Moving day!

I had a great working vacation in DC the past several days. I went there to help my daughter move into her new home. Much of our time was spent lifting and carrying boxes and cleaning. I was so glad to be able to help her.

I got the chance to refresh my truck driving skills. Amy rented a 10 foot U-Haul truck and we used it to take her things out to VA from MD. For those of you who have never been to the Eastern US. It was not a very far move. She is now in the lovely city of Alexandria which is also the home of Mount Vernon. Anyways, back to the truck driving adventures. Back in 2004 when we first moved to Utah I drove a 26 foot truck to central Utah from southern New Mexico. It took us about 15 hours and was quite the adventure. It had no ability to climb hills but could go quite rapidly down hills. It was an automatic which made life a little easier. It also had a radio and AC. I never got a picture of me driving it and I forgot to do likewise this weekend with the smaller truck.

The truck I drove Saturday was about half the size and was fairly easy to maneuver through traffic. I noticed that people give you a little more space and don't cut you off when you are driving a big truck. On the way to take the truck back to the U-Haul place, it was pouring down rain. We had already had lightning, thunder, torrents of rain and some hail. It was just raining moderately while I was driving down the beltway back to Maryland. I noticed that people don't like to follow you very closely if you are in a big truck and the roads are wet. Trucks can spray up a lot of water off the road making visibility difficult.

On one of my earlier blogs, I wrote about watching rowers out on the Charles River here in Boston. While I was in DC, Amy took me kayaking on the Potomac. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't as apprehensive as I thought I would be. It was a beautiful sunny day. Not too hot and not too cold. A gentle breeze kept the temperature nice. We rowed around for about an hour. It was a lot of fun.

On Friday, Amy and I went out to Theodore Roosevelt Island. It is a beautiful nature preserve in the heart of DC on the Potomac. You can walk on trails through the forest and over some swampy areas. It is gorgeous. We saw a squirrel that was posing nicely for a picture until I took out the camera. We also saw a little girl holding a snake. The interesting about her was that she was surrounded by about five little boys none of whom seem very interested in holding the snake. They were enjoying looking from a short distance.

Monday was spent kayaking and then doing some mad shopping. Amy needed a ton of things for her new home. We had a lot of fun picking out bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen things. Amy purchased a TV stand for the new 50 inch plasma TV that she bought on Saturday after all the moving was done. I spent Monday night until 1:30 am trying to put the thing together. That was a fun experience. I have now introduced Amy to the wonderful world of home repair. I bought her a cordless drill and she had a lot of un trying it out. What a woman!

I don't remember if I mentioned it previously but I had lost my cell phone on Memorial Day. I am happy to report that some kind soul turned it into a store near where I had been shopping and today I drove out to get it. Yes! There are still good, honest people on the planet and especially in Massachusetts.