On The Road Again

As I was driving home from work today I happened to catch the tail-end of the old Willie Nelson song, “On the Road Again”, and it got me to thinking that my husband will be graduating from the Carnegie Mellon University MBA program in about seven months. At that time there is a good chance that we will be moving to a new city depending upon when and where he obtains employment. While the possibility of being “on the road again” and moving to a new city will most likely be an exciting adventure, I can only hope that this moving experience will be better than my last.

FLASHBACK

We had found such a great bargain! $550 to rent an 18-foot U-Haul truck for eight days. It was wide enough to fit my standup piano that we would be bringing with us on the 3,000 mile trek across the United States. We sold both of our cars and had fit all of our possessions (which did not consist of much) into the moving truck. Our journey from Boise, Idaho to Pittsburgh, PA was going to be a four-day adventure. I knew very little about Pittsburgh beyond the fact that the city was known for being the “Steel Capital” and that the Steelers NFL football team had a reputation for being exceptional and tough. So off I went on my journey leaving my family and friends temporarily behind in hopes of a better and brighter future.

The first day of the trip was a beautiful drive through Wyoming. The landscape was gorgeous, and at one point we saw two moose standing on the side of the interstate! If only I had known what lied ahead.

As day turned to night we began to grow weary from the long hours of driving (we had driven nearly 1,000 miles the first day) and decided to find a place to stop for the night. Now it was 2:00AM and we quickly discovered that every hotel for the next 75 miles was booked. Tired, grumpy, and exhausted we decided to drive around in hopes of somehow stumbling upon some resting location. After driving through some random small town so small it did not even have a gas station we saw it! A huge red blinking sign – “MOTEL”. It was the glimmer of hope that we needed. As we pulled-up we suddenly realized we were staring straight into the quintessential scary movie scene! As we got closer we couldn’t believe what we were seeing - the motel’s name was “The Generic Motel.”

We were lucky; we had gotten the very last room available – for only $30! After receiving a Skeleton Key that looked like it was pulled straight from the 1800’s we gathered our traveling bags and headed to our room. As we opened the door, we quickly found why it was the last room available. A gust of heat smacked our faces as we realized the air conditioning was broken. We set down our bags, turned around to lock the door and realized the lock had been ripped off the inside of the door! It was 2:30am, in the middle of who knows where, with no locks. Exhaustion must have got the best of us because we decided to stay, but we pushed a table and chair in front of the door to stop the possibility of anyone entering.

To ensure that we did not encounter the same situation the next night we decided to call ahead and reserve a room. We tried to pinpoint where we would be stopping that night, but ultimately were not able to agree. He wanted to stop and see the football stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. I wanted to get in as many miles as possible. I somehow let my fiancé talk me out of calling ahead to reserve a hotel. I decided to listen to his advice that “we will surely be able to find somewhere to stay tonight – the same bad experience could not happen to us twice.” After traveling another 800 miles (we compromised as saw the stadium but did not stay too long) we were again, cranky, tired and looking for a good night’s sleep. The next’s night disaster was just beginning. Again, it was near 1:00AM when we started looking for a hotel room. We were near Chicago, and unfortunately, there must have been a huge convention going on, because we went from exit to exit could not find a single hotel that had a vacant room! I couldn’t believe it. There was no way we could have had such bad luck. There was a small convoy of four other families who were looking for a room too. We would all stop at each exit, find there were no hotel rooms, and head for the next. Finally! We found a La Quinta hotel that had a vacant room! The only catch was that they wanted $380 for the rooms they had available. Sheridan being the math guru that he is decided that $40/hour for the nine hours we would have been there was ridiculous. It was 3AM; we were grouchy, tired, and frustrated. Somehow I let him convince me that we would sleep in the back of the rented Uhaul truck with alongside of our belongings.

Reluctantly, we opened the liftgate and crawled got into the back of the box truck next to all of our belongings. We made a crawlspace area that we would sleep in near the door because our belonging took up all of the other room. We pulled some towels from one of the boxes to use as our make-shift mattress. We kept the back door partially open so we could get some fresh air throughout the night. I think my fiancé began to regret his decision to sleep in the truck about 2 hours later when it started pouring. And, I don’t mean a few drops here and there, I mean really pouring. It was raining so hard it hurt your hand when you stuck it out the window. He was sleeping closest to the rear gate that was slightly cracked open for air. As the night continued he described it as “Chinese Torture” because the rain would hit the floor of the truck and bounce onto his face.

We made it through the night, and after a lot of laughs, decided that we were going to stay in a hotel the next night regardless of price! We realized our problem was that we were waiting too late to find a room. The next day we called it a night around 7pm and were able to find a room for a reasonable price. Over the 4-day trip, we traveled over many miles of cornfields, drove through 2 huge windstorms, and spent over 40 hours driving and discussing what was ahead for our future. We eventually made it to Pittsburgh, signed the lease on our $500/month Craigslist apartment, and braced ourselves for the challenges that were ahead.

Willie Nelson’s famous lyrics made me smile when I started to remember the details of that crazy trip nearly two years ago. I realized that regardless of how horrible a moving experience or a life experience can be, if you are with the people you love most somehow or someway everything will work itself out. I have found that life’s greatest pleasure consists of spending quality time with the people you love. I don’t remember what restaurants we ate at on the trip, or how much money we spent. But, I do remember the conversations of where our future was heading and what goals we wanted to achieve over the next two years. “The life I love is making music with my friends”.