Pros & Cons...

Things that are good or have gone according to plan so far--

--We picked up a truck, loaded it with way more of our stuff than we thought would fit, and left Lompoc on Friday.
--We cleaned & vacated our house on time, and received our full deposit back.
--Our friends sent us with way too many luscious brownies. Yum. Eating another brownie helps alleviate the carb crash from the previous one.
--I drove the first leg of the trip, because I'm an awesome truck driver.
--The truck has fairly comfy seats and in general doesn't make my butt hurt (except until the very end which is pretty much unavoidable on road trips, regardless of the vehicle).
--The Cat Daddy and His Highness made it to Las Vegas Friday night.
--We all made it to Park City UT by tonight.
--We are staying across the street from the ski jumps used in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
--Park City Pizza Company is AWESOME. Get the Greek pizza.
--We are still on pace to arrive in Cheyenne tomorrow and close on the house Tuesday. Yee-haw.

Everything else--

--While it is the correct size and is running fine, the truck has a few little quirks. The biggest defect is the lack of cruise control.
--Due to a misunderstanding, the few belongings we sent with the moving company were picked up at 2pm instead of 8:30 am like we originally thought.
--As a result of the above, we left Lompoc at 3 pm instead of 11 am.
--As a result of the above, we hit Friday afternoon/evening traffic in both Santa Barbara and greater LA.
--Then, 20 minutes outside of Barstow, the truck dinged at me and a little dummy light came on. It was not dumb enough because I had to decipher what it meant. It meant that I was low on coolant. So I called UHaul to see if it was safe to keep driving or if they needed to come rescue me. I was transferred 3 times in succession, each time by someone who claimed they were sending me to a service expert.
--When I finally reached the "service expert," he didn't seem to have much expertise. But I finally deduced that I was fine to drive to Barstow so I could put some water in the thing.
--After getting to Barstow, determining that there was no place to add water without waiting for the whole dang front end to cool off, Zoe and I chucked the effort for the night and stayed at the simple yet lovely California Inn.
--Upon opening the front end to add water before catching up to the guys in Vegas, I found that there is plenty of coolant. More than plenty, in fact.
--Stupid dummy light.
--UHaul called the Cat Daddy to tell him that they gave him the wrong truck. Right size, wrong truck.


Par for the course, A-OK...


UPDATE: To Anonymous who wrote "PENSKE! PENSKE! PENSKE!"--you are so right. We went with UHaul this time because in this instance it was WAY cheaper. By like a thousand bucks. We tried to get Penske to match the price, or at least come a little closer, but they couldn't. And it's not like this time has been catastrophic...but when a big yellow Penske and I pass on the highway, I must admit I feel a little wistful.

And in case you think I've got some sort of anti-UHaul bias...the Cat Daddy worked for UHaul in college. So maybe I do. But maybe rightly so...