Moving edition part 2: the importance of moving truck insurance

Ok, ok. It's been a while. I know. But, I have good news! I've found at least one AWESOME running route here in my new city! But before I get to that, I'm going to give you the blink-and-you'll-miss-it version of our move.

On the 22nd, I drove down with my Dad for the closing. All went smoothly and by evening we were unloading the cars into the new place. Over the next 4ish days we painted 5 rooms. I had to laugh at us when, well after dark, we were both crammed in this little half bath with a ladder trying to paint. The room is so small, it was comically stupid to move either of us or the ladder. And without sunlight, we couldn't reasonably tell if we'd painted well or not. All said, I think the painting projects turned out well. Even if the guy at the paint counter at Home Depot was on a first name basis with us by the end.

Living for 5 days on just the stuff we could fit in our cars (which were mostly full of the things we didn't want to put in the moving truck, like crystal) meant vaguely camping in a house. For instance, this is the extent of our available dishware.

While it was just Dad and me here, I took him to the Botanical Garden and to lunch at my new favorite lunch place, as a belated birthday present (he knew I had something planned, he just didn't know what). We had a nice time, and it was nice to learn a bit of the history of this town when we toured the "country house" at the botanical garden.

Jump to Sunday (6/27). We headed back to the old place to help round up the last of the packing, then pick up the truck on Monday. We had moving helpers come to load the truck. When they were finished I moved the truck out of our driveway and to the curb for the night. In the process of doing this I....

(Photo courtesy of one of The Minnesotans, who outed my driving skillz on Facebook)

Yep. Drove over our mailbox with a 26' moving truck. Tire tracks and everything. *$!@!!

(And a HUGE thank you to our wonderful, wonderful friends for helping us finish up the loading that night!)

The actual drive to the new town was pretty easy. A little slow, but not bad. The guys we hired to unload did a great job. And thus we commenced living in a box village.

With Pepper, my Dad, Mr. Joanna, me, and the babe (who is adorable but the opposite of helpful), we commenced unpacking. And unpacking. And unpacking. And figuring out that the guy who lives behind us can open our garage door with his garage door opener, which is sort of another comical story. All told, we're getting there. One day hopefully soonish, we'll live in something that looks like a home. I'm smiling thinking of how close we really are!

On the training front, I went WAAAAAAY too many days without a run (11 to be exact) during this epic transition. BUT, I got back to training on Friday and found an awesome path. I will post pics soon!! There is a park near my house that is almost 4 miles around, tons of trees, water fountains, non-car paths. Basically the perfect running route. I am one happy Joanna Running. So, re-commence training for Lewis & Clark! The Friday run was a little rough. I mean, 11 days off. It was a little rough. My lungs wanted to know who I thought I was kidding. But the longer run on Saturday was awesome. It felt so good to be back at it. Time to rack up some miles.

mileage: 293.3 + 3.9 + 3.6 + 5.1 = 306.1 miles (I know that doesn't add up...I've given up on reconciling and am just relying on runningahead to keep it right)

And to be clear, even though I haven't elaborated on all my goodbyes, that is not an indication that they were easy. We only moved about 3 hours away, so I'm very hopeful that we will be able to see our friends who are still there from time to time. Today was great but really hard. The Beastie and her husband came to visit for the 4th, and when they left, they left to go home and pack for their huge move back east. I wasn't ready for that.