To make a really long back story short, it has taken us a whole month to get our apartment. We finally got it, and since they are not open on Memorial Day Move Day, we left this morning to go get our keys and sign our papers. We also had to drive two cars so we could leave one up because we will be driving a truck on Monday and don't have enough drivers for our two cars. We set off at 10:30 this morning...just after we woke up and got our lunches packed. As I tried to pop "Manla" (Kung Fu Panda) into my computer for Emma to watch her movie, my computer decided not to play any sound. There goes the entertainment idea! Awesome #1! About 35 miles from home, we came to a complete stop on the 17. The sign said that there was a crash ahead. After 30 min of waiting, we turned off our cars so they wouldn't overheat or waste gas. When the crash was cleared away (an hour later) and we could start moving, Ammon's car wouldn't start. Awesome #2! So I pull my car around backwards on the freeway so the noses of our cars touch (there's like 0 room with the guardrail). About 45 min later, his car FINALLY turned over. Since I didn't know how to turn around the right direction on the freeway with cars zooming passed, I decided to reverse until the guardrail disappeared and there was a big enough shoulder for my lil maneuver. Although we were now 2 hours behind schedule, we weren't super stressed. Emma was getting cranky, but could be worse. When we were 30 miles outside of Flagstaff, my car's temperature started climbing, and Ammon called and said I was leaking fluid. I pulled over just as the engine light came on. We looked under the hood to find a random drenched rag and my coolant draining like the dickens! Awesome #3! We didn't have time to play with my car because we were worried about turning Ammon's car off or having it overheat, so we moved everything into his car and set off for our apartment. Tired, but in one piece, we pull into the apartment office parking spots. Emma runs up to the door and tries to open it, but it's locked. The sign says they are closed and the times listed for office hours said that they closed at 2 on Saturdays. It's now 2:30. Awesome #4! Ammon tried calling the office. No one answered, but the answering machine said they were open til 5 on Saturdays, and distinctly remembers the woman who was going to meet us say that she would be there til 5. Luckily, only a few minutes later, that same woman pulled up and said she had a feeling that we didn't get the memo that they changed their office hours recently. Nope. Clearly not. Luckily she was nice enough to let us in, sign our papers, and give us our keys! Woohoo! Our luck is turning! So we entered our apartment...love it! It's newly painted, re-carpeted, and clean! So nice! We head out to check our mail because we're expecting some important mail. There are 216 mailboxes in the apartment complex. "No problem", we think. We'll just use #201 cuz our apartment number is 15201. Nope. Nice try. Luckily someone was checking their mail at the same time and said they discovered which mailbox was theirs by trying every single box. Awesome #5! Whatever. Fine. So we try all 216 boxes. Nope! None work. Of course not! We give up, jump in the car, and head out to find coolant. After grabbing coolant, we get back on the 17 in search of my car. Luckily we remembered it was at mile marker 310. Unluckily, the freeway's opposing lanes are not anywhere near each other at that mile marker. The next exit that we could turn around was 20 miles down the road. Awesome! We are not driving an extra 40 miles with cranky pants in the back seat. So, we decide to magically hop sides at the next available spot. We see one shortly after marker 315, but drive passed it. Realizing that we've already dominated the freeway today, we decided to again pull the reverso 5,000 and make our magical hop-skip-and-a-jump! Finally we find my car, add the coolant, attach some weirdo hose that seemed to be loose ("It looks like it should go...here"), pray that our car makes it to our apartment, and then set out. We went about 20 mph under the speed limit the whole way back to ensure no more overheating. We park my car in the apartment lot, and set off for home. Just as we arrive into the Phoenix valley, I remind Ammon of the photo radars. "I'm pretty sure I already got one". Awesome #6. Finally, 10 hours later, we arrive home with our mission accomplished! Only 6 hours longer than we wanted, and a million more dollars than we wanted to spend. Awesome! Oh, and did I mention that the Suns lost? Awesome #7!
The lesson learned? SOMEONE doesn't want us in Flagstaff. Whatever SOMEONE, you were dominated today!
Next challenge? Getting our internet to work sooner than the appointment we have for 2 weeks from now so Ammon can keep studying for the bar.
