Moving to NYC

We had a nice plan for our move to New York City, then Hurricane Sandy decided to mess it all up, very inconsiderate.  On October 29th, I (Dan) was sent home early as the Hurricane was right off the coast.  Later that night our Jersey apartment lost power.  We already had supplies so we weren't too concerned.  After two days of no power we decided to move a day early on the 31st, and took a few boxes of stuff and drove into the city.  I made another trip but I couldn't take anything heavy as I had to go down 5 flights of stairs.  We spent the weekend exploring the neighborhood and interviewing nannys as Tara headed back to work on the 7th. 

The Upper West Side wasn't really touched by the hurricane as everyone had power but the subways were still slowly being reinstated.  Sleeping on the air mattress we discovered it had a slight hole and woke up one night to it mostly deflated and us in pain from sleeping on the floor.  A bicycle patch kit fixed it right up and we got one reasonable nights sleep.  Sunday the 4th we were told that the Jersey apartment had power so we rescheduled the U-Haul truck and the movers.  I drove out there, finished the packing and prep and spent the night with the dogs.  Monday morning, I got the truck, waited in a gas line as gas is in short supply in Jersey and started to pack the truck.  The movers didn't show up as planned so I had to pack the truck myself.  I was able to get some help moving the large furniture pieces at 1pm.  The drive into the city was a piece of cake with Eddie and Shelby as my copilots. 

Once in the city, we double parked (that's how it's done in NYC) and we started unloading the truck.  Our street is pretty busy so unloading the truck with cars headed straight at you is an interesting experience, but it's two lanes so they can go around. 

Returning the truck usually is a simple task of driving over and dropping it off.  Not this time.  I  had two choices of places to return the truck, both in the Bronx.  I went to the closer one on West 126th St, only to be turned away by the guy and told if I park there he will tow me.  Deciding that an arguement wasn't going to change his mind I jumped back in the truck and discovered that my phone was about to die.  I quickly checked where the second location was at before it shut off.  With my razor sharp memory (not) I started to head to East 138th Street in the Bronx.  After 20 min I was completely out of my league and once I saw the Empire State building I headed in that direction.  As I headed south towards home to get Tara's phone with her GPS, I was soon on the east side of central park and none of the roads that cut through the park have the height requirement the truck needs of 11 feet.   So I had to head all the way south and cut over at 56th Stree then head back north to 86th Street.   I grabbed Tara's phone and headed out to the other location.  Passing through a toll booth I was told I couldn't pay with a credit card and I didn't have enough cash so after the attendant decided it was more paperwork than he wanted to do he let me through.  Needless to say this U-Haul place was far out there, not where I really wanted to be.  But I was able to drop it off, pay my 3 bucks for the extra mileage and walk two blocks to the 6 train and head back to Manhattan.  I was extremely drained and sore that night and luckily Tara had some of her 1000mg ibuprofin from child birth to help me live.