March was a whirlwind of packing, house repairs, and financial stress as it took most of the month to get the loan approval. In early April we loaded up the moving van and trailer for the first of what would eventually become three, nearly 1400 miles, drives north, where I drove the entire way each time. The first drive in early April was terrible, the short timeline and poor route meant that we spent a lot of the trip chugging 35mph up hill, adding hours to the trip. That first moving van was not great, it was slow, big at 26 feet, shaky, and the windshield started cracking a few hundred miles into the trip. We trailed our VW bus during this trip, after one stretch of mountains we found the wheel straps coming loose. Coming down through the narrow, winding mountain roads at 11pm at night was horrifying, but I went slow and safe. We didn’t arrive until 1:30am the morning of the closing for our new home.

First weekend in our new home was spent fixing windows, getting plumbing working right, and lots of cleaning. We had movers come to unload the moving van, most of which we put in a couple of rooms on the first floor or into the carriage house. This trip was mostly boxed up stuff and the tools and car supplies from our old garage. The next trip would be our furniture and the bulk of our stuff, we had to make sure the house was clean enough before moving it all in. A few days after we moved in we were flying back to Florida to prep for the second big trip.

The second trip was better. A friend flew in from out of town to ride with me in the moving van while my partner took our dog and drove the Rav4. My allergies do not agree with the Florida heat, I couldn’t wait until we could leave, but our departure kept on getting delayed, mostly waiting on someone to haul the bulk of the fleet north. It was not cheap, but I was able to get my Impala, Audi, and the Black Benz hauled up to the new home some 1300 miles away. During this trip we trailed the Tojan, same truck and trailer rental as before, except this time we were provided with a relatively new moving van. That moving van made the trip almost enjoyable. It had lane departure sensors, adaptive cruise control, and could chug 40mph through the mountains, took full advantage of its features. As we were leaving our old county, a storm came up on us, dumping heavy rain, thunder, and hail on us. Luckily we and the Tojan pushed through without major damage. We gave ourselves extra time and planned on possibly stopping a third night. My friend and I arrived on time, my partner arrived with our pup the next day.

The third trip happened almost a month later. We did not plan this trip out like we did the other two. We needed some time before going back to finish cleaning and packing our old house. We couldn’t put it on the market until more of the cleanup was done, so my partner and I came up with a plan where he flew back early and worked on the house. A few days later I flew down to join him and get the last of our stuff loaded into a final moving van, put our VW Beetle on a trailer, and try to clean up what we could. It was miserable due to lack of furniture (we had a broken sleeper sofa) and dwindling funds, but we completely filled up a 16′ moving van and had to leave a lot of unimportant stuff behind. That moving van was easier to drive thanks to its smaller size, but it needed suspension work. It shook, was hard to keep straight, and at one point it started to bounce really bad and I almost got motion sick. We were both exhausted when we arrived, but were happy we survived this final trip.

It’s been a little over a month since that final trip and I’m starting to feel less exhausted. The house is pretty comfortable now, but we still have a lot to unpack and many repairs that need to be done. While I’ve started setting up a new lab, it’ll be months before I’m back to working on projects like usual. The house is my main priority, it needs a lot of deferred maintenance and it’s obvious that people took advantage of the elderly owners with substandard quality work. We have a couple of small roof leak issues where flashing was not properly installed. We have many windows painted shut and all have broken sash cords. Most of these windows are also sealed shut with stick on foam insulation. Electrical is a mixed bag, lots of 60s/70s era electrical work where they ran new wires without grounding anything. It’s better than knob and tube, but still not ideal. Plumbing is mostly okay, although there’s a number of faucets where the hot or cold has low pressure, we have one small leak, and the first floor bathroom needs to be gutted to fix some wood rot issues.

It’s going to be an exciting summer!