"Racing to Georgia: The Final Sprint to Sign"

Just a little word of advice...if you ever choose to buy a house in another state, don't just assume that you will be able to sign your final paperwork remotely. In California so many people purchased property from other states and it had never been a problem at all. I just assumed it was the same anywhere that you went. Unfortunately the Lawyer that our Realtor worked with did not offer remote signings so we literally had to race to get out to Georgia just in time to sign our paperwork. We didn't want to have to fly out just to do that and then come back and do the drive across the country with all of our belongings and our Pets so, as your might have read in my previous post, I somehow made it all happen in just 30 days!

I was completely exhausted from weeks of packing, selling, cleaning, and getting our house on the Market in California. To say it was a lot to handle was an understatement.

On the afternoon of September 11th, 2022 we hit the road. We had hoped to leave the night before but a huge rainstorm had come in and we knew that if we tried packing up the vehicles in that storm we would end up with a big sopping wet mess. So even though we had limited days we had to take that extra day to get packed up get on our way. Because of the extreme costs of moving out of California at the time I had purged all of our belongings so that everything we were taking with us fit in Tupperware's in the back of my Husbands truck, inside the vehicle we were towing, or in the little bit of space I had left in my bus after putting all the crates in that I used to transport all of our kitties to Georgia in. The bed in the bus was covered in all of our clothing that had been vacuum packed to save some space. This part becomes funny later in the story.

That afternoon we began the 2,310 mile trip to our new hometown of Blairsville, GA. Because all of our belongings were in Tupperware's in the back of the truck we had decided the best way to do this was to sleep at truck stops where we could park our two vehicles together and hopefully if anyone messed with the truck our dogs would start barking to alert us. We had never slept in our vehicles, or slept at a truck stop so this was something totally new and a complete and total adventure! I really wish I had more photos to document our adventure along the way but we were in such a hurry that we only made necessary stops for bathroom breaks for us and the dogs, and for food and gas. It was like a sprint across America, or at least it felt that way!

All Packed up and about to hit the road

That first day we drove through miles and miles of desert as we made our way out of California and into Arizona. I remember one area close to Flagstaff that was so pretty, there were yellow wildflowers everywhere mixed in with lots of pretty pine trees. It was the first feeling of Freedom that hit me. We were on our way out of California! I cannot even remember just how far we made it that night, or what city we slept in. I believe we made it just over the border into New Mexico. All I remember is it was our first night ever sleeping at a truck stop! Our plan worked out so well. We pulled the truck up right beside the bus so that we could protect our belongings. Once we got all situated it was time to bring the dogs over from the truck to pile into the bus with us and all the cats. Inside the bus there was literally about a foot and a half wide walkway to get through all the stuff and back to the bed. We are both 6' tall so it was quite the tight little squeeze to make our way back. I got the dogs up on the bed and then went about giving all the cats some water and food. The setup I created for all the cats worked so well. They all had access to a litter box and food at all times, and then whenever we would stop they would get water to drink. I remember crawling into bed to attempt to get some sleep and laughing at the fact that we were sleeping in and around all of our clothes on the bed with our three dogs. In total each night we had 14 members of our little family sleeping in our little bus.

That first morning walking into the truck stop to get cleaned up and hit the road again was a little bit embarrassing. I have short hair and when you sleep with short hair and your toss and turn a lot you can wake up with some pretty wild hairdos so needless to say everyone could tell I had just rolled out of bed. I paid for my shower and they gave me a little beeper to let me know when my shower was available. As I tried to rush out of the building to wait my turn I decided to get some coffee. Just my luck...the coffee pot was empty. I let the person at the register know while all the onlookers were checking out my rocking hairdo and I headed out to hang out with the family while I waited.

Much to my surprise, showering at a truck stop was not that bad! After each person an attendant would go in and sanitize everything before they let you know your room was ready. That shower was amazing! It woke me up and got me ready for day two of driving until we just couldn't drive any more. That day we made our way through New Mexico, and ended up stopping in the middle of nowhere in Texas. We found a truck stop that actually had a car museum in it, it had a dog park, and of course some showers for the next morning. Unfortunately we had arrived so late that they had no hot food. So we got to eat convenience store food that night which meant some microwaved burritos and some candy. The exhaustion had caught up to us and we could not drive as long this day as we had the night before so we were just happy to be stopped and getting to bed a bit earlier that night. When I got into the bus to get ready for bed we had a little problem. One of the cat crates latch must have vibrated loose and the most feral of all my cats was sitting on the bed looking at me. This cat was the one cat that had stayed truly feral, she did not like to be touched at all. If she were to get out the door she would be gone forever. I carefully crawled on the bed making sure the door to her crate was open and hoped and prayed that she did not make a run for it and get hidden somewhere under the bed or behind boxes. Thank goodness with a little bit of moving my arms around behind her she ran into the crate! Whew! That was one scary moment! Needless to say I was so happy everything worked out and we could get some sleep and be ready for the next treacherous day of driving.

That next morning we got up a bit earlier to hit the road. We only had two days left to make it to Georgia so time was ticking. We made it through the rest of North Texas and into Oklahoma but it's like we were running out of gas... not our vehicles but us ourselves. The stress of all of the stuff leading up to the drive and driving 12-14 hour days was finally hitting us. So we made an emergency Starbucks stop...I don't think coffee has ever helped me so much! We both needed it so bad. It gave us the power to troop along for about 4 more hours till we just couldn't drive any farther. We ended up stopping in Little Rock Arkansas for the night. I remember when we took the exit that it was the first truck stop area we came to that we did not feel safe at all. We tried driving from one truck stop to the one across the highway hoping for a safer feel but it was just as bad. When I went into the store it was kind of like I had stepped into a whole other world. I was getting the meanest looks from everyone in the store. I'm a very smiley happy person so this was definitely not the norm for me. We needed something to eat though so I had to stay in the store long enough to find something for us both to eat. This did not make us feel an more safe so I decided to look and see if we could make it to another truck stop. Unfortunately after looking at a map the next truck stop was more than an hour away. We just could not drive any farther so we parked and all loaded into the bus and just hoped for the best. The next morning I tried going in to do my normal shower and get ready but I was greeted by the same mean stares I had received the night before. I ended up buying a coffee and just hitting the road. We could not get out of there fast enough.

This was our last day on the road...our make it or break it! We literally had to be at the Lawyers office at 12:00 the next day to sign our documents. So we drove from Arkansas all the way to Blairsville that day. Coming through the windy Ocoee River Valley in the dark completely exhausted was not a fun experience. We did not arrive till pretty late at night and when we realized that there were no truck stops in Blairsville we were at a loss for what to do. So we called our Realtor and got permission to park the bus in the driveway of our soon to be house to sleep for the night. We had made it!!! Sooooo many things could have gone wrong on that road trip that would have caused us a delay or to not make it in time but we had been protected and guided all the way to our new home safely! We had read all the horror stories of vehicles breaking down on the way or tires blowing out causing people to get stuck for days on the way to their new homes that we had feared the worse but hoped for the best. We were so excited that we were fortunate enough to not have any issues! It was one heck of a wild road trip with so many crazy experiences. I still wish so badly that I had taken more photos or written notes along the way. My little bus Betsy made it all the way across the country, I was so so thankful. I had put a lot of money into fixing her when I bought her but I was so afraid some unforeseen problem was going to pop up.

That morning we were quite embarrassed when the Seller pulled up to the house with the listing agent to do one last walk through and there we were sleeping in the bus in the driveway. Thankfully he totally understood. We had endured one heck of a long drive and crazy crazy month of insanity to get here and we could not wait to make that house into our new home.

We finally made it!