PCS (Army for "Travel Saga")

Saturday:

Got up at 3:30 and took a taxi to the airport.
Flew from San Antonio to Chicago and then on to Raleigh.

Ruth and her dad picked me up at the airport while the kids, mom, and Sheldon stayed with the moving truck at a nearby gas station.

From there we said our good-bye's and I said my hello's with a much needed kiss from Ruth. I took the boys in the truck with me and Ruth had the girls in the van. We had to weigh the truck and van both empty and full since the Army bases their moving pay on the weight moved. Ruth had weighed the truck empty before I got home. We stopped pretty soon to weigh the truck full but the van still had a full tank of gas so we wanted to get rid of some of it before we weighed it.

We stopped in Winston-Salem and visited with our friends from Johnson City - they had moved the same time as us to do a residency. We had a good visit and our kids had a good time.

The weigh station was just past Asheville where we would be heading north to Johnson City. That meant we'd have to backtrack a little but at that point it seemed like the best option. By the time we got there I was just about out of gas. As I pulled into the gas station all the pumps were blocked off. It turns out that the whole town (3-4 gas stations) were completely out of gas. The truck was so low on gas that I didn't dare drive it the 10 miles back to Asheville so after taking everything out of the van so that we could weigh it empty we all piled back in and left the moving truck there. The first gas station we got to was only 5-6 miles away and they had both gas and diesel!! Yeah!! We bought a small fuel container and filled it up with diesel to take back to the truck.

In the end it all worked out and we arrived at Johnson City, albeit a little later than we'd hoped. I think we went to bed around 1:30 that night.

Sunday:

We went to church with our old ward in Johnson City. It was fun to see our old friends. The kids did well in primary and we were on the road by 1:00ish. We drove to Paducah KY where we stayed the night.

Monday:

We slept in a little and took our time getting ready. We were on the road by 10:30 or so. It was fun to see the Arch of St. Louis as we drove through. We arrived at Ft. Leonard Wood around 5:00 that afternoon. We checked into our hotel and then went on base to see if I could "sign in" so that we could stop the old "travel clock".

I guess we got there too late to officially sign in but I found out where I had to be the next morning for an inprocessing brief. So we drove around Ft. L.W. and got a better look at the place.

We stayed in a suite that night since we weren't sure how long we'd be without a place to live. It was pretty nice. It had a little kitchen and Ruth and I had our own bedroom and TV.

I'm glad our traveling is over for the time being.