AN UNEXPECTED AND FAST CROSS COUNTRY ADVENTURE
The following is a true story. No names nor faces have been changed to protect the innocent. There aren’t any innocent!
It came upon us one quiet Thursday afternoon while we were at my brother’s place in Sacramento. We had just made some plans for the weekend and agreed to babysit for our nephew and nieces…when… dundadadun…the call came.
Jim went outside with the phone in hand as if in secrecy. I ignored him. Then after sometime, he came back and said, “I got a job!” Now the prankster part of me did not believe him.
“Not a funny joke,” I said. But he looked serious and told me a bit more about the temporary position in Vermont. A strike of excitement shot through my body, more adventure! Adventure? I was excited about more adventure? I thought all I wanted is a place of our own to live? The couch surfing was getting a bit much.
As I got excited about even having a place to live for 3 months or more, Jim calmed me down and said, “It is not completely set yet. All I got was a verbal offer; I am waiting for a written one.” After being disappointed in the past, we did not get our hopes up too much anymore. But this one was different, Jim was being…um…let me phrase it this way…superstitious (although he would never admit it). I was not allowed to say anything to anyone. People that know me, know that is asking a lot of me, but I did it! And I felt like a spy doing so; holding information from the enemy (my friends and family)!
There is another twist to this job offer, if all worked out well, Jim had to start work the following Wednesday. Mind you, it was now Thursday evening, the job is in a small town in Vermont, we were in Sacramento California, and our car was in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Trying not to jinx the offer, we made plans on how we could work this out.
Friday morning we still did not have a written offer. Can you stay the word, “Stress?” Although we were not exactly sure if we were really leaving yet, we said good-byes to Randy, Dawn, Olivia, Isabella and Carl. I was not ready to say, “Good-bye.” While I cried and packed up and cleaned, Jim was working on a 15 page application and security check form.
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| From Hanging with the Kids Time in Sacramento! |
Still no written offer though. I think it was not until around noon Pacific time (3:00pm East Coast time) did Jim get the offer. Then the real stress began, getting there.
Since we still had Jim’s Dad’s car, we had to bring the car back to their house in Martinez. We took off for Jim’s parent’s house, still without any set plans to get to Vermont. Our well thought out plan was that we would fly to Virginia Beach over night on Friday, spend Saturday night with our kind and generous friends, The Glasiers (they have housed a lot of our stuff, our car, and us at times). Sunday we would drive the 7.5 hours to Brooklyn to spend the night with The Rogans and as soon as I asked Patty, she planned a BBQ with The North’s as well. Monday we would drive the 3.5 without traffic to Brattleboro, VT.
Sounds not too bad, right? Well, the search for an overnight flight did not start until 3:00pm. Note to any other people that have not ever been a last minute flyer, expect to pay a lot and be disappointed. Our plan that sounded sound, was not. After 3 and a half hours and an overwhelmingly amount of stress which included unsuccessful tries of using Jim’s Mom’s miles and Diana’s vouchers, we finally got a flight to the East Coast. But not to Virginia Beach. We were flying into Washington, DC which is 4 hours north of Virginia Beach. Okay, I made that all sound NOT as stressful as it really was for me. I was about to chop Jim’s lips off and stuff them where the sun don’t shine! But we got through it with no lip mishaps.
Our overnight flight to Washington DC from the Oakland Airport was with around 100 middle school kids on spring break to visit the capitol. Thinking is was going to be the worse non-sleep overnight flight ever, we took some sleeping aids Jim’s Mom gave us! Whether the kids made a lot of noise or not, we had no idea and slept like babies the whole flight!
After that, our plan went kind of smoothly. The rental car pick up went smooth. The drive from DC to Virginia Beach went smooth. Our time in Virginia Beach went smooth. We rested, repacked, dined on some of the best Filet Mignon’s we have ever had thanks to David, Chef of Chez Glasier, and ended the evening watching a video.
The drive to Brooklyn started off smoothly, after all we had done the trip a couple of times already. That was until we had a little snafu. It is one of those where one person does one thing and the other does the another thing, and all things get gumbled up. Kind of a like a good ole’ episode of “I Love Lucy!” And in this situation, Ricky Ricardo was Jim. All I remember is hearing Jim saying, “Dawn!” It kind of sounded like Ricky saying, “Lucy!” after she had done something wrong. Okay it was me! It was all my fault! I locked the key in the car. Yes, I did it, but I did not realize the keys were still in the ignition. Why would Ricky, uh, I mean, Jim leave them there? Because he thought I was not getting out of the car, that is why! Great, we were on schedule to get to The Rogan’s for the BBQ, but not anymore! To make things worse, we no longer had AAA.
Clever Jim called the road service, and then quickly renewed his AAA service before they got to us. He paid the $89.00 for the year membership which covered the $80.00 it would have cost us to have the Jersey guy break into our car. We were back to smooth sailing! But first we must thank the super-dooper-over-the-top nice guy at the gas station that let us borrow his phone for around half hour. Funny thing is, he kept on apologizing to us because he had his wife’s car and not his truck with the jimmy in it. All said and done, this little snafu only set us back a half hour!
The BBQ went great and it was so nice seeing Patty, Rich, Cooper, Nicole, Chad and Aidan again! The food was great, the kids were fun and Patty’s sangria was dangerous!
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| From BBQ in Brooklyn |
After dinner, to our happy surprise Rich and Patty had a new Craps felt, so we gambled! Jim, the Dealer, taught a few new things to Patty and Rich, but semi-professional Craps Player Dawn won the pot!
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| From BBQ in Brooklyn |
We did not get an early start the next morning, but that was okay because it was supposed to be only a 3.5 hour drive. When we finally did get on the road, the Manhattan, Hartford, and Springfield traffic jams made the trip over 5 hours. We got into Brattleboro in the evening. And we checked into a cheap hotel and settled into our new home!
Sacramento, CA to Brattleboro, VT in 3 days! We did it!
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| From Vermont in April! |
Next Blog Post: All the things you never knew you wanted to know about Vermont!
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.WE.ARE.GNOMADS. 