I Think I Died And Went To Hell

 There are trips you want to remember forever, and there are trips you want to forget.  This may be the FORGET kind.

I didn't mention that I had a great dinner sendoff from the Chance Chef Saturday night.  Chicken Alfredo Noodles were awesome!

I think it was about 6:00 that Mother Nature gave me a big sendoff also.  See that hummingbird feeder on the right?  The picture isn't crooked, that's the wind and rain that came through with a double rainbow.  I might have gotten a few more pictures, but in two seconds I was soaking wet.  

Moving right along, it's Sunday morning, and Dan and I will pick up the U-Haul truck at 6:30.  The time was my fault completely.  I just thought we should get an early start.  Have you ever rented a U-Haul truck on Sunday when they are closed?  

I had already given them all my information, along with a credit card.  What else did they need?  Well, turns out quite a lot, which I had to handle completely by cell phone while we sat in the truck for 45 minutes.  Drivers license pictures, names of other people to verify who you were, it went on and on.  Why didn't they do this verification process over the last three days.  Why wait until you are THERE!

At long last we were "approved", whereupon we had to find the truck.  Good grief ... there are 30 trucks on the lot.  Got it ... now what?  Find the box with the code lock in order to get the keys.  That took us another 15 minutes!!

The good news ... it has air conditioning and cruise control.  FINALLY ... we are parked at the house.  The help hadn't arrived yet, so Dan and I loaded all the boxes up front and Dan strapped them in.

YAY ... help arrived.  Talk about a small world, come to find out my realtor's son in law Chris is from my old home town of Merced.  That's pretty crazy.  He was an amazing amount of help, as was my realtor.  I think in 3 hours the truck was loaded to the gills.  It doesn't look like it here, but it's completely full.

Since Chris' wife is pregnant and they just bought a new house, I donated my bedroom furniture to them.  I didn't need it, don't have room for it, and was just going to donate it anyway.  It was a win-win!!

Exhausted from the heat, I loaded up my truck, only to find I couldn't see the hitch AT ALL, in order to hook up to my RV.  Chris helped me, but it took about four tries.  At last I was on the road, kids in tow.

Hard to see, but it quickly jumped up to 111 in my rear view mirror temperature gauge.  That lasted all the way to Gila Bend, where it took a sharp upturn.  I was thrilled that my little truck just hummed right along in spite of the ridiculous heat.

From Gila Bend to Quartzsite it went all the way up to 116, with a tiny drop to 115 when I hit the RV park in Quartzsite.  I think I died and went to hell ... that's how hot it is here.  I left the kids in the truck with the AC running while I turned on BOTH AC units in the rig.  It took 3 hours to get it down to 88.

The big unit in the bedroom sounds like a Mac truck going downhill with its Jake brake on, but at least it's working.  We are actually now down to 85 degrees while we sit on the bed, directly underneath.  The one in the other room still reads 91.  Not suitable for habitation.

I'm hoping it gets all the way down to 100 overnight so the AC units can cool us down a bit more.  Otherwise, there's going to be NO sleeping.  Playing however .... playing will happen no matter what.  I mistakenly parked this toy box by the bed, where we are currently stationed.

Someone found his favorite ball and had to dig holes in the bed in order to hide it.  Of course now he's even HOTTER than he was before.  I'm not comfortable, but at least I'm not sweating buckets.  

So here we sit ... that little yellow dot is Jonathan's head in his travel cage.  

The plan is to take my usual three days driving.  Dan the professional driver, will leave Tuesday morning and drive through.  I hopefully have help to unload us Wednesday morning, return the truck and have one days rest before running Dan to the airport for his flight home.  I'm praying it all works out.  So far so good.