Moving Day(s)

Oh man, what an experience. I’ve never had so much trouble moving before, I don’t even know how to describe it all, it was so much stress. I called U-haul the day before the move to rent a van and although the girl on the phone was super helpful and got me all set up, the experience that followed is nothing in comparison. I got a call from the shop the next day I was to get the van from, asking me if I had 2 reservations. Why would I have 2 separate reservations if it’s just me in need of 1 van? I had to call the head office twice before I got it all straightened out and they finally understood that it’s one person picking up one van. The whole thing felt like it took half a day to get done.

The day of the pick up, the shop called me again, telling me that they didn’t have the van I wanted and had to upgrade me to a 14 foot truck at no extra cost. I agreed but was told that rather than picking it up at 9am, I had to go pick it up 11am. Fine. I went to get it at 11, only to be told that they didn’t actually have one ready and that they’d have to upgrade me to a 16 foot truck at no extra cost. Once again, I conceded and this time had to wait until around 12pm to get it.

I’ve never driven such a big vehicle before, but I’d have to learn quickly.

I got this truck for the next 48 hours and would have to figure out how to get my stuff into it and get it to my moms, about 180 km’s away. At least this one came with a ramp.

Believe it or not, for the next 11 & ½ hours, I would pack my things and load this truck.  It would have been a lot easier if I had all my things packed already, but with all the preparations to leave the country, it didn’t happen.  

This is the mess I made of the basement I was in. Yep. Looks like fun, doesn’t it?

And this is what I ended up with at the end.

At 11:30pm my mom asked me to drive her home from the Hamilton airport. Erm, great. I drove the truck to the shop it was rented from, left it there, took my car and drove to meet my mom almost 2 hours away, to pick her up and then drive another 35 mins to drive her home. Once there at around 2am, I decided to go back to finish things up in the basement and finally start the journey with the truck to my moms.

At this point, I haven’t slept for far too many hours and during my 2 & ½ hr trek from my moms, I started falling asleep on the highway. It was time to pull over and have a nap. I think I slept from about 3am to 4:30am, then finally got myself back on the highway. Once I got back to the basement and got the last few things left over packed in my car, vacuumed and cleaned up the rest, it was time to get the truck and start the journey. I think at this point it was around 7:30am – not a good time to get on the highway in Toronto, either way. The rain didn’t let up, so of course the traffic was worse than normal and I found myself idle in the middle of Toronto at around 9am. Once again, feeling super tired, I decided to pull over and have a nap and wait out the traffic. I believe I finally got to my moms at around 12pm.  Once at moms, once again, I needed to nap and I fell asleep at around 1pm until around 2pm before getting up, finally showering and getting ready to unload. Ugh. I think it took mom and I a good hour and a bit before we got help unloading the rest and putting it all into the basement.

What a miserable move this was. And the weather did not co-operate at all either, as it rained both days.

I think next time I have to move, I’m not asking any friends for help, because I’m disappointed with people failing me. Next time I’m hiring a couple of guys with a truck. Yep.

Till next time!