I promised people that I would write a blog post about how the move went. So here I am trying to remember all the details. Sorry, there will be few (if any) pictures in this post. I will try and post some later. Our apartment still looks like lots of boxes and loads of laundry to do. And this will probably be a long post.
Our move was a multifaceted move. It was kind of complicated. For dental school the first date that the schools are allowed to tell you if you got accepted is December 1st. Ryan got into 3 schools the first day, fortunately, but he was graduating in a few weeks and we were moving to California for the winter to work and we weren't sure where we were going to accept. A friend suggested that since the weather was bad (although it turned out to be an incredibly mild winter by Idaho standards) and we were just going to put our things in a storage unit once we got to California anyways, that we just store them in Rexburg. So we decided since storage units in Rexburg cost about half of what they cost in California where Ryan's parents live (we stayed with them over the winter until we moved out here) and that way we didn't have to rent a U-haul and move in December, that it was a good idea. So we stored our things in Rexburg.
So we made a decision on schools. Michigan had the best program and even paying out of state tuition was the cheapest option. Since there is all this talk about the student debt bubble that is supposed to pop soon we thought we should try and get in the least amount of debt we could. So we paid a deposit and started making plans. Things actually turned out better than we thought because we had some friends also get into U of M dental and they were still living in Rexburg. So we decided to get a shipping container together and split costs. We looked at several other options and felt like this one would work the best. So Ryan and I drove to Rexburg. We ran into some car problems on the way and had to stop in Twin Falls and spend the night. We got up the next morning and finished the drive. Once we got to Rexburg it was taking care of errands and getting rid of things we decided not to take to Michigan. The shipping container came and we started packing like mad. Those were some very long days. I wish I had taken a picture of the packing process, because it was kind of insane, but unfortunately I didn't.
We were throwing the last couple boxes in when the driver showed up to pick up the shipping container. We finished and locked up and watched as he drove away. It was one of those feelings like when you get done with finals. It was so stressful and was all you spent all day doing and thinking about. Then it's over and you're not quite sure what to do with yourself and all that adrenaline you have built up to cope. I turned to our friends and said, "well, now we have to go to Michigan because all of our stuff is going there."
We helped our friends clean their apartment and spent Memorial Day weekend in Utah saying goodbye to family and friends. We drove back to Rexburg for the last time and spent one day finalizing things and then left on Tuesday. Tuesday night we stayed in Casper, Wyoming. We drove through Targhee National forest that day. There were feet,
feet, of fresh snow as we went through. I sent a picture to my sister and told her that I vowed never to complain about Rexburg weather again. The next day we went and saw Devil's Tower in Wyoming and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and spent the night in Mitchell, SD. Let me tell you, those black hills of South Dakota are worth going to see. The last full day of driving was a blur of states. That day we went through what we had left of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and stayed in South Bend, Indiana. It was a very long day and we drove right into a storm system in Illinois and Indiana. It was scary driving. The last day was only about 4 hours of driving before we made it to Ann Arbor.
We got to our apartment complex and had to fill out paperwork and show proof of insurance and things like that. I had asked the people at the apartment complex before we moved if I could send them all the necessary paperwork for us to move in and they said just bring it when you come. So you can imagine my frustration when we arrived and they said we don't have your paperwork. Fortunately, I could access the information from a computer, but it was still frustrating. As we were trying to pull up the information on the computers in the clubhouse we got frustrated at how slow they were working, which was almost not at all. There were two guys sitting on some of the other computers. One noticed our frustration with the computers and offered to let us use his. Ryan got on and was trying to get said information and I stood there talking to the guy. It turns out they were the missionaries for our church. I remember thinking "what are the chances that we move across the country and the first people we meet are the missionaries?"
So that is the move in a nut shell. I will post more about our apartment and things we have been doing since we got here later, but right now my fingers need a break from typing and I have other things to do.
