On the Road- The Story of Our Cross-Country Move

I will save the packing and loading story for another day, but for now just a comment or two. The packing and loading of the truck(s) was definitely chaotic, but there were a number of big unknowns in the equation. The biggest unknown was how much stuff we actually had, which is directly linked to how much trucking we needed. We thought we were playing it safe by ordering the largest truck Penske has – 26’ (half of a semi-trailer). It proved to be about 12 feet too short! Why the unknown? After all, we knew we had a full, 1900 sf house. But what we didn’t take into account was the fully-packed basement, attic, 2-car garage, back porch, and lawn furniture. That likely doubled the square-footage to the high 3000s. Oops. One thing I will say is that our new house swallowed up all that stuff, so much so that we likely have a false sense of the extent to which we are moved in, two weeks post-move. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Tuesday was the packing and loading day, Wednesday was the cleaning and getting-on-the-road day. By 7 PM on Wednesday, we were ready to pull away. Jeff and Andrew took command of the 26’ Penske, which had grown by a car trailer earlier in the day. The Vibe was happily perched on the car trailer, fully-stuffed with all the last-minute possessions. Strapped onto the back of the Vibe were our two bikes – what a sight! I positioned myself in the Torrent which was now attached to the largest tow-trailer that U-Haul rents. The trailer was fully-loaded and cleared the ground by barely a foot. I had never towed anything before and was suspicious of the seemingly simple and wimpy connections between my baby SUV and its new mate. We were also likely violating our lease agreement by towing 3500 pounds! How would the Torrent handle towing nearly two tons of belongings over 1100 miles through some pretty hilly (and high-speed) terrain? The hot dogs were tucked away in their kennel right behind the driver’s seat of the Torrent. The Torrent and the Penske, along with their respective tow-mates made up a 70-foot long caravan! Truthfully, I didn’t think we would make it. Read on to see if I was right...

Just getting the Torrent and the Penske lined-up together was our first-challenge. To get them facing the same direction, I had to drive around the block, making insanely wide turns – ten minutes and we hadn’t even gotten past our old driveway! Ready-to-go, we pulled away and turned left onto Lake Ave (this took a few minutes to find the right break in traffic – how on Earth were we going to make 1100 miles in decent time?). Two blocks down, another left on Ridgeway Ave and a straight shot to I-390. I had never before realized how bumpy Ridgeway is. And the railroad tracks leading to Kodak Park – holy crap. We took them at 2 mph and had cars lined up 30-deep behind us. We made it to I-390 and had our first test of “high-speed” driving with all of my worldly possessions literally on my back. We did 45 mph all the way to the I-490 interchange and on to the Leroy entrance to the Thruway. We had passed the North Chili exit on I-490, where I had gotten off so many hundreds of times to visit my mother, passed the Attridge Road overpass where my grandmother and half of my extended family has its origins, and when we passed the Sheridan Road overpass just before Bergen, I called Jeff behind me on his cell phone and we reminisced about the old farmhouse we called home for two years seemingly a million years ago. I apologize upfront for sounding overly sentimental or dramatic about these things, but you have to understand that I was very much aware that I was saying goodbye to Rochester as a home. I had passed by all these exits and roads hundreds of times, but never with everything I owned with me. I felt a little twinge of guilt to be passing by these significant memories that flashed by on the side of the highway – like I was abandoning my roots. The sheer physical Hell of the previous couple of days had started to give way to an emotional rawness that I didn’t have the energy to deal with.

Luckily, the entrance to the Thruway presented a new challenge. I passed through the toll booth and my EZ-Pass registered. The clerks added two more axels to the charge automatically. Jeff simply picked up a ticket, but as he rolled the Vibe (which was on the car trailer) through the toll booth, that also registered – double-charged, baby! Gotta’ love New York State. (Incidentally, the only tolls we paid the whole 1150 mile trip were in NYS). The caravan headed toward Buffalo at 45 mph. About halfway, near Batavia, we felt comfortable enough to edge the caravan up to 50 mph. We stopped at a rest area to check on the trailer connections – they were solid! As we were passing through Buffalo (an “All America City”), I called the Kasprzyks. This is also something I’ve done hundreds of times, but I’ve never actually brought my house to Buffalo! They wished us luck and we cruised through Buffalo on I-90, then on to Erie, PA. We made Erie by 11 PM. Then on towards Cleveland and I-71.

Along the way, we kept in contact with my buddy Craig who lives in Columbus, only 2 miles from the Interstate that we’d be driving on. The plan was to arrive at his place by 2 AM and spend a short night there. By 2 AM, we were halfway between Cleveland and Columbus and stopped at a trucker’s fueling station. Jeff pulled the Penske into a diesel fueling bay and then the fun started (this was the first fueling of the Penske in nearly 400 miles – and it still had a quarter-tank left!). The directions on how to operate the diesel pumps, or even how to pay were largely absent – an enormous and gruff trucker in the next bay told us to slide our credit card in one pump (the one on the driver’s side) and that we’d be able to pump diesel from the other side (the pump on the passenger side). You can imagine how skeptical I was, especially considering we were making a relatively large purchase of fuel – 50 gallons at $3 per). Well, it worked. The other strange thing about the fuel tank on the Penske is that you have to fill the last 10 gallons visually, and with the nozzle sticking almost 90 percent out of the opening. This wouldn’t be such a nerve-shaking task if the fuel didn’t come out so fast – we estimated the fuel pumped at least 5 times as fast as normal gas pumps! Don’t believe me? It filled the 50-gallon tank in under two minutes!

Back on the road, did I mention the construction? About one-third of our route through PA and OH had various construction projects underway. Several times, the highway lanes force-merged into the oncoming lanes and gave us only inches of shoulder! My knuckles ached from gripping the steering wheel so tightly! Finally, we were making the loop on I-271 around Columbus. I woke poor Craig up after 3:30 AM and asked him for more specific directions to his house. We arrived at 4 AM, parked the caravan, moved the dogs and the bikes into Craig’s garage, and proceeded to pass out.

Adrenaline is a beautiful thing and I was up and wide-eyed at 8 AM. Heidi (Craig’s wife) made us a fabulous omelet and sausage breakfast and packed us care packages for the road. By 11 AM, we were back on I-271 and heading toward Cincinnati. By now, we were getting comfortable with the driving and pushed the caravan up to 60 mph. The biggest thing that hits you south of Columbus is how flat the terrain is – just plain (pardon the pun) shocking when you’re used to even gently rolling hills in your neck of the woods. We were in Cincinnati just in-time for lunch-time traffic. We decided to stay on I-71 and shoot straight through downtown Cincinnati (since the outer loop looked to add 15-20 miles to our trip) and connect up with I-75. Just as we were getting into downtown on the highway (traffic was moving at a good clip), we rounded a bend and encountered stopped traffic at the I-75 interchange. This was the first time the caravan had to slam on its brakes and we just barely made it. The U-Haul trailer behind me creaked and banged loudly. Jeff and Andrew were right on my tail.

Traffic through Cincinnati was terrifying, but only because it was so hilly and every lane change had to be planned far in advance. After a quick lunch at a rest stop, we pushed on into Kentucky all the way to Lexington. We got off I-75 in Lexington to refuel and made a series of unfortunate turns which resulted in several unfortunate U-turns. We tried to fuel the Penske at no less than three separate gas stations, but had significant trouble finding one with enough of a loop to turn the Penske through - keep in mind the Penske was nearly 50 feet long with the car trailer! We spent about 90 minutes maneuvering the Penske through the various stations. I couldn’t figure out why the diesel pumps were so awkwardly placed in the tightest places. Thank goodness Jeff had some experience with backing up a trailer, because I tried and it wasn’t happening. Can you imagine spending nearly two hours just fueling up?

Immediately after Lexington, I-75 starts going through beautiful rolling hills and then some serious mountainous terrain. It was approaching 5 PM and I saw a sign for a Cracker Barrel up ahead. I put on my turn signal and got off at the exit and to my dismay, Jeff (who was right behind me) kept going! I managed to hand signal to Andrew as they flew past to pull over. They later told me they thought I was telling them to go on ahead. Also note that by this time, Jeff’s cell phone was out of juice and there was sawdust lodged into the recharging port, effectively eliminating this crucial communication link. I immediately went straight from the off-ramp to the on-ramp and headed back down I-75 a few miles, incredulous that I hadn’t found them pulled over waiting for me. Then I thought that perhaps they had gotten off at the next exit and doubled-back. I punched the Torrent up to 65 mph and made it to the next exit and doubled-back myself – no sign of them (they would have been relatively easy to spot – the Penske trucks are bright yellow)!

Then I thought maybe they pulled over farther down I-75 so I got back on... 10 miles, 20 miles, 40 miles... where are they? I was practically in tears of frustration (only Angel and my dad, who I called during all this know my real reaction to this fiasco). Next thing I knew (don’t all stories have this phrase at some point?), the hot dogs and I were being welcomed to Tennessee. I pulled into the welcome center and walked the dogs. I also left a voicemail on Jeff’s phone telling him where I was in case he decided to pull over and use a payphone to check his messages (remember, his phone was dead). The hot dogs and I sat for a half-hour in a grassy area off of I-75 surrounded by the very beautiful mountains of Tennessee hoping that Jeff and Andrew would come rolling by. Finally, the phone rang – it was Jeff! He was 30 miles ahead of me just north of Knoxville. And it gets better – he wasn’t sure which exit he got off at, and the car trailer attached to the Penske had blown two tires!! The hot dogs and I jumped in the Torrent and roared off (well, slowly accelerated and nudged up to 58 mph through the mountains) and managed to find Jeff, Andrew, and the hapless Penske in a Waffle House parking lot. Jeff was freaking out, all gloom-and-doom, and I called Penske’s hotline – within an hour a tow truck came and swapped out the two tires, wheels and all. The repair guy was really friendly, but had very few teeth and dark-reddish brown drip stains all around his mouth (which I later decided must have been from chewing tobacco). Welcome to Tennessee!

We cruised through the rest of Tennessee (which seemed to last forever, and it was since we were going westward for a significant portion of it) and had another fiasco about 9 PM just north of Chattanooga. We fueled the Penske and the Torrent again, no problem, but the entrance back to I-75 South was poorly marked. We ended up on I-75 North for about 10 miles before I realized the signs looked familiar (it was pitch black by this point). This was going to be the first time I needed to make an abrupt route change (basically a U-turn) since losing Jeff earlier in the day in Kentucky. Would he see that I was getting off? The traffic was pretty heavy and I wasn’t sure if he was right behind me. I put on my emergency flashers, slowed the Torrent way down and flashed my lights as I exited I-75 at the next exit. Through my side-view mirrors (the only mirrors I had since the trailer blocked the rear-view) I saw Jeff behind me... phew! Keep in mind that when I say I “saw” Jeff behind me in the darkness, what that really means is I saw a pattern of little yellow lights in my side-view mirror that matched the configuration of the Penske. We got to the top of the off-ramp, turned left into a nearly pitch-black, unmarked bridge with construction cones, and drove right by the on-ramp back to I-75 (which wasn’t marked at all and could not be made out in the dark). No big deal, right? Just back up or do a K-turn... Not with a 50-foot truck or a trailer-pulling SUV (when you don’t know how to back it up and wouldn’t dare on a narrow forested road in the pitch-black of Tennessee mountain-night!). We drove up the narrow road for 3 or 4 miles until we came to an intersection that allowed up enough room to turn the caravan around. This took about 20 minutes as any wrong move would put the Penske in the ditch. As we drove back to the I-75 South on-ramp, we nearly missed it again!

An hour or so later, we crossed into Georgia! I couldn’t believe it. But we were drained and I was seeing double. On top of this, the midnight traffic 100 miles north of Atlanta was terrifying – all six lanes of it!

We drove another hour and contemplated spending the night in a motel. The only problem was, it was now 1 AM and I was supposed to pick Angel and Danny up at the Atlanta airport at 10 AM! You might think – perfect! Just stay overnight near Atlanta and pick them up at the airport on the way down to Macon. Even if there was room in the Torrent for Angel and a car seat, the thought of navigating the ATL arrivals cue with the Penske and the Torrent was daunting (assuming they’d even let these trucks anywhere near the terminal). We got off at a Waffle House and ate breakfast – Andrew slept in the Penske cab. We had a few cups of coffee, some locals had put John Wayne music on (horrendous and terrifying in a “Pulp Fiction” kind of way at 2 AM in the middle of nowhere) and were ready to push on for three more hours. Signs just before Atlanta directed all thru-traffic trucks to the outer loop (none allowed on I-75 through downtown Atlanta – and there were cop cars everywhere so we obeyed). We took I-285 West on a long loop around Atlanta and found I-75 again. Less than an hour to Macon – I was starting to feel like we were going to make it! The last 60 miles ticked by agonizingly slow but the signs for I-475 came soon enough. The Torrent was on fumes, but I knew a stopover for gas would add another 30+ minutes to our night. It was nearly 4 AM when we arrived at the motel off of I-475 in Macon. We made it! Despite utter exhaustion, we walked the hot dogs, unloaded the Torrent enough to get Angel and a car seat in, and took the bikes into the motel room. We also had to figure out how to unhitch the U-Haul trailer from the Torrent.

By 5 AM, the sun was threatening to come up and I pulled the drapes shut in our motel room. Jeff and Andrew were fast asleep and I put the cell phone near my pillow, waiting for Angel’s call before she boarded the plane in Rochester. Her call woke me up after only a couple hours of sleep and adrenaline pushed me into the driver’s seat of the now-liberated Torrent and back onto I-475. The V6 engine never felt so fast and smooth – it was literally the best 70 mile drive of my life. The early-morning temperature and fast-moving traffic put a smile on my face as I punched up I-75 back towards ATL at nearly 80 mph (the speed minimum it would seem). I pulled into the parking garage at ATL less than an hour after I left the motel in Macon. I had an hour to kill and sat down near the arrivals cue, waiting for Angel and Danny, happy and relieved that we had made it to Georgia in one piece! After watching hundreds of people reunite at the arrival cue, I finally saw Angel and Danny come through. I had bought a peach-pink single rose for Angel and she handed me Danny – my little Georgia peach. He was happy and smiling after two hours of flirting with other passengers on the plane. Our family was now in Georgia!