The Big Move - Part 1 (LGB to Provo)

Our escrow closed on July 16, 2008, and we received our funds on July 17. The 17th was also my last day at work. I will actually be on vacation for six weeks and my final official day as a Los Angeles Police Officer will be August 31.

Since we decided to sell our home and then wait until we had cash in hand before shopping for a new one, we decided the most efficient way to move was to rent PODs. These are containers that come in several sizes. You load them once, they take them and store them until you're ready - in this case after we select our new home - then they deliver them to your new location. We elected to rent two large ones that are 16 feet long and 8' tall by 8' wide. The first one arrived on Friday the 11th. When we ordered the PODs they asked us if we had room in our driveway for 16' PODs that are 8' wide which we did. What they failed to tell us was that nearly 12' of clearance is required width-wise due to the method of delivery.

The first delivery guy did a great job getting that POD into our driveway but we all agreed that the second one would have to go in the neighbor's driveway.






We had a lot of help from men in our ward loading the first POD. We did it in one hour on Saturday morning (July 12).

The second one came in on the following Monday. Owen and Alex Sanders helped me load heavy stuff on Wednesday. Kevin came from Phoenix and he and I finished it off on Friday morning (July 18).

In the meantime, Cathy was working fanatically packing boxes, boxes and more boxes and cleaning up after us big old sloppy men. Marga Sanders was also a huge help.

We got done at about one PM on Friday, jumped in the car and headed out. We weren't in time to avoid the weekend getaway traffic and we drove at a crawl all the way to Victorville. we were so tired by then that we stopped and spent the night there. In Victorville, I bought my new laptop computer.

On Saturday we hustled to Provo because my sister Beth was getting some folks together at her home to celebrate our retirement and our rare visit to Utah, Utah, Beautiful, Beautiful land."



That was yesterday. Today, Cathy and I and Jake and meredith who were here in Utah for a family event in Meredith's family, went to church with my mom. Then we had another farewell get together at Beth and Bruce's place. Beth has an amazing capability f feeding hordes of family members. Devin and Maddi had arrived with thei kids, Luke, Lauren and Jackson. It was great to see them too (Diana and Julie were als present with Julie's two cuties, Amber and Hannah and, of course, Craig, Andrea, Andrew, Stephanie, Elder Ryan Merrill soon to be a missionary in Columbia, SC and his friend, Emily). Tomorrow we head out on the next phase of our journey east. When I create my next blog entry, I'll flesh out this phase some more.