Hello Idaho!

January 16, 2014 was moving day for the Haneys. We rose at 3;30 A.M. after a long night with little sleep. It was unseasonably warm all night, and the camping cots we slept on were not as comfortable as I had remembered. We completed our final pack-up and lock down of 14 Tierra Seguro. Rancho Santa Margarita CA While I pulled the truck around, Jeff locked the front door and put the key in the lock box left by the realtor. He forgot, however, to shut the garage door. Luckily he had also forgotten to collect my garage remote from me, so our solution was to use my remote to close the garage from outside, then sliding the remote under at the last second to secure it inside. Once we had locked up properly, we took our last drive out of the condo complex. I cried.

We hit the proverbial road at 5:00. On the 91 we missed the I15 interchange, so we continued east up the 215 instead. We stopped for a stretch and pit stop in Devore, right next to the old Renaissance Faire site. Memories! Going through “the pass” before dawn was beautiful, but more than a little cold. A draft by my feet kept my legs chilled up to my knees for most of the trip. We rolled through Las Vegas about 10:00, then caught the 95 and headed into the Nevada desert. With the exception of one or two charming small towns, that area is REMOTE. It was hard to find gas or food. The brothels, on the other hand, were plentiful.

Our schedule would not allow us to stop in Reno for the night, or even for dinner with my sister and her family. The closest we got was Fallon, NV. We stopped at Dairy Queen for a chili dog and a sundae.The sundae was a mistake - I froze. It was there that we received a call from our realtor, informing us that the paperwork was finalized and we now owned a home. Outright. YES! We caught the I-80 at Winnemucca at about 7:00. If we had not had an appointment with the realtor the next day, I would have stopped there for the night. Instead, we continued north into Oregon.

FOG! Like I’ve never seen! We drove for hours through the middle of nowhere, barely able to see the road. There were No motels along the 95 anywhere. Jeff said he wouldn’t start panicking until 10:30. At about 10:00 Jeff switched over to the GPS, which had us turn east onto I-84. An interstate!  At about 10:25 we saw a “Sleep Inn’ sign through the fog in Ontario, Oregon and pulled off the highway. Hallelujah, motels a-plenty. Jeff opted for a Best Western, where after a short wait we secured a room and were in bed by 11:00. So so so very tired. Thank God for finding us a motel!

The next morning we rose at 4:30, loaded back up, and hit the road. The temperature read 19 degrees. The drive through Oregon and Washington was beautiful. The terrain changes were frequent and sudden. As we drove through Spokane, Jeff began pointing out the places he’d visited the month before. At about 2:00 p.m. we pulled up to our driveway. We hastily outfitted our tires with the snow cables we bought in California. We drove about 30 feet up the driveway (which is almost a mile long), threw a chain, and slid backwards down to the road.

After removing the useless California chains, we drove back into town (30 miles away) to purchase snow tires and some REAL snow chains. By the time the tires were mounted, it was dark. Jeff agreed to getting a motel room and trying again in the morning when we weren’t exhausted. Unfortunately, our motel was hosting what appeared to be a high school reunion, with the majority of the festive alumni pausing to reconnect right outside our door. All. Night. Long. At least there was a hot shower and a warm bed, for which we were both immensely grateful.

We slept in until 5:30. We were both dressed, packed, and out the door at 7:00. We headed back up to the new house again, and tried our luck with the “Idaho” snow chains. The “we ain’t kidding around” snow chains. We struggled with them for a few minutes until a gentleman in a pickup stopped and showed us how to do it correctly. Angels all around, I suppose.

Once the tires were properly shod, we drove up the snowy driveway to our new house. It was better than I could have imagined. We were beyond overjoyed to find the previous owner had left a king sized bed, and that we would not have to endure those rickety camping cots again. There was also a dining room table and chairs and a sofa set. SCORE.

We unloaded the pickup and heated canned soup for our first meal in our new house. Other than our disappointment at being unable to light the water heater, we declared day 1 in the new place a resounding success. Much learning ahead.

Thank God.

  

For all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. Genesis 13:15