Yahoo, Arizona! I never thought I would ever say that!

On Sunday, November 6, we finally made it out of California and into a snowy Arizona. REALLY??? What was the big hurry to leave sunny, warm California? We must have been nuts! Now my new fear wasn't getting a flat tire in the middle of the desert (which most of you know the desert gives me anxiety attacks!), but it was that poor Mr. Bojangles, my little Betta fish, was going to freeze to death! I had to somehow keep him warm in this freezing cold weather. So while Jeff was roasting from the RV heat cranked up to a toasty 78 degrees, Mr. Bojangles was lovin' life! We eventually wound up in Winslow, Arizona, where I used to spend a lot of time when I lived in Phoenix and dated a guy from Winslow. most of you probably know Winslow from the Eagles song "Take It Easy", where they were..."standin' on a corner in Winslow Arizona". I'm not sure why ANYONE would want to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona because there is not much to do there, nor is it a scenic place, but we did spend our first night in an official RV park at the Homolovi State Ruins, where ancestral puebloan pit dwellings (huh??? holes in the ground where ancient indians used to live) were discovered about 15 years ago. I actually visited the site 15 years ago with my father and grandmother and the site was loaded with artifacts. Because it was a new archaeological find, the site still had not been worked properly by archaeologists, so there were handwritten signs everywhere saying "Please do not take artifacts. It is a federal offense." Well of course when we got home, grandma reached into her pocket and pulled out a bunch of pottery sherds. Guess she didn't see the signs! Anyhow, Jeff and I chose to stay there for the archaeological aspect of it. What we didn't know was that the plains were freezing cold so no one else was there (see top pic). And it was loaded with coyotes that liked to howl ALL NIGHT LONG, so needless to say, I stayed up pretty much all night because of all the noise, out in the middle of nowhere! When we woke up in the morning, we attempted to visit some of the pit dwellings, but it was so cold and we actually had to watch out for quicksand...yes, QUICKSAND in AZ, that we finally left the ruins happily. The weather got progressively worse, and we decided it was now or never to drive through the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. I was freaking out about the weather since we were sliding all over the road in the RV, but we were assured by the locals that the lousy weather we were in was perfect for viewing the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. And from the top right photo, you can see that the Painted Desert was pretty spectacular! We continued on until it got dark and we were STILL in Arizona...so we found our second little RV park to crash for the night somewhere near the New Mexico border (we hoped). The animals and I were very happy to finally stop driving in the snow, and Jeff was glad I finally stopped saying, "Slow down, the road is slippery".

Finally left LA... but will we ever leave California???

Ok, so it took us a few months to get the RV and head out of town, but because we got such a late start on November 5th leaving Los Angeles, and of course we didn't take into consideration that there is always a $%@&load of traffic in LA, so our first night was spent somewhere very ugly near the state border (for proof of that see top picture!), and STILL in California! I was beginning to think that this move to North Carolina was NEVER going to happen! And to top it off, the animals were not diggin the RV the way Jeff and I were, so that was a drag. They were fine with it when we were parked for 2 days in Woodland Hills...and even more of a drag was the fact that after our very first night on the road, in the morning we discovered we had a problem with a tire. Luckily for us in the middle of the desert was an RV- WE FIX ANYTHING kind of place where they charged us only $350 for a single tire...this RV traveling was expensive...how did the rednecks do it??? While we were getting the tire fixed, Jeff decided it was time to "unload" (not sure if that is the correct RV jargon for dumping the toilet waste) the loads that were left in the RV by other people who had traveled in the RV before us...I mean, how much waste was there to unload just by us traveling overnight from LA to Barstow??? There was more waste in the kitty litter box, I'm sure. If you have ever seen the movie RV with Robin Williams, you will understand what happened next with Jeff trying to empty the waste tank. And how bizarre that it happened in the desert also! Jeff soon realized that the movie version of getting crapola all over you while trying to clean the waste tank is a very REAL thing...luckily for us, the RV-WE FIX ANYTHING place had a bathroom with running water, so Jeff was able to clean up and off we went, hopefully leaving California 3 days after we left our home in California.

Leaving Los Angeles...or not

We had no idea what a pain in the keister leaving Los Angeles would be. Jeff and I packed up my belongings during the whole month of October and we were still not ready on moving day (the original moving date was the end of August, which then turned into the end of September, then became October 31...oy vey!!). Still not ready after three months, we put the brakes on and told the moving company to hold the &%$#@*! up. Fed up already and NOWHERE near North Carolina, we took a break from the chaos and went to the movies.
After seeing a really bad movie that we don't even remember the name of, we called the moving company to request a new moving date of November 1. The crooks (I'll explain further on down the blog) informed us that they could move us on Wednesday, November 2, so we went with that. Frantically we rushed to get everything packed by noon on Wednesday, since our pick-up time was between 2-4. At 3:30pm on that day, I called them to see if they got lost. It was worse than getting lost. They said they had a mechanical issue with their truck and had to pick us up the next day, Thursday, November 3, by noon. What moving company has mechanical problems and doesn't have a replacement truck to do the job? Sounded like a bunch of bs! So that gave us an extra day to finish packing, but we also had the new tenants (Ashley & Tatiana) moving into my bedroom and office. Jeff and I discussed sleeping in the RV in front of my "former" apartment that I clearly was having a hard time leaving, but luckily the girls stayed elsewhere so we had one more night to pack.
Fast forward to moving day, Thursday afternoon at 1:30pm. We were sweating bullets as it was and hour and a half past our pick-up time (again), and we was getting worried that Royal Transportation was a scam (a bit of foreshadowing here!) Suddenly the doorbell rang ( so much for a security building) and I opened the door to a huge guy named Sam, who said he was the mover. Obviously I didn't let him know he was 1.5 hours late. He wanted to see all the stuff that he was going to move to North Carolina. After his 1 minute "inspection", he told us that we were going to pay a lot more money than the $1800 the moving crooks quoted us for moving if he took our stuff to a weigh station, and that we should just accept a verbal agreement with him to move everything for $2700. It was at that time that he realized he was dealing with a crazy Italian broad from Boston and we realized with were dealing with a scam company! After fighting with the moving company for about 2 hours, we knew they were holding us hostage, and we had to give in. All of our things were packed and needed to be moved that night, so we agreed to pay the additional money, which they upped to $2800 for the hell of it.
We finally got the RV moving around midnight. There was a slight problem with getting Talulah in the RV and she managed to jump out of my arms into the bushes where I had just seen a coyote a couple of days earlier (yes, a coyote in LA!). After a brief search and rescue, we got her in the RV. What else could go wrong on this trip that hadn't even begun yet? Luckily Jeff had disconnected the battery in the RV because the battery had died about three times that day with us using up so much juice with lights on so we could see at night, so after having AAA come out and start us up, we were ready to go. But like I said, it was already midnight, so instead of heading east to North Carolina like we had planned, we headed even farther west to Woodland Hills, where we spent 2 nights "roughing it" in front of Jeff's friend's house where we were able to plug in, get electricity, and still figure out how to deal with an RV. Talulah finally got used to the RV while we sat in Woodland Hills for 2 days (see top picture). Hopefully all three cats and the the fish, Mr. Bojangles, would be that relaxed throughout the entire trip...(foreshadowing here!)
So after planning on leaving Los Angeles on August 31st, we finally ended up leaving Studio City on November 3, only to get to a farther west destination. Oy vey! On Saturday November 5th, around 4pm, we officially left LA, but we hit the traffic on the 101 and actually got out of LA around 6pm. Our first night in the RV on the road was spent still in CALIFORNIA!!