Family, Nature, Travel

Adventures in Moving

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Daughter and I had a productive time in Tacoma getting ready for her move there in early May. She now has an apartment, a bank, a primary care physician, renters insurance, and is signed up with the electric utility company. She met the people who hired her, and is set to start her new job on May 15. We have arranged for movers to take her few pieces of furniture over the mountains from Fargo to Tacoma. We are set to go.

We took a fun day on our trip to visit the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. I am ambivalent about zoos, but it was a sunny day and it was interesting to see the different aquatic life in the region very nicely displayed in the aquarium.

The minute we got to the zoo we heard a very loud hooting, whining  sound not unlike that of a whale singing. We followed it to its source and met Dozer, a love sick walrus on loan from a zoo in Houston, TX.  He was hooting for a girl friend, and none of the local girls were interested. I asked an attendant zookeeper how they transported a walrus from Texas to Washington. She said that he traveled by truck.  She explained that walruses don’t need to be kept in water all the time, and so he could go in a truck without a large water tank.  He was due to return to Texas later in the week.

I think daughter’s move to Washington, although complex, is far less complex than moving Dozer back to Texas. All that hooting!

What moving adventures have you had?

58 thoughts on “Adventures in Moving”

  1. When I moved from Saint Paul to Oregon I spent days selecting my most treasured photos. They went into a box. Then I ran out of time and had to leave in panic, finishing my packing during a slashing thunderstorm. When I pulled away from the curb of Juliet Avenue and pointed my Outback west, the box of precious photos was still sitting in its box at the top of the stairs to the attic.

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  2. Well, I am currently not moving. Husband and I are in the Mpls airport. We are supposed to be traveling to Milwaukee for a family wedding. Our flight is cancelled, and we are rebooked on a flight tonight at 8:15. 12 hours in the airport😭

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    2. Hi Renee. Would like for Hans to come pick you up? He was planning on going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and would be happy to swing by the airport to pick you up.

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      2. Oh, how kind, but I think we ahould stay put. I bought a mindfulness coloring book and a couple of mystery novels. Husband is reading the Aeneid.

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      1. Still waiting for our delayed flight to Milwaukee. We are now scheduled to arrive at Billy Mitchell Field at 10:54pm.

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  4. I am not moving but mom is moving into an assisted living facility here in the Cities (she lives 60 miles north) in two weeks. We found out about the apartment two weeks ago – we are waiting until Sunday to tell her so that she doesn’t have time to worry herself into an anxiety attack. She has been told we could find out any moment so we need to be ready. It has been a whirlwind of activity: sorting through her belongings and deciding what to keep, what to toss, and what to donate; figuring out the logistics for the move; finding family/friends to help with the actual move; applying for financial assistance; purchasing a smaller table and bed for her studio apartment; making a list of everyone who needs to be notified, etc. It wouldn’t be quite so stressful for me except that I am heading to northern Italy for 17 days less than a week after the move and need to get ready for that!

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  6. It’s funny – moving was a constant in my childhood. We moved on average every 2 years until I hit high school. But I have absolutely NO memories (not a single one) of any of the actual moving. I don’t remember boxes, packing, unpacking, moving trucks, nothing. That says to me that my mom did EVERYTHING.

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  7. Husband moved a lot as a child. Once, during a move when he was small and being a pill, his mother told him to go to his room. He wailed “I don’t know where my room is!”.

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  8. Husband has two versions of the Aeneid at hand, and is comparing the translations. He is strangely excited by this . How much fun can a guy have?

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  9. One memorable move was in July of 1974, when I left Half Moon Bay CA (and my kindergarten job) for New York City to be with Wasband, who flew out to help me. I had a Van Loading/Goodbye Party where several of us crammed all my worldly possessions into my newly acquired VW Microbus. We then took almost a month stopping everywhere between West and East Coasts that we knew people. We landed (temporarily) at his folks’ house in Great Neck (Long Island) NY, for the start of two years with what I think of as a steep learning curve.

    The trip across the US, though, was in some ways the best part of our time together. I met his relatives in Las Vegas, he met mine who were vacationing outside Ester Park, CO. One stop was in south Minneapolis – sewing the seeds for my return here two years later. We saw his friends in Philly and mine in outstate New York. Now that I write this, I realize we traveled together much better than we lived together.

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  10. My most memorable move was when I moved from Green Bay, WI to Minneapolis, MN to start college and my new life in Minnesota. My parents had packed up the station wagon with all my earthly belongings and we made the 5-6 hour drive to Minneapolis. They dropped me off in my dorm in Comstock Hall, unpacked my stuff and basically turned around and drove home. I’m guessing that was probably very hard for them.

    I still remember the exhilaration, the tremendous fear and the adventure of the unknown. As I was somewhat early, I chose my bed by the window before my roommate arrived, put away all my stuff and declared it good.

    Then I ventured out into the big city, walked around the West Bank of the U of MN area and had a glorious dinner by myself at Dudley Riggs (I think). For months, I was fascinated by the diversity in the Cedar-Riverside area and always enjoyed walking or shopping there. All subsequent moves were just a pain in the butt. 🙂

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      1. I was not overdoing it. I think it is a sign of old bones.
        Lie face down with your head on a rolled up towel and your hands at your side. Lift your shoulders to the height of your back. Hold for a count of 5. Relax for a count of five. Repeat five times.

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        3. Sorry, Clyde, I was trying for a little levity. I took your multiple “uff dah’s” as a sign that you were in a jovial mood today (that, of course, was probably before you broke a rib?), so I was ribbing you, if you’ll excuse the expression. Laughing is probably as painful as coughing with a broken rib, so I’ll refrain from further attempts of humor. Hope you’re all taped up, and your way to healing.

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        4. I was not offended in the least. My therapists will say that when I see them next week. Since tone does not show well on social media, you could not tell I was only explaining. And I was making light of it myself.

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  12. The stormy weather in the southeast US is the cause of our delay today. I am thankful we aren’t traveling with small children or a hooting walrus. Dozer would be most unhappy if he were here. There isn’t a lady walrus to be seen.

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    1. I keep reading “Dozer” as “Dozier” (the Twins’ second baseman) and getting confused and wondering why would Dozier care if there weren’t lady walruses around?

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  13. When my wasband and I bought a house and moved to the Twin Cities, the closing was the requisite 24 hours before possession. We were moving from Milwaukee and doing our own move and we didn’t have a car, so we packed up the uhaul and drove it here. We knew that the owner had already moved out so we were hoping that he would just let us take possession right away. Well, that didn’t happen. Since we didn’t know anybody in the Cities at that point, we ended up sleeping on the floor of a friend of a friend’s apartment. We took a nice walk that evening and found Mud Pie, a fabulous vegetarian restaurant that used to be on Lyndale. I had been a vegetarian for 6 years and had never been in a vegetarian restaurant. That’s when I knew, despite the hectic move and sleeping on the floor for a night, that I had found the right place to live!

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  14. In 1969 i rented a truck from a private garage on Como Ave on a Friday at 7 a.m. By 9 I was in Lindstrom. Some students helped me load the stuff from our apartment . By noon I was on the road. By 3:30 I was in TH. By 6 it was unloaded with the help of my sister and her husband. We went to their house in Duluth. By 1 a.m. the truck was loaded. MY b-i-l and I took turns driving it to St. Cloud. We were there by 6 a.m. and had it unloaded by noon. I drove the truck back to Minneapolis by 2:30 . It was supposed to cost something like $170 if I recall correctly. But the owner was drunk because he had had a big argument with his adult son. He charged $25 and would not accept more. Sandy was there ans she drove us up to TH by 7 and we set up the bed and slept many hours.

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  15. OT – reminder that Blevins Book Club is this Sunday. Jim’s. All are welcome and not having finished both books is certainly not a reason to stay away!!

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  16. (sorry if this is duplicate. I posted but it doesn’t appear to have stuck)

    I moved from Connecticut to St. Paul in 1973. I had been here twice before, for a friend’s wedding and on a family Thanksgiving visit to my brother and his wife.
    I have no memory of how I got myself to downtown St Paul from the airport (I did fly, didn’t I??). Somehow I knew to get on a bus on Grand Avenue (how, with no internet?) and had a vague idea of where to get off to find my brother’s place (based on one long-weekend visit). Of course, I was “surprising” him so didn’t get any help from him.
    I got off around Lexington and remember being in front of a church on Summit (but don’t remember walking from Grand to Summit – could the bus have traveled down Summit in those days??). It was bitterly cold and I had on the only pair of uninsulated “fashion” boots I ever owned. I was hauling some sort of suitcase(s).

    A woman driving by intuited my confusion and freezing tootsies and offered me a ride. I guess I had my brother’s address and it wasn’t far.

    Previously, I have always told this story in summary but I find I am quite astounded at 1) what I don’t remember and 2) how I made it as far as I did.

    By the next week, I had an apartment (without having a job yet!), had borrowed a bed from my friend’s sister, started doing temp work and waited for my stereo so I could listen to MPR instead of AM radio.

    I am not a brave or adventurous person. This quite amazes me.

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    1. You wore a bright green cocktail dress to a gardening morning with people you had never met before – if that’s not adventurous, what is?

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  17. Most of you know I’m about to move to Michigan. For me and my daughter’s family, the number of decisions to be made is making our heads spin. I just leased an apartment (sight unseen) in Port Huron because I didn’t have the luxury of choosing a place to live with care. I made a snap decision because two nice women were losing their minds with stress, fearing I would move to Michigan and find I was homeless.

    My new digs is–and this hurts to say–a senior citizen community. While it looks nice and is cheaper than where I am now, I’m embarrassed. This isn’t how I think of myself. But it offers a lot: a barber shop, a cafeteria, a crafts center, a book club that meets weekly, an exercise room and bus trips to downtown for those who don’t want to drive.

    I recently interviewed the clerks at my grocery store here in Happy Valley. I asked–carefully, with respect–which is the day they bus the old folks in to let them shop for groceries. I like to avoid those days, for all those elderly citizens wander the aisles in confusion and make it hard for me to shop.

    Weeks ago I was learning how to avoid the day they bus the geezers into my grocery store. In a few weeks I will be one of the geezers on the bus! 🙂

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    2. And, if you are anything like me in a store that is new to me, you will be wandering the aisles in confusion…

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  18. My most recent moving adventure has been moving my aunt from one nursing home to another. It seemed to be what she wanted, as it offered her a private room (albeit with a shared bathroom). But, having gotten to the new place, she went into what the doctor termed an acute stress reaction. She started hallucinating all kinds of terrible things and calling 911 for help.

    So next week we are moving her back to the place she left. Hopefully she will feel more at home there.

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      1. Word Press is up to its old tricks again. I was signed in, but it insisted on making me anonymous.

        And the doily isn’t blue! We can’t say Anonymous Blue Doily anymore.

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    2. I am so sorry to hear this, Linda. We’ll have to make an effort of getting her together with Phillip again, I know they enjoyed each others company.

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  19. OT-I have had ample time for people watching today, and I saw a tall man walk past, attired in an elegent suit, surrounded by other tall men in suits. He looked so familiar but I couldn’t place him. It just came to me that it was former Attorney General Eric Holder!

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  20. Finally got around to doing our taxes today! We’ll be getting a large refund, woot! Enough to pay for the very nice massage chair I bought a couple of weeks ago, and which will be delivered tomorrow. Man, I can’t wait! Half an hour, twice a day in that thing, and I’ll be as good as new. Any baboon who wants to come try it out is welcome to swing by.

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      1. BiR, you’re a reasonably safe distance away, I think, but really, if you’re ever in this neck of the woods, I’ll treat you to a massage.

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  21. Hi Kids–

    I just finished a chapter of math homework and decompressing by reading up on the Baboons. Great stories today!
    You all know I’ve never moved, but I moved my wife when she was my girlfriend and I’ve moved my son a few times and my folks and helped a lot of other people move.

    When my folks moved out of their house in town and into their senior place, my dad wasn’t happy about the pending move. That was a tough summer and mom says they nearly divorced. He was grumpy all summer. (He hadn’t moved much before that either; born in the old farm house, he only moved over to the shed while the new house was being built, then moved into the new house. He was 65 yrs of age before he had to move into town when Kelly and I married and took over the farm.)

    Helping a friend move and we’re carrying the washing machine down the typical narrow old house basement steps. I’m on the bottom end when the machine slipped out of our hands. Somehow I leapt clear, the machine wedged itself in the stairwell, and no one was hurt. Although my friend thought he had killed me.

    A few years later they moved again. I was moving slow after a farming mishap so I carried pillows. And another friend snapped the knob off the washing machine trying to fit it through a doorway. Glad that wasn’t my fault.

    An interesting thing about moving is learning how to pack a truck and strap down a load.

    Which leads me to another story: about 10 years ago I bought a 6 row corn planter over in Durand WI. It’s about 15′ wide. There’s a couple narrow bridges between here and there…
    Getting from Nelson WI over to Wabasha was pure luck that I didn’t meet any other vehicles.
    Some strategic planning to avoid that one low bridge in Wabasha and timing it so I was home by about 3:00 PM helped.

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  22. In the days I could pack everything I owned in my 1963 Ford Falcon convertible, i traveled from Colorado to Minnesota for the summer with my Siamese cat who hated the car. I had some car trouoble and stopped in Grand Island NE to get the car checked. The cat jumped out the back (open) window (top was up) and disappeared. I hung around the nearby park hoping he would surface…while waiting, my overnight bag with underwear and my diary from my nine months in Europe, my new radio, and my lovely new bikini from Neiman Marcus were stolen. “But the cat came back, the very next day”….and I traveled on….and still regret leaving the car open and the window down with the bag within easy reach. The only time I have anything stolen out of my car.

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