Lucky 13: Moving Across Country, Part II

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Our life arrived in Tennessee! Our life arrived in Tennessee!

After bidding all of our belongings adieu back on July 30, our 1-800-PACK-RAT pod showed up in the South without a hitch on Aug. 15. Truth be told, we could have even accessed it sooner as the company called about delivering it last week, but with my granddad’s 90th birthday party this weekend and a bazillion family members in town for that, there just wasn’t time to unload. So we settled on 7:30am Monday morning.

Armed with SVV, my dad and my dad’s pal Kim, we headed 20 minutes up the road bright and early to the storage facility my dad owns. The driver was running a bit late—luckily, the company called us an hour in advance to notify us of this—but once he showed up, he offered to help us put all of our stuff into the two 10′ x 10′ units Kim had set aside for us. Typically, the drivers don’t do this as part of the service—they’re there to do just what the job description says: drive—but instead of leaving the pod behind for three days and then trucking all that way out to the boondocks to pick it up again, the driver offered to assist us with everything if we could unload the pod that day and save him a trip.

So unload the pod that day we did. Of course, this being the South in August, it was approximately 127 degrees that morning (luckily the humidity was kept at bay), so the men looked like they’d been swimming by the time everything we own had been transferred from the container into the unit. (I was the conductor…too many cooks spoil the broth and all that jazz.)

And, miraculously, not a thing was scratched, cracked or even dirtied up. You can’t ask for better service than that!

It took a full two hours, and I’ll admit there were times when I thought our stuff wasn’t going to fit into storage. Logically, that didn’t make sense of course, as our container was smaller at 16′ x 8′ but still it was a tight squeeze.

I will say that while I previously noted that our stuff came in just under the 8,500-pound weight limit, the driver on this side showed us the actual total…

10,000 pounds! Can you even believe it?! How on Earth we crammed 10,000 pounds worth of crap—after we sold a lot of our furniture and ran five car loads over to Goodwill at that—into a 1,000-square-foot San Francisco apartment is beyond me. But we did, so there. Maybe you should hire us to pack up your crap next time you move! (I kid, I kid…I never want to have to move again. Uh, until the spring, when we unload our storage unit and relocate everything once again to Nashville!)

A huge thanks to Pack Rat—and to our chivalrous driver who got nice and sweaty on our behalf—for transporting our life across country without a hitch!

*****

Full disclosure: For the purpose of reviewing their services, Pack Rat provided us with a 30% media discount. That said, all opinions are our honest experience with the company.

COMMENTS
  • August 17, 2011

    Congrats on reaching Nashville with everything all in one piece. What a great time of year to be moving with the weather being so nice and all ; ). Isn’t it amazing that every time you move, you kind of look at all this crap you’ve accumulated and wonder how it all got there. The last time we moved, I remember looking at the moving truck and thinking that if it crashed and burned that I wouldn’t have been that upset.

    • August 18, 2011
      Kristin

      I think when we move all of our stuff into Nashville in the spring (it’s in a storage unit about an hour away), I’m just going to hire someone to do all the heavy lifting on each end this time so we don’t even have to look at it all again!

  • August 17, 2011

    Holy crap! I can’t believe you packed so much stuff into that pod! It always amazes me how much can be accumulated without even knowing it. One of my favorite parts of moving is actually looking at what you have, going through it and purging. Although, it sounds like you did that and still ended up with 5 tons of stuff!

    • August 18, 2011
      Kristin

      Girl, I’d been purging since April! And we really did sell and give away a TON. So my mind is boggled that after that effort, we still own 10,000 pounds worth of crap!

  • August 18, 2011

    Congrats! So glad you are there and ready to go!

  • August 18, 2011

    good your move is running so smoothly! hope my upcoming move to melbourne will be as well…. 🙂

  • August 18, 2011

    Seeing that picture of all your stuff spread out makes me never want to move again. Thanks for making that decision for us 🙂

    • August 18, 2011
      Kristin

      I’m nothing if not service-y! 😉

  • August 18, 2011

    10,000 pounds?! No wonder the guys were sweaty after unloading all of that! I wonder how much all our stuff weighs now…I guess we’ll eventually find out whenever we move, but I’m guessing it’s nothing like 10,000 pounds, especially since most of my books are in the US.

    • August 18, 2011
      Kristin

      The fact that we have about five full bookcases didn’t help, I’m sure! I had planned to take a bunch of them to the used bookstore, but someone packed them before I could get to it… =)

      • August 18, 2011
        Auntie Joy

        one word: KINDLE! I dragged my feet for quite awhile before finally caving and buying one. Now I can’t imagine how I lived withOUT it. What tipped the scale for me was when I learned that I could store audio books on it. I’m a big audio book fan, listen to them while I clean house, wait in the dentist’s office, drive (it plugs into my car stereo!), whatever.
        The other thing that has struck me about your move: 10,000 pounds. Holy cow. That’s 5,000 pounds of STUFF apiece. FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS. Ancient people probably had around oh, maybe a hundred pounds of stuff. Perhaps we can measure how far our civilization has advanced by the weight of stuff that each person hauls around? Whatever. Glad you made it safely, glad everything was delivered and stored without any casualties.

        • August 18, 2011
          Kristin

          We have two Kindles and an iPad! Unfortunately, we also owned A LOT of books pre-2009 when e-readers came along 😉

          If status is determined based on weight of possessions, then I think we must be royalty!

  • August 18, 2011

    You guys had every square inch of that pod filled!

    • August 18, 2011
      Kristin

      That talent is coming in handy as we fill every last square inch of our suitcases for four months at sea!

  • August 18, 2011
    Rebecca (Bearca)

    Moving is THE WORST. Never again. (Well, not anytime soon, at least!)

    Glad all your stuff arrived!

  • August 18, 2011

    Hooray! Glad it all arrived safe and sound.

    Also? Happy you’ll be closer now.

  • August 18, 2011

    Congrats on a safe arrival. If you get tired of paying for your storage locker, check out an episode of Storage Wars

  • August 18, 2011

    I now have the strongest urge to know how much everything *I* own weighs.

    • August 18, 2011
      Kristin

      Oooh competition? You’re on! 😉

  • August 19, 2011

    Wow that is a lot of stuff! And you guys were so lucky that everything arrived unscathed, that must be a new record! After all that unpacking in the heat, it sounds like it’s about time for a nice cold beer….. :0)

  • August 19, 2011

    Yay for nothing being ruined during the move!!!

  • August 20, 2011

    Holy crap, that was nice of the driver! We usually have to bribe family members to come help us, or just do it ourselves. Sounds like things went as smoothly as a cross-country move can go!

  • August 21, 2011

    Wow. 10, 000 pounds. It makes me want to weigh all of my stuff. Coincidentally, I am doing an annual “for fall” clean and try to routinely rid of old magazines and books periodically to save the hassle of doing it if I move. But still, I never realized how much paper I had. It always seems to pile up! But at least you don’t have to worry about your stuff. 🙂

    • September 1, 2011
      Kristin

      I’d say 9,000 of those 10,000 pounds were probably all my books and magazines, HA. And I did a HUGE purge–many, many runs to Goodwill–before we left, too!

  • August 22, 2011

    That sounds like hell. I am so glad I now only own enough possessions for 2 rubbermaid containers.

  • August 22, 2011

    Wowza. 10K pounds?!?! Impressive. So, when I pack my stuff up/move it wherever, I’m so calling you. And 1800PACKRAT.

    • September 1, 2011
      Kristin

      Happy to help if it means an excuse to come out to Vegas!

  • August 22, 2011

    Yikes! 10,000 pounds?!?! That’s a lot of pack-ratting… 🙂

    • September 1, 2011
      Kristin

      And I don’t even consider us hoarders either! I blame it on my husband’s garage-worth of tools =)

  • August 27, 2011

    Excellent work! So glad you made it safely and with all that stuff!

  • August 29, 2011

    Such a relief when everything makes it! I’ve had some bad experiences myself…

  • August 30, 2011

    OMG I can’t even imagine how intense that would be. I just helped my friends move a few blocks away last weekend. It was so painful haha. There is really SO much to do!

  • September 1, 2011

    Isn’t it weird to think that you guys lifted 10k pounds?!

    • September 1, 2011
      Kristin

      HA! I was wondering why my muscles have been bulging 😉

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