The Great Budget Truck Adventure

Days till LA: 16

Oh.

My.

God.

Before I get ahead of myself, I should probably begin this story from the beginning. So, let's go back to Thursday evening, shall we?

I've driven from DC to Boston (and vice versa) more times than I can actually count, and several of those trips I've done all of the driving myself. My father is a die hard road trip fan, so my brother and I have spent countless hours carousing across the East Coast, and we're more than used to hauling ass and driving into the wee hours of the morning. I have no issue driving for half a day (and then some, often times), so it struck me as odd that the night before I was to drive home, I started tweaking out a little.

I think a part of it is that I knew I was finally leaving DC for good, and while I'm very happy to be moving on, I'm going to miss my friends incredibly, and for all the complaining that I do, I have some amazing memories of my time in the District.

I will miss you, homeless man that used to hide in the Cosi alcove on 15th Street

I went to bed around midnight on Thursday, since I wanted to be up around 9am the next morning to do one last check of everything, and make sure I cleaned all the floors/closets/sinks/etc so I wouldn't get a surprise bill in the mail from our leasing office. Unfortunately, I had already packed my tv AND ipod dock AND radio (and we all know I can't sleep in silence) so that, coupled with this random nervous thing, meant I didn't fall asleep until 3am or so. And then I woke up at 6am. It was delightful.

I flopped around in bed until 8:30 or so, when Erin came by to drop off her vacuum so I could suck up all the feathers that my down pillows like to spew out. I spent the next 2 hours obsessively checking all of my belongings, and scrubbing every surface imaginable with a Magic Eraser (which, by the way, really is magical.) At 11, the girls came to help me get my shit downstairs, and after an awkward call from Budget:

"Hi! We're not sure how you set up a pick up at the V Street location, because it's been closed for months! Awkward! Good thing we caught you, please go to the sketchy NE location and pick up your truck instead!"

I was on my way to pick up the truck! The Budget truck was a million times better than the UHaul, if only for the fact that there was no rotting fruit and army of fruit flies in the cab of this particular truck. Thank you, Budget, for having the sense to actually clean the truck before giving it to the next patron. I appreciate your initiative. Unfortunately they were out of 10 foot trucks, which meant I was hauling a 16 foot truck from DC all the way home. Which means I'm pretty fucking bad ass, when you think about it.

Nothing says "adventure!" like 16 feet of metal moving truck

While I had more crap than anticipated, it only took about an hour to bring it all downstairs AND pack it up, so I was ready to hit the road by about 1pm. After driving the girls back to E Street (which meant cramming people in the cab of the truck like a clown car) I was off!

I made surprisingly good time at first, considering it was a Friday afternoon. I was anticipating hitting major traffic once I got near Philadelphia, but I stopped a few times in Northern Jersey (more on that in a sec) and made it almost to New York City before I started hitting traffic and it started down pouring. Talk about delightful.

I stopped in one of the many lovely Turnpike rest stops, and made my first mistake in thinking I could park the truck in the car lot. Turns out, 16 feet of car does not fit into a standard spot. And since the genius' behind the rest stop designed it so that once you were in the car parking lot you couldn't get to the truck lot, I had to just keep on trucking (oh, the puns.) So I made it to the next stop, but forgot to get gas, so after eating a delicious chicken parm... meal from Sbarro, I stopped at the third station and put $75 into the truck. Turns out it costs almost $200 in gas to get from DC to Boston in that behemoth. Awesome.



And then there was New York.

Now, even on a good day, it takes awhile to get over the George Washington Bridge. It's always packed and always busy, so you have to factor in some time to get through the tunnel and over the bridge itself. However, I spent 2 hours in FRONT of the bridge - not on it, in FRONT of it. In the pouring rain, while every motherfucking 18-wheeler thought it was totally okay to cut across four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic because the EZ Pass only lane was on the far left hand side. Not like there weren't 10 MILLION SIGNS posting it for miles beforehand. There's nothing like the stone cold fear of having a semi dart across multiple lanes of traffic and nearly ram 20 cars in the meantime to keep you awake at the wheel.

After finally getting out of the city, I made fairly good time getting home, but with the rain and people being fucking stupid on the roads, I didn't get in until 2am. I drove for 13 HOURS. By the time I got home I was absolutely delirious, and had no voice left because I'd been singing and talking to myself in order to keep myself awake. And unfortunately, since I only had the radio for comfort, I kept singing the same goddamn 5 or so songs, seeing as every radio station apparently has a 5 song play list. If I hear Danity Kanes' Damage one more time, I might snap the first neck I see. I'm not kidding.

Once I got home, we unloaded the truck as quickly as possible, and then my mother and I had a couple pomegranate martinis to unwind. Needless to say, I was asleep probably 30 seconds after finishing my last martini. God, I love my mother.

This morning we set off to return the Budget truck, and after driving right past the drop off location (which was, embarrassingly, ONE HUGE FUCKING LOT LINED WITH BUDGET TRUCKS IN PLAIN SIGHT) and convincing ourselves it didn't exist, we finally located said drop off lot and then went to Bertucci's for pizza and wine. Alcohol is the best way to relax ever.

So yes, we arrived home at 1:30pm, after polishing off a bucket of rolls, a salad, an ENTIRE large pizza, and then a huge slice of 5 layer chocolate cake. And promptly both took naps. Then woke up at 4, puttered around, and then napped until 8. After putting my bed together, we congratulated ourselves on our "busy" day, and now we're lounging around in the living room, listening to the dog snore and growl in her sleep. Everything is a-okay in my world right now.