Continuing our tales and tribulations (at long last)
Moving story first... then news at the end :)

So, moving actually started on Friday, August 19, when we got a phone call from U-Haul saying that the equipment we had ordered hadn't "landed" in Chicago yet. We were told to await a phone call later that day with the time and place where we could pick up our truck and car transporter. The call never came. Saturday morning, we packed and sorted with U-Haul's fantastic hold music as the background on speakerphone, trying to find our truck. Finally, we got a call on the other line telling us that we could get our truck, but they wouldn't have the car transporter until later Saturday. We figured, fine, at least we can load the truck. However, the truck U-Haul had available was not the 17-footer ordered, but a monstrous 26-footer (suitable for moving small houses). We decided to go with it, picked up the huge truck and brought it back to the building.

We ended up with about 15 people helping us move out of the apartment in Hyde Park, and one of the first things we tried to do was get our couch out to the truck. A bunch of the guys turned the couch on end, got it into the hallway and to the elevator – but the couch wouldn't fit. None of us could believe it – the couch had fit into the elevator when we moved in, and therefore should fit back into the elevator so we could move out. However, in the interim the elevator had been remodeled, and decorative molding was added about 4-6 inches below the ceiling. Short of ripping out the molding (which believe me, we wanted to do), our couch just wasn't going to fit. The guys then tried to shove the couch down the indoor emergency stairs, but no luck. We thought about using the outdoor fire escape, but the building manager shot that idea down. Then the maintenance guy had a brilliant idea – put the couch on top of the elevator car, take the car down to the basement, and offload the couch on the first floor. But the building manager wouldn't let us do that, either.

Meanwhile, everyone was moving the rest of our boxes and bags out to the truck (which looked even more ridiculously large without a couch in it) and our apartment was pretty much empty. Anthony supervised the truck loading, and everything we owned (sans couch) made one layer on the floor of the truck. We were still awaiting a phone call from U-Haul about our car transporter, and at this point seriously thought we were leaving both the car and the couch in Chicago. Since the apartment was empty, we said goodbye to everyone helping, and turned in our keys to the building manager. As we were preparing to leave the car for 10 days, we got a call from U-Haul – they had a tow dolly for us! We said farewell to our couch, shut the truck and headed for the U-Haul on 25th and King Drive.

Once at the U-Haul place, Jimmy and the gigantic truck had an unfortunate run-in with a concrete pylon while we attempted to get the car on the tow dolly (Word to the wise- ALWAYS get the insurance when you rent a moving truck...). Then the U-Haul guy "helping" us told us to turn the blinkers on in the car, to prevent it from getting hit (I guess he was out of the little magnetic lights).

At long last, at about 5 p.m., we hit the road to Ann Arbor. We stopped to put some gas in the truck and hit the $50 limit without even making a dent in the truck's gigantic gas tank, but decided to leave it at that and see how far we could go. We had to drive about 45 mph the whole way, thanks to the trailer, and got to Ann Arbor at about midnight ET. Then we tried to take the car off the tow dolly. Surprisingly, running your blinkers for six hours makes your battery die, so we had to wait for Hyundai motor services to come jump the car (woo! for unlimited roadside assistance for 2 more months).

We finally got into our apartment at about 1 a.m. and crashed in our sleeping bags in our new living room. At 10 a.m., the folks from Jimmy's new lab showed up to help unload the truck – and we were done by 11:30. We spent much of the rest of the day unpacking, rested a little, and continued to unpack for the next week.

Our cable guy came on Tuesday to hook up the TV and internet, which we had for about 5 hours before they turned it off again, since we were still on some mysterious "disconnect list." But the guy came back out again Wednesday to re-hook us up, and got us off the list (yay).

At this point, pretty much everything is organized and out of boxes. The pictures are hung on the walls, and we're feeling at home.

And big news – we've adopted a dog! She's a two-year old mutt named Violet. Photos of Violet, and the new apartment, will be posted soon, we promise.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us move. We couldn't have done it without you, and we miss all you Chicago people already!