So, that happened

Well, look at that! In some sort of bizarre folding of space and time, I now live in Portland instead of the Bay Area.

The move went pretty well, but yeah .. I had a lot of stuff. I ordered a 12-foot truck but was given a 16-footer instead. The movers said I probably wouldn't have fit in a smaller truck, though I DID wind up just tossing in some furniture I'd intended to get rid of, so there was some leeway they didn't know about. On the other end of the trip I'd booked a 5x10 storage unit, and man is that thing stuffed to the gills!

The actual trip was reasonably painless. A friend was driving my car, and I drove the truck (aren't I brave? well no, not really - the truck's cab was air conditioned, so I kinda screwed my friend! ...I did offer to trade later on but he declined). I'd estimated we'd be pulling out of my driveway at 3pm on move day (Thursday), and we would have been perfect except for when I obeyed my building manager's instructions and locked my keys in my apartment...but I forgot to free my car from the locked garage first! And we didn't realize it until we'd exited the building! Fortunately my friend got the mail carrier to let him into the building and I was able to track down one of the few people home on a weekday afternoon, and he opened the garage for me. Whew! So that only delayed our start by about 15 minutes.

The first day we drove as far as Redding (about four hours north), arriving around 8pm. Friday we had a leisurely morning, first in Redding hanging out with our host, and then about an hour north in the scenic town Dunsmuir. Our goal was Corvallis, and we arrived around 8:30pm. On Saturday we had another slow start to the day,  having breakfast with our host, and headed north around 11. We rolled into my storage unit just south of town at 12:45, and two friends met us there at 1.

Unloading the truck took just over an hour - I'm SO grateful to have had help! - and the unit is literally full to the ceiling. I could possibly extract things if I must, but hopefully I can just let it sit there until I am ready to move.

Then my friends came to my new digs and helped unload the last of my stuff, and we got beer.

I'm renting a room from a friend and it's taking a little time to get it organized - my clothes are unpacked, and the ingredients for a delicious drink a friend taught me, but otherwise I have boxes and last night I slept on a bedroll on the floor, since my host's air mattress was killing my back. Tomorrow, my new mattress arrives and I may never get up again!

Working from home is going pretty well, though I have to work out a better ergonomic situation. Settling into Portland doesn't feel at all real yet... I will write more about that later.