Matt, Christen, Derek & Rylie

Moving from Gainesville, FL to Menlo Park, CA

Last July Matt and I packed up all our stuff and made the long trek across the country. Actually, I should clarify that it was my mom and I who packed up all our stuff. Matt was working on finishing and defending his dissertation. It took my mom and I three whole days to pack the house. Once that was done our amazing friends helped us move all our stuff into a storage unit and then move it all again into the moving truck. Here is our empty truck - 24' long.

We towed our car behind the truck so we ended up being as long as a semi truck. Here is what our truck and trailer looked like when they were all hooked up. It was so long. I was not able to drive the truck because the front seat did not move forward and my feet did not touch the ground. So, Matt had to drive the whole trip and I was the co-pilot.Leaving Gainesville was one of the saddest things we had to do. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone. Before we left Matt and I prayed together asking God for protection and courage as we embarked on our journey. We had not gotten very far on our trip when we blew a tire on the trailer. It was truly amazing how God was with us the whole time. When the tire blew we were only a couple hundred feet from an exit with a rest stop. In addition we had just started out on our trip. I cannot imagine blowing a tire in the middle of the desert. Matt pulled the truck into the rest stop and we called Penske to get another trailer. It took 3 hours for the new trailer, but we played cards and ate our dinner to pass the time.



We moved across the country at the height of gas prices. Here is one fill up that was $202. Diesel was super expensive. We spent over $1600 in fuel to move. YIKES!
Along the way we spent 2 days with Matt's brother, Mark and family in Dallas, TX. Then we drove on to Lubbock, TX and spent a day with our friends Sean and Laura. It really helped to split up the trip by staying with friends and family along the way.

Some of the roads we drove on were one lane going each direction. It was crazy having semi trucks going the other direction so close to us without a barrier between us. At one point there was not even a shoulder on the side of the road. Again, God's protection was amazing. I was so excited to see this sign. Matt did remind me though that we still had lots more to drive since the state of California is so big. I am not used to a state taking 12 hours to drive through since Massachusetts takes about 3. Still I was glad we were in California.
Finally, we saw THIS sign. We were both super excited after driving 2,900 miles across the country. After this trip we decided that we never wanted to move this way again.
In this collage you can see our new address, a lot of the boxes and blankets after unpacking, our garden as well as the only thing in we had our fridge for the first few days in Menlo Park - ice cream!!