JUST GET OFF THIS FREEWAY!

Thursday evening Laura arrived in the evening and with help from Cyndi, Kris and our parents we managed to load almost every little thing into the U-Haul. It was packed tightly with a love seat, a chair and a half, two beds, two mattresses and box springs, my dresser, shelves, lamps, crates boxes and loose clothing in the dresser drawers. It took us probably an hour to load but we were proud of the neat and efficient job we did. Then we met all went to Melting Pot and met Amy and Jason for some goodbye pizza, wings and beer.

Friday morning we all got up as early as we could. We boarded Jake's dog and Laura's friend Katie met us and we hit the road. Laura and Katie took Laura's parents Buick and Jake and I were in the U-Haul. It was a long cloudy drive to NY. Everything went pretty boring at first. Jake and I played 20 questions and Catchphrase and talked. Laura and Katie had gotten a head start on us while we were taking Oren to the kennel so they were about an hour ahead.

We had gotten our directions from Google Maps and Laura and Katie arrived at our new place and called back to us on the NJ Turnpike to clarify some points with us. We pulled into the toll line at the Holland Tunnel and were so close to arriving around 3 at our apartment giving us plenty of daylight to unpack and return the truck. What a good moving day we were going to have. When we got up to the window though the toll taker told us that trucks were not allowed in the Holland Tunnel and we would have to pull forward to the waiting police officers for further instructions. Oh no! We pulled up and the police asked us to open the truck!! Yikes. When opened the only thing visible was mattresses. He asked what else was in the truck and I told him housewares and that we were moving and thankfully he let us go without actually searching it. This is great news and was helped, I think, by my girly behavior when opening the door latch on the back of the truck.

The officer told us we would have to redirect to the Lincoln Tunnel and made it seem to us as though it would be simple and evident when we got there how to get to Brooklyn. He also made it seem like the tunnel was very close by. We followed his directions to get to the tunnel. We trucked along a bit and I got out the handy dandy road atlas mom had stuffed into the truck cab that morning. Of course we missed the tunnel the first time by and ended up way out in NJ, but we got to see the Meadowlands! We stopped at a service station for directions, turned around and finally found the tunnel. We could feel that we were really close to getting there now!

When we finally got through the mayhem at the tunnel we found ourselves in MIDTOWN MANHATTAN. Also there were no signs for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel or any other thing related to Brooklyn. At all. And we were in a U-Haul! Yikes! I used the map to get us from the tunnel to the other side of Manhattan. The streets were gridded and things were pretty simple so far. Well not simple, we were driving a box truck in midtown Manhattan after all. Now we needed to find a bridge to Brooklyn. I found the Williamsburg bridge on the map and managed to direct Jake there but when we found it we were beneath it. We turned back toward Lower East Side Manhattan and snaked through one ways to get to where the bridge began. We followed signs all the way up to a nice jersey-walled dead end. So we backtracked, backtracked, lefted and righted until we got on the bridge. The bridge led us to the Brooklyn/Queens expressway at rush hour. Awesome. THEN there was a break in the Jersey walls where you had to cut across to go to Brooklyn or stay in the lane we were in to go to Queens. We couldn't possibly make that cut in the U-Haul so I told Jake, its ok, we'll find a way off this freeway and turn back once we were in Queens. That opportunity didn't come to us until we had already hit the Bronx. We got off in the Bronx and then I learned that a general road atlas will not help you find surface streets to get you to your apartment in Brooklyn. I called Laura pretty frantic and she guided me through Queens into Brooklyn.

Now we just had to take one road to a stop light and turn left into our neighborhood. Hallelujah! We could just TELL we were going to be there really soon! We followed the road and just like Laura had told us it led almost right up to our neighborhood but just before we got to where we could turn a car pulled up beside us and shouted that we couldn't go that way. No commercial vehicles and we would definitely get a ticket.

Before I go on I should tell you about the mood inside the cab of the truck. I have a terrific boyfriend and I love him so and he loves me too. However, we came very close to killing each other on Friday. Everything was funny when we couldn't go through the tunnel. It was cool when I accidentally directed us to the Meadowlands. Things were tense through Midtown and nobody was happy around the Williamsburg Bridge but by the time we got on the expressway to the Bronx I was crying and I definitely screamed 'JUST GET OFF THIS FREEWAY' in the kind of tone people usually reserve for phrases like 'SOMEBODY SAVE MY BABY' or 'YOUR HAIR IS ON FIRE!'. So by the time this man shouted up to us that we, once again, would not be able to follow the directions we had to get to the apartment I was just plain desperate. I told him we needed to get to Beverly St and when he told me we'd have to take a service road I shouted down ' Can you LEAD us to Beverly St????'

And he did. He lead us off onto the service road and almost all the way to my street. He got out at every couple lights to come back to the truck and tell us where he was going next and he wouldn't take any cash from us. What an angel.

When we finally got to our building it was dark and Laura and Katie had been there hours, unpacked her whole car and eaten supper. We double parked the U-Haul and unloaded it into the lobby. Laura and I decided to return the U-Haul so that Jake could have a break and so that Laura could use the maps and her superior knowledge of the area to save me from feeling lost anymore that day. So after all that I actually DROVE the U-Haul in New York City myself. Something I never thought I'd do. When we got back to the apartment we were all exhausted. We had some beers and champagne and chatted and played Catchphrase. Then we went to bed for our first night in our new home.