Here’s the second installment in our reruns. Confused? Read the post below first, my lovelies.

Adventures in Moving, Part II

If you’re just joining us for the series on moving, please read the post below this one first. (It’s the first part of the story that I posted yesterday.) Now, get ready for the story to get REALLY adventurous!

We finally pulled out a little after 2:00. We left two twin mattresses, three dining room chairs, the drying rack for our clothes, several baskets, my laundry basket, and some other miscellaneous things. There absolutely was no more room in the truck or the car. In order to fit our bed in the truck, they placed it at the back (like a door) and lashed it on. We expected to arrive about 8:00 – later than expected, but not too bad of a time.

Now, some of you heard that J had an unfortunate run-in with a police officer while driving the week before our move. Apparently, it’s illegal to drive and talk on the phone, although every person in the whole city does it. This particular police officer decided to do some selective enforcement of the law and J was his target. However, this complete story and the way that he got out of the situation will have to be saved for another time. I only mention it because it led to a lesson in dealing with the police from a more experienced and wiser brother on the field here. His main advice: Play dumb. We is real, real good at that. How do we know? Well, before we even got out of Big City, a motorcycle cop pulled us over in the middle of the biggest, busiest highway. We tried to keep going until we could get to an exit, but that was agitating him. So, we stopped in the right-hand lane. It was pretty unsafe for him and us. But, we figured it was mostly his risk and that was what he wanted us to do, so we did it. As he was walking up, we realized that most of our identification papers were in the car with us, but would be very difficult to get to. (The car was crammed full to the ceiling – most likely the reason he stopped us.) We agreed to play really dumb. So, the conversation went something like this….

Officer: (greets us in local language)

J: (speaks in English with a big smile) Hi! I’m an American!

Officer: (asks for something that we didn’t understand)

J: American! I’m an American.

Officer: (asks again for something we didn’t understand)

J: (speaks slowly with a big smile) This is my friend’s car. Friend’s car.

Officer gets out his driver’s license and points to it.

J gets out his and gives it to him.

Officer: (points at the windshield and asks for something we don’t understand)

J: This is my friend’s car. I’m moving today. I have a job. Job. Friend’s car.

Officer talks on radio. Officer steps in front of our car to talk some more. Officer throws his hands up. Officer comes back to the window.

Officer: (gives J his driver’s license, points at the road, and wishes us a good journey)

J: What? Oh, we can go? Ok! Thanks! Have a great day!

A few miles later we pulled over and drew the curtains on the back part of the car. (Yeah, it has curtains like those vans from the 70’s.) We think he was asking us about some type of registration for cargo, but we had never heard that word before. Anyway, by this time we were concerned that the truck was pretty far ahead of us. But, we weren’t going to speed and catch the attention of any more police officers…..

Our goal was to get to a certain little city by dinner time. Why this random little city? Because it was the last outpost of Western civilization for miles. In other words… It had a Burger King. We passed up numerous local restaurants that were clean and high-quality. We ignored the aching hunger in our bellies. We pressed on for the sight of the flame-broiled whopper. So, you can imagine our agony when we arrived and it was closed. For renovation. And the employees were inside. Eating. Probably my burger. We found a nice-looking hotel instead and ate in it’s restaurant. It was honestly the most bland food I’ve ever eaten – and I ate a lot in the cafeteria at the university, so that’s saying a lot. Still…. We had a bunch of candy bars, a car full of stuff, and a new life down the road. Nothing was going to get us down! We made it to the ferry stop a little before 8:00. However, we had talked to the truck drivers by phone and knew they would not make the 8:00 ferry. Little did we know that it would be two hours before we would get on the ferry. Why the delay? Tune in tomorrow for the next installment!


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