The moving van got there just after 7am, we were as ready as we were going to be. We went through the house with the driver, he had 4 or 5 guys with him, I think 4 but they were everywhere which made it was tough to keep track.  The driver said he had enough room for everything in the house, and I said what about the storage unit, a single car garage sized unit full of our shit. Needles to say, it didn't all fit, about a 3rd of the storage unit stayed behind waiting for another truck.

What a Fu#@&%*&^ mess!

We tried to make it to Barstow California the first day but night came quicker than we expected and Mojave was the town we stopped in for the night.  We found this very nice hotel just at the edge of town, it's a good thing too cause we went into town to see if there were more hotels or motels and found what looked to be a bad side of town, the problem is that it was the only side of town.  At least this place was nice.

The view from the back of the hotel was of an airport and a hillside of Windmills.

We took the dogs for a walk back there, it was nice and deserty.

I guess the wind gets quite heavy at times here too!

Back on the road, especially in the more desert looking areas, the drive was soooo boring.  Several times I felt that if I could just close my eyes for a few seconds, of course I never did.  Then there were the times when your mind drifted and the road seemed to head into the sky, then you wake up

The entire trip was a little over 1,700 miles, most of which was like this!

Heading into New Mexico, we encountered some thunder storms.  They were heavy with rain, then dissipated as quickly as they came up.  You know you are in New Mexico when the ground starts to come up.  One thing about the west side of New Mexico is the interesting mountain formations, and the Indian TP's.

The second night on the road we stopped at a very clean La Quinta Inn in Albuquerque New Mexico, it was right next to I-40 so it was easy on and off the freeway and it had a nice area in the back for the dogs to get some exercise.

Things could be worse!

We could be stuck in Lodi

About 19 miles from the La Quinta Inn Marisa hit something in the road, it was a tie-down strap with a large hook on it, I passed over it but my truck is high off of the ground and her car is not.  She mentioned to me that it hit hard and I said I was concerned about her gas tank, right at that minute she said she smelled gas, we pulled over.  The hook had damaged the fuel line but we didn't find that out until the Fire Department came and secured the fuel leak.  That had to happen before they would trailer the car.

Where the Hell are we?   -   Albuquerque State Police radioed to the local Fire Department

Giving them the location of our car and truck we were somewhere along I-40 just outside Albuquerque,

New Mexico

It turned out that we were about 40 miles from the nearest BMW Dealer, and we were about 8 miles from the nearest off ramp where we could turn around and head back to the BMW Dealer.  We are thankful we bought a BMW because the tow and loaner car cost us nothing.  AAA hang up on me twice, and if I had gotten in touch with them, they only give us 5 miles before they start charging by the mile, for 35 miles?

You have to think it could have been worse.  No one was hurt, we got the car fixed, and it only cost us 1

and a half days more on the road, and an extra day of vacation time for me.

We spent a couple more days at another La Quinta Inn, one that allowed the Dogs to come in the room because it was a hot couple of days.  The car repairs cost about $280 and the room for 2 nights was a little over $110 and it had "High Speed Wireless Internet".  Se we took it easy and enjoyed our stay in the fast growing town of Albuquerque.

The State Policeman who finally located us on the highway so he could tell the Fire Department where we

were had told us we should move to Albuquerque, because land was cheep.  I didn't say anything but

I thought to myself "desert land should be cheep".

We were lucky the BMW dealer wasn't as busy as the one in Roseville, or we would have been there a week or more.  They were really fantastic about getting us in for the repairs, and the cost came in over a $1,000 less than quoted because they didn't have to remove the fuel tank like they originally thought.  The tie-down damaged the fuel line near the fuel tank, and it turned out we didn't lose that much fuel either.  We left Albuquerque that morning and made it into Southlake Texas that evening just after dark.  We were very tired, and I needed to get to work, I already missed more time that I expected.  Now starts a new journey, one that includes finding a home, Marisa had to find a new job because she had to quit her job at Agilent in order to move.  She needed to leave that job anyway, it is one of those companies that promise you advancement, praise your abilities, then keep you in the position because of the great job you are doing. 

She is interested in the Police Department, that is the direction she will follow...

Everything we own, (almost) was packed into 2 garage sized storage containers.  We got a free month on the units, and we almost had to pay a 3rd month, but because we only missed the deadline by a few hours, the managers decided to close out our units early, even though we were still in there moving our stuff out.  We moved from California into a storage unit, then from the storage unit to Keller Texas, Home at last!