Safe in Austin
Mar 24 2013

Dear Old Bolds, Family, and Friends,

Under a beautiful full moon I'm writing you from Austin, safe and sound. I sent this photo from beautiful Butterfield Station along the way, about at the half way mark, but I don't think it got to you.

Believe me, this was about the most interesting landmark along the route. I am astounded at the stagecoach stops throughout the desert. How in the heck did they do it back then?

I don't mind saying it now that I'm here, but among the dumb things I have done in my life (and there is a very long list) doing the three-day drive alone pulling an overloaded trailer was about one of the dumbest.

I prided myself on saving a thousand dollars on my move to Texas by renting a trailer instead of having all my stuff shipped. When I picked my 6'x12' trailer up on Saturday, and only then, the UHaul guy informed me I could load a maximum of 1600 lbs in it!

Doing a quick calculation in my head, I realized I had just inventoried about 50 boxes of books (research for my books, and an extensive WW2 collection thanks to some of my Old Bold friends) at about 50 lbs each. I was about to load 3000 lbs. Easily.

What to do? Be smart and try to arrange another solution, say renting a truck and pulling my truck behind it, or getting a last-minute POD container?

Nope, the obvious solution was full-steam ahead.

Once the truck and trailer were loaded I nervously eyed the hitch and rear end of my truck, dipping dangerously close to the ground, and off I went, sticking to the 55 mph maximum when hauling a trailer, just like Dad taught me.

Somewhere around 600 miles out into the God-forsaken, prickly-pear-cactus, red-earth, Tombstone-esque landscape, I noticed that 4 - yes, 4 - of the trucks and trailers that had just blown past me doing 80 mph had blown tires in the span of a couple of miles. All were men (surprise?), and seemed to have some sort of plan to handle the situation, so I didn't stop. But I did notice that there was no cell phone reception, and even if there had been, just where would you tell someone to come? I hadn't been counting mile markers, and exits were about every 50 miles or so at that point. Just exactly how would I get help if something happened, and how long would it take help to get there?

That's when I started to pray - hard. Called in all my angels and sent a special request into Dad up there to cast some white light over me and my poor truck. And pretty much for all the rest of my trip (after the 9 hours to Phoenix, 10 hours to El Paso, and 11.5 hours to Austin) I was a deep religious convert.

It must have done some good because I made it safely. And outside of sneezing throughout the entire state of New Mexico (must be allergic to the state!), failing to find a coffee shop in the first five hundred miles of Texas (Texas - This is no way to welcome visitors to your state), and driving around Texas with California license plates both Truck and I have suffered no long-term damage.

Now that I'm here I'm off and running to set up shop, at least for a little
while.

I'll check in with you as soon as the next adventure starts (won't be very
long)

All my love from Texas,

Heather
               

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