I wanna get crazily creative....: August 2012

It was a stressful month for both of us. Being on vacation to celebrate my birthday on the much desired island and getting back home to find that you have just a week more to go in the current job is a painstakingly frustrating feeling. It was. Almost at the same time, the Manager at the leasing office lets out the apartment to another tenant. Oh boy... It's 4 days to be the end of the month!!! We had to pack, sell furniture ( no more shifting huge furniture for a price that costs higher than the furniture itself!), find another short term lease in an apartment, clean the apartment and finally move. All these in 4 days. Ah, most importantly with the tiredness and headache of driving 7 hours back home.

The move seemed unachievable to me. But finding another suitable job seemed the most difficult to him. He brushed aside all these small things and concentrated on looking for a new job. I went roaming on Craigslist to jot down a few probable apartment /homes for short term lease, especially in month- month terms. This too did not take good shape as I found just a handful of people letting their house for month-month. Most of them never did anything other than eating/working/sleeping during the bitter cold winter months ( Oct - April) in WI, let alone moving from one apt to the other.

Finally we met 3 people, saw their places in 2 days. Nothing worked out. We booked for the move with a local mover not knowing where are we moving!!! On the day before, we found a place in a decent community according to our terms and booked it right away. I cannot ignore the fortune and luck we had in selling our furniture. By HIS grace, all of a sudden on the day of move, I get a call from a guy asking if we still had the furniture that was listed on CL. Oh boy, things could never have been better than this one. He waited patiently for an hour for me to get back from work, just the same time as movers came in. We put the movers on hold ; gave him sometime to decide on the price. He came to pick up one stuff and he ended up picking Sofa, fridge, Mattress, Dining table at a very decent price. Though we knew we sold it for 50% of the actual price after using it for a year, we were glad that we got rid of all the big stuff forever!

And then our move happened. We knew we will live there for not more than 5 days and lo, we did outlive those many days! yeah, we lived there for 2 weeks.
Meanwhile, he had to find a job, wrap the old one properly. I had to find another state-state mover for my kitchen and daily use things which was unbelievably hard to find. At some point we wished we could discard everything and just move with our clothes. But we found a way out - UPS!

Last 4 days:
Day 1: It was the last day of his job. He was overwhelmed by the affection that WI people is known for. They showered him with blessings through emails and gave away cookies and sweets on his behalf. Some were so disappointed to see him go. He was on cloud nine for the affection shown but sad to be off job.
Day 2: Yay, my smarty found a job. He is a smart fella.... We did all the UPS research, inquired about the cost of shipping, storing etc. Packed all the stuff yet again in new moving boxes from Walmart which seemed to be JUNK! Better buy the strong Uline boxes which are meant to go through UPS standards.
Day 3: Shipped boxes, discarded quite a few items like Microwave, fan, table, chair and small things that did not fit in boxes or car. Left all my plants (Cilantro, Fenugreek greens, Basil, yellow Rose which was to bloom in 2 days and an unknown flowering plant)
Day 4 and 5: Since early morning we tried dumping all possible stuff in car - dumped - i mean it. We could just see the rear view mirror and side mirrors. That was it. Trashed a huge amount of stuff as I had no time to give it away to friends, charity, etc. (I did this when I moved the first time) cause we were already late. 9.30 am: We left the city in WI. Had a sumptuous breakfast at 10.30am in IHOP. And drove for 4 hours... Chicago was where we saw immovable traffic. That was half an hour. Luckily we crossed that and now, I took turn to drive. We moved from WI to Illinois to Indiana. It was the first drive for me in consecutive interstate freeway. Indiana had the best roads. The sun was blazing. The drive was smooth being a weekday with just a few trucks. We made a stop at 3.00 pm at Indianapolis in a subway to grab a bowl of salad and a sub to quench our thirst for fresh, juicy, crunchy stuff in that heat. 3.00 pm was indeed too late and we still had to drive to Nashville where our next stay was due.

The sight from Indianapolis/Indiana to Louisville/Tennessee was in fact a feast to the eyes. It was just green all over. And the freeway was more of a country side road! This hindered our schedule. My husband enjoyed his drive through this greenery and we were reminded of the very flourishing Indian sub continent. On reaching Louisville, we were taken aback by the infrastructure this city had to offer. The university was so much bigger than what I have seen in WI. Well laid roads, well lit streets. Thank God for summer, we saw the sun set at 9.30 pm. Our next break was at Louisville - KFC. We have always dreamed of the southern delicacy - Fried chicken, baked bean, corn cob and pop soda (Coca cola).
At 7.00pm we had a tasty (much better than any KFC ) fried chicken, baked bean and buttermilk biscuit here for dinner. By now, the accent had changed. It was very different from the ones that we were used to. Was certainly difficult to understand at once!

Then yet again I took turn to drive from Louisville to Nashville. Believe me, after an hour of crossing Louisville I was surrounded by trucks. Massive, monstrous creatures who were driving like they were in a motor race! Oh my! I was scared... There was this truck who was competing with me insanely. By now, we saw the sun set. All of a sudden the truck which was competing with me was chased by a cop and he was given a speeding ticket and guess what - the rest of all the trucks slowed down to their normal speed and I heaved a sigh of relief ! All was well until the darkness took toll on me with too many road works at Tennessee. I lost my way and went into a tunnel :O

And then I quit - I could not take the confusion anymore. Poor hubby took care of it and drove the rest of 3 hours to get to Nashville, TN. It was 12.30 am and we reached our destination. As you know, we were warned not to leave any stuff outside in our car. Since we could no way unpack and repack the things in car, we parked it overnight and kept worrying over it all through the night. True to my nature, I fell deep asleep and my hubby took turns to see if things were alright. The next morning, after a cup of coffee , egg and cheese sandwich, we left Nashville/TN. 6 longs hours to go before we reach our actual place. But driving out of Nashville was a challenge in it's own way. There was a traffic jam at peak office hour and fortunately we took the highway that was not popular among office goers! :D
Hold your breath. We saw a sight of jammed cars and trucks in a stretch of 5 miles which were crawling inch by inch. Can you visualize it? I shall upload the insane picture very soon. The roads were downhill and we were zooming at the maximum possible speed. Took a water/Restroom break at a park on the way with too many dogs as compared to human beings.LOL

We were about to enter Georgia.On the way we found the most beautiful city - Chattanooga!!! Chattanooga was on the border of TN and GA.We had not heard about either the river Chattahoochee or the city on the river so appropriately named after the river. The sight of this city was breathtaking. We stopped by to have fresh fish in a posh IT park area in a restaurant named "The blue water grill" http://www.bluewatergrill.com/. The food was as high in taste as the check was in dollars.Placed an order for Mahi Mahi - beer battered and charcoal grilled with Rice pilaf and bread. It came with a portion of squash (Zucchini and butternut squash) stir fry. We thoroughly enjoyed every morsel of it. But I would certainly not recommend this restaurant for a happy couple like us who were greeted and served by sober waitresses. As if they were mourning some loss.

After that lunch stop, we were determined to reach Atlanta. The first unexpected sight after we crossed the border was the number of trees. We surely did not expect it to be crowded with trees forming a canopy. The condition of roads as we moved in to Atlanta started worsening! LOL...
Infrastructure offered is directly proportional to the money collected from common man in the form of Tax. The last 1 hour of drive was strenuous as we were becoming impatient. Crazy irresponsible driving added to the woes. At last we found the place we booked to stay and we went in to check - in.

We met the receptionist who was so observant - she instantly noticed that we were dead tired of travelling. She asked us if we were directly coming from India!!! After an exchange of few talks, we were happy to meet someone from WI who moved in here before 18 years! She was so excited to see/meet us. After all, lots to discuss about the snow - that snow which we wanted to escape from - that snow which is found not more than an inch in Georgia and that too once in 10 years!

The rest of the story is all filled with finding a place to live. We live next to the same "CHATTAHOOCHEE" river. How nice is that?!

These are such memories that we shall hold them in us forever. The pictures that we have taken with our eyes are one step ahead of those that came out of the camera lens. They are a treasure to us.