It was about 6:30 pm. The Pod was loaded and gone.
The house was (mostly) clean. (Our friend, Sarah, had graciously offered to come back and finish the final few things)
The van was loaded, with all the children safely ensconced in their car seats.
We waved goodbye to Sarah and Ezra.
And our car wouldn’t start. We were off to an inauspicious start….. (It was a dead battery)
Also, it was raining. Not your typical gentle Seattle mist. It was full-blown rain.
The only neighbors who were around were our next door neighbors, Mike and Michelle. But, they only have electrical cars…. So, unfortunately, we couldn’t just directly link our car to theirs. But, Mike had some fancy gadgets that we could try. But, after fiddling with it for about half an hour, it became apparent that it wasn’t going to work.
So we called USAA. And we brought all the kids in the house. And we ordered pizza so that everyone would at least be fed once we got on the road.
On the positive side, while we waited for USAA and the pizza, we were able to finish cleaning the house. So that was a positive spin on things.
Once we had eaten, and the car was jumped, we hopped back in the car and we were on our way.
As we were driving down the road toward the freeway, the back of the van was riding so low that we scraped the hitch rack on every single speed bump and high patch of ground that we encountered
So, we pulled over to the side of the road to take stock of things. In the rain. And I cried. Because I was so completely worn out and I wasn’t sure I could take any more.
It was pretty apparent that we would not make it to California in our current state, let alone across the country.
So, we returned to the house, and unloaded everything. And we ditched a bunch of stuff: homeschooling materials (extra books and such), some clothes, food, etc.
And we left the hitch rack. Because it is freaking heavy of its own accord.
We finally reloaded the car, taking care to distribute some of the weight more toward the front and the middle of the car, and got on the road around 10:30, 4 hours later than we had planned.
We drove for a few hours and then stopped for the night in Portland.
What a day. Let the nomading begin!
