This last month has been CRAZY for Josh and I! We moved twice, bought a Raptor, got engaged, and ended up in Indiana. I promise all these things will be documented here on this blog in due time :-) For now, here is the story of how we left North Dakota:
For the last month or so we knew that Josh's job was going to be coming to an end in North Dakota. Around that same time we found out that Josh got a new job in Indiana. Great news right?! Well, it was and it wasn't. First, it is very nice to have jobs lined up. BUT when there is very little time in between them it is hard to move and get things organized. What made the situation even more difficult was the fact that Uncle Shorty needed his RV back (the one we had been living in for the past 8 months) *Booooo!* because he was going out on the job in Indiana too *yeah!*
Also, Josh's job in ND had some sweet bonuses BUT you had to "finish" the project in order to get them. The first one is that they give you a $80/day bonus (so everyday that you work you get an extra $80 and it comes in one lump sum) and then the second one was a flat $2,000 check. Between the two bonuses Josh was going to get well over $10,000 so we really needed him to "finish" the project.
Needless to say we had a lot on our hands: we needed that bonus, we needed to get Shorty's RV back to Wisconsin, we needed a place to live, and we needed to get to Indiana ASAP!
Can you imagine the stress?!
Well ,Josh's job ended just in time and he got the bonus checks! Score! So we could mark one thing off the list.
Even though we had a lot on our hands (where would we live once we got to Indiana? How would we get there?!) we really needed to focus on getting the RV ready for transportation back to WI.
Shorty told Josh that he could drive it back (such a trusting guy) to Wisconsin so that Shorty didn't have to come all the way out to ND (a 9 hour drive) just to pick it up and then drive all the way back.
So, Josh started getting the RV ready while I packed our things on the inside so they would be easier to move out of the RV once it got back to Wisconsin. Done and done. Pretty easy.
[I moved all of our movies into a CD case to save space]
The hard part came when Josh was trying to get the RV slides (2 of them) to come in and the motor decided to die on us! You can't move an RV with the slides out! What will we do?! We called Shorty and explained the situation. He and Josh talked on the phone all day and tried all the tricks in the book but nothing worked and the clock was ticking! Shorty then decided to grab one of his buddies and to head our direction. While they were driving out here our neighbors at the RV park came home and offered to help us. They tried a few different things too and nothing worked. Ugh. I was on the verge of tears! Then someone suggested that we use "man power" and push the slides in manually. We all lined up and pushed like crazy! And guess what?! It worked! With their help we were able to get both slides in! Booyah!
[Josh standing next to the large slide that was stuck]
[We had to remove the couch in order to get a crank in the floor to help us pull in the slide]
[Good ole "man power"]
[All in and ready to go!]
We called Shorty and told him the good news. He was really happy and told us to get on the road and we will meet halfway. We scrambled to get things ready and then headed out.
[Last meal in ND]
[All ready to go]
[I felt bad leaving our spot in such a mess but our neighbors offered to clean it up for us. Such nice guys! Pipeline people form a family and really watch out for each other!]
[Josh filling up with gas (it cost $300 to fill up that beast!)]
[And yes, he towed the Silverado]
[I pass this little red barn all the time and I love it! It's leaning a little and it has such character. I'm going to miss it!]
[Josh following me]
We met Shorty and his friend just a few hours down the road (they could go a lot faster then we could). By this time it was 11:30 PM Saturday (August 24th) night and we were exhausted! Shorty and his friend took the RV and headed back to Wisconsin (they were both truck drivers at one point so pulling an all-nighter was in their blood) and left us on the border of MN and ND to find a hotel for the night.
Phew!
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