Our Drive Home

***Sorry this post has a ton of writing! I just wanted to write everything down before I forgot it***
I swear everything that could go wrong with our trip did. First the navy was supposed to move us and then they had it entered in their computer wrong so we ended up having to do it ourselves. We found a place that would come pick up the stuff, load it for us, drive it across the country for us, and unload it when it got here. We planned on leaving Monday June 25th so the moving truck was supposed to come on Saturday the 23rd sometime. On that Saturday they called us and told us they wouldn't be able to take our stuff anymore because the people before us had went over their weight limit and they wouldn't have room for us anymore. We were SO mad! We called around looking for a moving truck. It is not an easy thing to find last minute in a big military city during the summer when everyone is moving. We found a place that said maybe they could have one ready Monday morning.
Luckily on Monday they called us and the truck was ready for us. I finished packing and cleaning the house while Jake loaded the truck. I seriously don't know what I would have done without him. I helped him load the couch, our mattresses, and a bookshelf and he did the rest of the loading on his own. Let's just say we have a lot of stuff too... I didn't know someone could sweat as much as Jake did. It took us all day to do and we weren't able to leave until 6 that night.
Not long after we left there was a big accident so we were stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours and only moved 3 miles so we only ended up only going half as far as we were planning that night. It was not a good way to start off such a long trip.

I was sad that I had to drive alone and I felt bad that Jake had to drive this huge truck and tow his pickup.

The first night when we stopped we pulled into a Holiday Inn and it was packed. I don't know if Jake was trying to park or just to turn around and get out of the parking lot but he ended up running over the back of a trailer that somebody was hauling a car with. I ran over and helped him get turned around and to make sure he didn't take out any cars or anything else. We saw that the trailer looked fine so as soon as he got turned around we got the heck out of there and went to a different motel.

West Virginia?

Jake thought this was funny- Pony Express Station

Some other funny and random things that happened:
One night when we stopped to get a motel the lady handed us our key and kept talking and talking. Jake asked if the last number was a 6 and the lady quickly said yes and went back to talking. We went up to the 3rd floor to our room and the key wouldn't open our door so Jake went back down to get a new one. He came up and opened the door and walked in. I saw him just stop and stand there and look around like he didn't know what to do. There was somebody in the room... It turns out our room number ended in a 2 instead of a 6. The funniest part to me was how Jake stared the guy down and looked at him like "am I supposed to leave or is he?..." It was pretty funny.

Jake missed an exit one day. I knew we needed to take it but he couldn't see me signaling to him to get over so we had to miss it and go like 15 miles out of the way to turn around. After being in the car all day I was kinda mad, I just wanted to be out of the car so bad.

We got sick of eating fast food so when we stopped for lunch one day we decided to try a mexican restaurant we saw. It was the worst place ever! My "beef" seriously tasted like what I think ground up cardboard would taste like. And Jake's enchiladas had melted american cheese all over it which was kinda weird.

We stopped in Dayton, Ohio one night and we were in a sketchy part of town trying to find a place for Jake to fill up with Diesel (it was amazing how hard that was at times). We saw a cop so Jake went over and talked to him and asked him about motels to stay in. The cop told him we needed to get to the other side of town or all of our stuff would probably be gone in the morning. So we had to backtrack about 20 miles to a motel. They were booked so then we had to backtrack even farther and found a place.

A lot of the states we passed through had corn fields everywhere so Jake would call me like every hour and say, "Hey look, another corn field."

One night we were driving along and all of the sudden I had to go to the bathroom. We had like 40 miles to go until we were going to stop for the night in a town. I thought I could make it but then I knew I had to go right then. I called Jake and told him I had to take the next exit. Of course we were in the middle of nowhere.
Jake got off the next exit and there was nothing but he could see a town off in the distance so we headed down the road towards it. I didn't thing I could wait any longer so I pulled over and about went out in a corn field to go but I was scared because I was alone since there was nowhere for Jake to park, it was dark out, and there were a ton of cars passing. Jake called me and said he was about to the town so to keep going. When we got there we stopped at the first place we could find which happened to be a local movie store. I was hurting so bad and could barely walk so I hobbled in and asked if they had a bathroom. They said no so I went back to my car and fell into it since I couldn't really move and started crying cus I hurt so bad. Jake went in and I guess he demanded that they let me use their bathroom. Whatever he said worked because they let me use the employee bathroom. I think he scared the lady cus when I went back in she kept apologizing to me for not letting me use it as she led me to the bathroom.

House of sod

Jake holding up traffic as we drove through
 construction. We could not believe how much
construction there was!

On Saturday we were finishing our drive through Wyoming and the moving truck started having problems. We pulled over in the middle of nowhere and I was sure that we would never make it out of that state. We had no cell phone service and were about 50 miles from a town each way. Jake messed around with some stuff and somehow fixed it. It ran great the rest of the way home.
We stopped in Ogden for that night. Jake has some cousins (Alecia and Mary) that live there that he hasn't seen since he was a little kid so we went and saw them. They were so fun to hang out with! We just talked and played games until really late. We were really glad we had the chance to stop and see them.
It was funny because Daniel Coats (Alecia's husband) used to play football for the Cincinnati Bengals but is retired now. Jake didn't know he was so he kept asking him questions about how he travels and stuff. Finally Daniel was like, "Uh you know I'm retired right?" Jake felt pretty stupid for not knowing but we all thought it was funny.

Daniel, Alecia, Pete, Jake, Mary, Chelsey

We finished our ride home on Sunday. A car started on fire so we were stuck in traffic outside of Mountain Home for a little bit. I had told my dad that we would make it home at 6:30 and my dad said it wouldn't be til 7. After getting stopped in traffic I realized my dad would be right but I was determined not to let him win. I needed gas in Mountain Home so I called Jake and told him to keep going and I would just stop, get gas, and catch up to him. Of course the gas station was packed and then I had to go inside to get my receipt since it wouldn't print outside.
Jake ended up beating me to Boise but I found out he drove 67 the whole way there after I got off the exit. He had only drove 55-60 the whole trip so I was kinda mad that he decided to speed when I wasn't following him. We made it home at like 6:55 so I told my dad that he had lost since it wasn't quite 7. It felt so good to finally be out of the car!
We are so glad to be home and close to family! Thank you so much to everyone who helped move us in! It took a lot of stress off of us and we can't thank you enough. We have been blessed so much since being here.