Mission Haul-It-Back-East - Day One

Whew. Day one of the moving journey is complete! And it was about as successful as I could have hoped for - (almost) everything went off without a hitch.

First, we made my fabulous Santa Monica apartment look like this:

It was so strange to see it all bare and empty, just like when I toured it and fell in love with it a little over a year ago. Did maybe one little tear well up in my eye when I saw that? Um...no comment.

At least my awesome built-in desk was finally empty so that I could do my model pose on it, like I've been wanting to do all year...but it's always way too full of crap.

We loaded up all of my earthly possessions into this guy:

(Okay, that's a lie. I paid 2 dudes to put all my stuff in this truck. Hired labor is where...it's...at. I don't lift boxes and furniture. I could. But I choose not to. Period.)

And once everything was finally loaded up in the truck, I could relax...a little bit anyway. Just long enough to shoot this new ad for Budget truck rentals:

Then it was time to turn in my keys and hit the road! Starting on the west coast meant that a lot of today looked like this:

Annnnnnnnd this:

What? Who drives a 16' rental truck like it ain't no thang? This girl. It's just like riding a bike! Or maybe it's just that I move too much, and driving moving trucks is becoming too much of a habit?

Key stats from day one of the journey:

* Miles driven - 494.7

* Miles left in journey - approximately 1655

* City my Amex card first got flagged in for identity verification - Flagstaff, AZ (flagged in Flagstaff??)

* Number of radio stations we picked up in middle-of-nowhere Arizona - ONE (and it was only broadcasting a baseball game...of two teams we've never heard of)

* Number of curbs taken out while I was driving - ZERO! (if you'll remember, that's way better than day one of last year's moving journey)

* Number of trees that I scraped the truck roof on - 3 (darn it)

* Money spent on gas - about $215 (oh, how I wish I was exaggerating that number)

* Number of moths that randomly flew out from under the truck seats while I was driving - one (scared the crud out of me...I almost ran off the road I freaked out so bad...not good)

* Number of other drivers I cussed at for cutting me off - I lost count somewhere around 18

* Favorite moment of day one? This conversation:

Me - "Wait, wait...what state are we in right now?"

Mom - "I'm not entirely sure."

Me - "New Mexico?"

Mom - "Maybe. Or maybe Arizona?"

Me - "Which comes first from the west? New Mexico or Arizona?"

Mom - "Arizona, I think. But I'm really not sure."

Me - "Me either. I guess we don't really NEED to know what state we're in right now, right?"

Maybe tomorrow Mama and I can spend some portion of our 10-11 hours in the truck practicing our geography skills? Oy vey.