yellow flats, green high tops: The Move

Brad, Dad, and I pulled out of my parents driveway on Monday morning, November 21st in our rented moving truck and cars and left Centerville, Utah behind, not knowing when or if we'd be back. It was a little rough saying goodbye that morning, as my mom packed us some breakfast and sent us on our way. Knowing we were doing the right things brought peace, but it was still hard to leave my family behind. Luckily, I didn't have to say goodbye to all of them at once.
We headed southeast through Price to catch the I-70 trying to avoid any bad weather, and had made it through Denver and just over the Kansas border by the end of the first day. The drive between Grand Junction and Denver was one of my favorite parts of our whole trip because the scenery was absolutely beautiful, although the canyons were a bit hard on the moving truck. We had slowed to about 30 mph as we climbed to the summit of a couple of canyons. One of the funniest moments of the trip was when Dad and I were climbing through one of the canyons and there was a sudden "POP!!" between us. We both jumped and looked at each other in shock, wondering what had happened. I opened our bag of snacks to find that the altitude change had forced a bag of chips to explode from the pressure. In Brad's car we had a box holding several bags of chips. Luckily, they did not all explode, but they were so taut they were definitely on the verge.
We spent most of the second day driving the 400 miles through Kansas, and then made our way through Missouri, just passing into Illinois before stopping for the night. We were able to catch a few glimpses of Kansas City and we were excited to be able to see the temple and the arch as we drove through St. Louis. I was wishing we would have taken a little more time to spend in a couple of cities, but it would have been hard to navigate around with a moving truck and another car, and it was hard to plan for that when traveling during the winter. So, I guess we'll just have to do another road trip sometime in the future.
The third day, which was the day before Thanksgiving, we were able to get to Atlanta to spend the night. Mama Jean had a delicious Thanksgiving meal ready for us that we all enjoyed together, and then we spent the evening hanging out with Brad's family.
Brad and I dropped my Dad off at the airport on Thanksgiving morning. I wrote on facebook that I cried like I was a 10 year old girl again when it was time to send him back to Utah. He wrote back that he laughed because he was trying to keep from crying too. I think it was a little harder to say goodbye to my dad because that was the last of my family I would see for possibly a very long time.
Brad and I left the airport and started on the last of the drive to Orlando. Brad's family left ahead of us with the moving truck and their van, and we met up with them just before the Florida border and followed each other the rest of the way. When we got into town we decided to unload the truck that night, rather than waiting until morning, so we spent a few hours getting unloaded and then finally headed out for dinner.
I didn't really consider that on Thanksgiving it would be tricky to find food. As we drove that day we were very limited on choices for food, even fast food. But we were DEFINITELY limited when it came to finding dinner. So, we ate Thanksgiving dinner at Denny's at nine o'clock that evening. And I think that is probably one of the most memorable Thanksgivings I will ever have. And surprisingly, Denny's wasn't so bad.