After driving for eight continuous days, it felt strange yesterday not to wake up, pack up the room and the dogs, and hit the road. Rather, we slept in, had breakfast, and chilled out. I also took a break from blogging. The dogs continued to get to know Daisy May the husky.
We celebrated the New Year last night with Tracy and her family. We drank wine, ate heartily, played games, and toasted 2004 as the bubbly flowed. It occurred to me sometime during the night that Jen and I were celebrating our sixth consecutive New Year together. How time flies when you’re having fun. Life is good but no doubt short.
Today was the big day in Saratoga Springs. We drove north around lunchtime to meet with our landlord and sign the lease. It was Jen’s first time seeing the apartment, and her first time back to Saratoga in about ten years. It was an exciting, nervous feeling driving into town, knowing we would soon call it home. We spent some time circling the new apartment as a dog sniffs out a new territory. It always takes some time to get to know a place before it feels like home. We set up a new coffee table (made by my mother-in-law in the 1960s), unpacked our books, and bought some cleaning supplies and a new bed for Stella Brie. We enjoyed lunch at the local coffee bar, Uncommon Grounds, all the while taking in our new environs. We visited picturesque Saratoga Lake, frozen in the winter for activities like ice skating, hockey, and ice fishing, and a summer destination for sports like boating, swimming, and my personal favorite, jet skiing.
In more anti-moving company sentiment, it occurred to me today that by urging me to send our books via media mail (which we did) to supposedly “save money” since, he claimed, it would be less to ship “heavy things like books” via Post Office instead of moving company, the estimator from All Points Moving Systems/North American actually tricked us, making more room on the moving truck and, in effect, more money for the moving company. Though hard to believe, our stuff weighed in at quite a bit more than estimated, so it wouldn’t have mattered if we had included the books since there was a not-to-exceed price. In reality, it ended up costing us $100 extra out of pocket to ship the books U.S. mail. The estimator has not heard the last from me, nor has the company. An angry letter will follow.
Please boycott North American Van Lines and, in particular, All Points Moving Systems in Vallejo, California.
California friends: We miss you already.
East Coast friends: We’re looking forward to hanging out with you.
Happy New Year 2004!
