Day 2

Am doing fine. Facebook seems like it's working better so check there for regular updates. When I have a lot of yammering about something to do though, I'll post here.

Finally... it actually begins

At 6:35 PM it's dark here in Linden, NJ. The RV place is right off a major highway. After arriving just after 3:00 it took until 5:00 to get done with the rental process and moving my stuff to the RV. Then getting the SUV back to Enterprise and myself back to the RV, another hour. So once back I set up the cats. This is a smaller RV. Thankfully it has a storage area in the chassis. I put most of my stuff in there. The cabin is occupied now by 8 cats and myself. Not much extra room but by God if no one else in human history has ever driven a small RV from NYC to San Antonio before with 8 cats, it's a checkbox the universe was obviously looking to get checked. I must be crazy.

So Much In 24 Hours

Despite two moving companies turning out to be brokers and not actual moving companies, today I managed to get a real, actual moving company to do my move. Be forewarned, most moving companies (self-styled) are not actual moving companies, though they may claim to be. Warning signs I wish I'd known about sooner: 1. They promise fast service, 2. They collect, or try to collect, as much as half the total expected charge for the move up-front (I am told that bona fide movers, if they charge a deposit at all, charge no more than 15%), 3. They can't say where the truck is coming from; actual movers have routes planned ahead of time, and 4. You either can't find reviews of them online such as at Yelp! or in Google business reviews or if you do find them, they're pretty bad. Also look for BBB listings. Apparently the moving industry is rife with scams and fraud. Probably the best thing is to find a local agent with an actual moving company like Allied or United Van Lines and have them visit your house to review the stuff, etc. It costs more than other approaches but those other approaches are fraudulent, inept, or very risky, so you're better off going that way. If at all possible... use a U-Haul. Anyway, I have an oversized SUV packed for tomorrow's journey to NJ where I transfer my stuff and my babies to a rented RV and then the trip REALLY starts. These cats know something big is up, with all the boxes and so on. Wrangling them tomorrow AM will be quite a scene I'm sure. I should live-stream it. :)

An Adventure In Moving

If you're reading this, you MAY be here because you are curious to know how my move from Rochester, NY to San Antonio, TX is going. To keep interested parties in the loop, I will blog the high points. First high point was today. I have been shopping for a used RV to transport my cats in, preferring an RV over a van, plane, etc. I had two strong contenders identified but for different reasons they both failed to pan out. Luckily I found an RV rental service that allows one-ways between NYC and Dallas. I managed to secure one for this Friday with an expected arrival of Monday or Tuesday. Eight cats in an RV. What could possibly go wrong? Well I was able to rent the RV, or so it seems, but I had movers (Colonial Van Lines) set up to get my stuff today or tomorrow. They informed me that as of today, they cannot guarantee they will pick up my stuff tomorrow or Thursday. So naturally I lost it on them. I plan to sue them if they don't give me a full refund. And may I advise others to steer clear of them. They appear to be fatally feckless. So I am scrambling now for a mover to get my stuff by Thursday. As for the cats and myself, I will be road-tripping to NYC in a rented SUV and will transfer them to the RV and then off we go. We'll have quite the time, the 9 of us. I'll try to blog pictures of stuff as we go, assuming my smart phone will let me upload photos to Blogger. If I can't get my stuff moved by Thursday I'll have a company get the stuff after I have left. There is so far just one part of my move that looks like it is going off as planned: my car. The auto transporter diver, a Russian immigrant living in the US for the past 25 years with whom I chatted briefly earlier this evening, is going to haul my 2003 Accord 1850 miles and drop it off at my new digs. Let's hope at least this part of the plan can go off. My house hits the market in early February. From now on, everything will go just fine. No hitches. Like clockwork. Oy...