cross-country trip finally over!
We did it. We successfully finished our cross-country move. We dropped off the truck this afternoon in my parents' town in NJ and then walked back to their house (it was only a couple blocks). The walk back felt so relieving: there was nothing we were attached to, no obligations or sources of stress. And it certainly was a lot of stress, especially on this final two-hour drive from New Haven to NJ. The closer we got to New York City, the more aggressive and awful the drivers were. If you put on your turn signal to switch lanes, the drivers in the neighboring lane took that as an incentive to speed up. Even trucks weren't letting me switch lanes. As a corollary to that, other drivers would merge aggressively (I'd even say, blindly) onto the highway because they knew otherwise they wouldn't get in. It made riding in the slow lane an unpleasant experience.
We packed up the rest of our stuff that was at my parents' and hopped in their old car to drive back. Christian was the first to drive it and he said it felt like he was maneuvering a tricycle. Then I took over driving and it felt so low that I was sure our butts were going to scrape along the asphalt. On hills, we felt like we were going to tumble backwards out of the car. We had simply gotten so used to the height and handling of the truck that riding in a car became a foreign sensation. It became weird in some more serious ways too: I had gotten used to not having a rear-view mirror in the center of the windshield, and I was used to looking at the bifocal mirrors on the truck to see in my blindspot. I had to consciously remind myself to turn around to check my blindspot while driving the car.
Bringing in the last of the furniture this morning was exhausting. My desk and credenza are so freaking heavy. It turns out the desk can't fit through the door into the study, so we've decided to leave it in the living room. I guess it works, but I liked the space in the study so much it's a shame to not be in there. We've hardly unpacked anything yet since it was effort enough just getting the layer of California yellow dust off everything. But it does finally look like our apartment is furnished, which is a comforting thought.
We packed up the rest of our stuff that was at my parents' and hopped in their old car to drive back. Christian was the first to drive it and he said it felt like he was maneuvering a tricycle. Then I took over driving and it felt so low that I was sure our butts were going to scrape along the asphalt. On hills, we felt like we were going to tumble backwards out of the car. We had simply gotten so used to the height and handling of the truck that riding in a car became a foreign sensation. It became weird in some more serious ways too: I had gotten used to not having a rear-view mirror in the center of the windshield, and I was used to looking at the bifocal mirrors on the truck to see in my blindspot. I had to consciously remind myself to turn around to check my blindspot while driving the car.
Bringing in the last of the furniture this morning was exhausting. My desk and credenza are so freaking heavy. It turns out the desk can't fit through the door into the study, so we've decided to leave it in the living room. I guess it works, but I liked the space in the study so much it's a shame to not be in there. We've hardly unpacked anything yet since it was effort enough just getting the layer of California yellow dust off everything. But it does finally look like our apartment is furnished, which is a comforting thought.