Today is Thursday, June 17.   DJ and I arrived here late Saturday night.  We spent Sunday packing up the hovel (apartment.)  Monday morning we hired 2 day laborers to help with the heavy lifting.  It's amazing how hard they work.  They made short work of emptying 2 storage units and they got it all on the truck.  Then we had to start on the stuff that was in the hovel.  That took another whole day.

Les, of course, was more than amazing.  He is powerhouse.  We are both starting to show our age, but his determination and strength... wow, what a man!

And DJ... we could not have done this without him.  What a fine, young man he is.  He is kind, thoughtful, strong and smart. 

But enough of the love-fest for my guys.  It was absolutely exhausting, but we finally got everything into the truck and were on the road by 7pm.  This was it.  The day I've been waiting for for 5 long years.  We were leaving California behind.  Our caravan making our way east.  Colorado... here we come!

And then... the rental truck broke down.

We were no more than 1-1/2 hours into our trek.  Ugh...

We waited in the cold wind of the Mojave for someone at Budget to answer the phone.  We then waited in the cold wind of the Mojave for a mechanic to show up to look at the truck.  Then we waited in the cold wind of the Mojave for the tow truck to arrive, hook up the truck and lead us to a hotel. More than 4 hours after we pulled off the road, we were checking in to the Holiday Inn.  Exhausted, cold & bad hair. 

More on that later....