The Travails of Traveling

Well, more like "The Travails of Moving," but then that wouldn't alliterate, would it? :)

So, I've done several big moves in my life, and while it's always stressful, I'm generally someone who travels light. No furniture, no big ticket items, just a couple (dozen) boxes of books which I usually sent via USPS and that's it. Marriage, though, has a way of helping you accumulate a whole lotta stuff, so our upcoming move to Arizona is proving trickier than any of my other previous ones.**

The challenge now is that, just yesterday, we nearly almost hired a scam moving company called Region Relocations. Thankfully, my ever diligent wife  Martina, the faithful checker of on-line reviews, checked out them out and saw loads of awful ratings. When I asked their customer rep about them, he hemmed and hawed and finally said, "Well, trust protectyourmove.gov more than Yelp." So I said, "Okay, I'll check that out and call you back." Lo and behold, while they were definitely licensed and had valid insurance (as required by law), about 5 of the red flags listed for problematic movers applied to Region Relocations.

Incidentally, when I got off the phone with the rep, telling him that I'd call him back after checking the government website, he sounded VERY dejected -- like, Eeyore-levels dejected. That's red flag #6, if you're keeping track at home.

On the bright side, we got amazingly cheap plane tickets to Tucson. Apparently nobody is willing to fly to the desert during the hottest month of the year, the wusses.


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** And that's saying something. When I moved from Athens, OH to Murfreesboro, TN five years ago, I couldn't move there directly because I spend the two months between the move in England visiting the then-fiancée. So I had to box everything up, sent half of it to Pennsylvania to reside with the grandparents, and asked a friend to store the other half and send it to me when I finally moved to the Murf. I got pretty lucky that worked out (and pretty lucky I had such a good friend!). I also arrived in the Murf a week before I could move into my apartment, but that's another story.

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