Head East on I-80

The morning of the move we did our quick photo and picked up my parents bright and early at the airport.  While Dan supervised the loading of the truck, Jaime had a little time to meet his Grandma and Grandpa V (my dad alternated between being the truck monitor and baby whisperer) and I finished throwing the odds and ends in boxes and wiped down the kitchen.  Next thing we knew we were headed east on I-80.

It is a long drive from Chicago to edge of NJ with a baby that is just under two weeks old.  According to my doctor I wasn't supposed to drive... I did drive for the first couple of hours to get us out of the city and I missed a turn in Indiana adding some time to our first day of driving.  Jaime did great for the first half of each day and by the second half wanted us to know that he really was sick of being in a car seat.  Poor little guy. Thank goodness for my parents being there to keep me sane... we swapped stories and I was able to nap a little bit and they reassured me that Jaime's fussing was mild (not sure I believe that - they were probably just being nice).  But the little one did do a pretty good job of amusing himself and napping for a majority of the drive.

Poor Dan had the job of driving the moving truck.  He received offers for a copilot but ended up doing the drive solo with only his trusty plant as a sidekick.  That plant started out in the office of his first job after college and left with him when he quit - sticking out of a backpack as he zipped up the highway on his motorcycle.   He caught up with us in Ohio thanks to me missing the last vear for 80 (he finished wrapping things up in Chicago so had a later start) and we coordinated stops so that he could have a little human interaction and time with Jaime. 

We stopped somewhere in Pennsylvania for the night.  We were all exhausted - my parents had been up since extremely early for the flight and we didn't get much sleep the night before as we had last minute packing to take care of... the hotel was a total dump.  But we all crashed anyways.

The second day was just as long as the first.  We had some crummy weather and just a lot of highway miles.  The scenery was notably different as we had left the midwest behind the previous day.  But it was not without good moments too.  After following Dan for some time my dad decided that he was going to pick up Dan's driving mannerisms and scared the crap out of my mom... that was pretty funny.

My parents and I were following Dan who was driving the moving truck and right as we hit the important navigating time point his GPS failed.  We thought maybe he was going a different route so we all drove right past the easy route to our temporary apt.  Next thing we knew navigating was handed off to the three of us in Jeep and we did our best but missed a few turns as the turn lanes are totally set up different here and separated out much further in advance and so we freaked Dan out with how close we got to heading into Manhattan.  But eventually we made it.  To find that the movers weren't there yet even though we were late.

And then we found out that the electricity was turned off.  Apparently the person that set up Dan's account did something wrong in the new account set up so they just shut it off.  It was in the upper 90's and all of us were so tired from a full day of driving.  As a new mama bear I was freaking out about having an infant in that hota$$ apartment.  The power company said they would have it on by midnight. 

In the morning I woke up with my butt on the ground... our inflatable mattress had started to deflate.  And there was no energy yet so no AC and a freezing shower to start the day.  The power company said they would have it on by 10am.  We had breakfast and took my parents to the airport.  We took the scenic route to the airport through the most depressed neighborhoods.

At noon still no power.  I took Jaime to the lounge area by the elevators and he napped while I read.  Dan sat with the door propped open in our dark, hot apartment and tried to start finding the most important boxes and threw out everything he had in the fridge and freezer. 

It was 3:30 before we had power.  We were all pretty much at our breaking point by then and it was quite the welcome to New Jersey.

But we were all together.  I was grateful to no longer be living in two different regions of the country and to get started on the east coast family adventures.