Day 1: Initiation

As I told Susannah when we got to her apartment in Evanston, WY, the first night of our move, driving that U-Haul truck feels something like sitting on a couch and driving one’s apartment. Besides its cumbersome bulk, it accelerates just a little more quickly than grass grows.

Despite such encumbrances we hauled ourselves some 15 hours to our first destination, feeling pretty good about ourselves and our progress. En route we saw the sun come up and illuminate the Columbia Gorge before us, enjoyed the subtler beauty of the Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon, and listened to LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea, which, for all its weaknesses, compelled our generosity enough via its energy and ambition to be still rather enjoyable.

Many people thoughtfully helped us with gas money, for which we are deeply grateful, but we were not quite prepared to blow through it all the first day; the only consolation was that we were in fact getting near the truck’s best gas mileage. We also discovered that the car-dolly can in fact handle speeds above 45—as high as 80, in fact. Whenever we look in the mirrors, we see the little sticker on the trailer that says speed limit 45, but it has become like a post-it your mom sticks on your mirror that says “Remember to brush your teeth thrice a day,” which after a while you begin to scoff at, but, when something goes wrong you’ll go, “I should have listened to me mum,” or, “I hate it when she’s right.”

The day’s highlight, however, was having a bed, a beer, and a homemade meal waiting for us at our hospitable friend Susannah’s place. Once again we were able to receive a friend’s love and thoughtfulness, and we slept the better for it.