state drink). We both grew up in Kentucky, where the mint julep is the state drink. Sorry to all my Kentucky buddies...I never really liked them, too sweet and a waste of good bourbon. I'll take a margarita anytime. Frozen or on the rocks....who cares baby, it's got tequila.
Anyway, after a grueling week of packing up and loading the Penske truck, we headed out of California early Saturday morning for Scottsdale (actually Rio Verde, which is outside of Scottsdale, up in the high desert). For anyone who has followed the blog over the past year, you'll no doubt recognize our RAM truck (Old Red) pulling the trailer (which usually carries the BMW Isetta). Since we had already taken the Isetta to Arizona (in January), we filled up the trailer with my tools, my photography equipment, our Weber grill and lots of odds and ends that you always end up with at the last moment when moving. Where did we get all this stuff?. And...you'll also recognize the 27' Penske truck, the same length we used when we moved out here from Florida. The biggest difference this time was that we added a 20' car carrier behind the Penske truck to haul our vintage 1958 Volvo. This additional length caused lots of problems when we had to get off the interstate to look for diesel fuel. Here's a tip for anyone attempting a move like this....only fill up at big truck stops! Don't even think about exiting the interstate onto a random road into a random town. Read on.
So here we are on the outskirts of Pasadena, CA and we're trying to figure out where the next truck stop is so I can get some diesel fuel (it takes $250 to fill it up by the way....yikes). I forgot to add how stupid I was passing up a huge truck stop about 100 miles back down the road. Cardinal rule #1...never, ever pass up a big truck stop. Getting into Pasadena, we quickly realize that there are no truck stops anywhere, as the exit we choose lead us right into downtown Pasadena. On Easter Sunday. Great. So, with me watching the fuel light blinking "empty", we find a station. Whoops, the truck is too tall to get under their gas pump canopy. We drive on. We find another station. Whoops, the turn getting into the station is too sharp for me to maneuver the nearly 60' length of truck and carrier. Damn. We drive on. We find another station, but the diesel pump is located too close to the building and I can't get in without having to back out. That's not going to end well. We find another station with great entry and exit areas. BUT....they don't sell diesel. If you heard some really loud cussing Sunday afternoon, that would have been me. Finally, with me running on fumes, we find a solitary station with a single diesel pump on the outside of the lot. VICTORY! We fill up and after an hour of wandering through downtown Pasadena (a really pretty town, by the way), we get back on the interstate and begin the final leg into Mesa, where we spent the night. Did I mention we were exhausted?
I'll make the last part of this post brief. We got up early Monday morning, drove to our self-storage area where we stored the Isetta, unloaded the Volvo, dropped off the car carrier, drove to Rio Verde, met the moving crew at 11:00, unloaded the truck and the trailer and collapsed around 5:00 that afternoon. We did it. Hell yes.
Cheers,
Wayne, Claudia & Tuck