Moving to Saco, Montana
Well, it has been three weeks since our Saco moving adventure and in that time, we had a spectacular wedding and amazing honeymoon. I was so busy planning and shopping for the wedding and having hair and makeup trials and haircuts and making phone calls and trying not to freak out that I definitely didn't have the time or energy to sit down and just write when we got back from the moving trip. But here and there I have worked on this blog post, including one Friday during the intermission at the car races (which I did not enjoy as much as normal since I knew how much more there was to get done!) I worked on it again on our flight to Las Vegas for the honeymoon, and here I am finishing it in the airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia as we get ready to make the trip back to Bozeman. We had such a great time and got to share our story and plans with my relatives in Nova Scotia, which just got us even more excited for our new adventure in Saco!
Just two weeks before the wedding, we borrowed a pickup truck and a huge trailer to load all of our belongings into. Here is a picture of our moving buddy, Josey's brother, next to the trailer for a size comparison.
Can you imagine we filled this trailer? We didn't just fill it, we PACKED it up as high as we possibly could. The packing process had been going on for at least a month prior so that we wouldn't have to do a ton of work at any given time. The week of the move, we moved all of my boxes and belongings into my garage so that it was ready and easy to load into the trailer. It was quite the endeavor deciding what we needed to keep and what we didn't need for the next month. My nightmare was that we would accidentally send something to Saco that we needed for the wedding, but luckily that didn't happen.
Anyways, the adventure! We loaded up the trailer during the week and the night before so we could head out bright and early Friday morning. The three of us piled into the front of the truck and left at 7 am (wishful thinking, although we did pull out before 7:30!) We had barely gotten to Livingston when the trailer started shaking going down a hill- Josey noticed right away and took the very next exit, which thankfully was really close. We pulled into a gas station and Josey noticed a sheriff car following us. As soon as we stopped the truck, he turned his flashers on. Neither of us had ever been pulled over before! Although technically we sort of pulled ourselves over to check out this issue anyways. Our trailer had gotten unplugged, and therefore we lost trailer lights and trailer brakes! The officer was kind enough to let us off with just a warning and we were back on our way shortly after.
We continued driving east, and then took the exit at Big Timber to start the trek North. We had barely gotten out of Big Timber when the unthinkable happened... We blew a trailer tire! I have never been in a vehicle when a tire blew up- but we hardly felt it since it was a double axled trailer. Josey couldn't believe our bad luck, but honestly we were really lucky! No one was hurt, there was a good place to pull over, and a kind rancher stopped to help us right away. He got us a jack, and we did some "rearranging" in the back of the trailer to dig out the spare tire. It was next to impossible to get the spare on straight, but we drove super slowly to a nearby rancher's home and he let us blow up the spare with his air compressor. From there we drove REALLY SLOWLY back into Big Timber. We were also lucky that there was actually construction/chip sealing happening on that stretch of road so everyone was forced to drive as slow as we were.
It took quite a while to get a new tire, but the folks at Sweetgrass tire shop did a great job. I am not a hard believer in superstition but I like to think bad things come in "threes." When we got to Lewistown, we ate lunch and then tried to get gas, but there was only a teeny gas station on the way out of town and it was extremely busy. There was no way we were going to get our giant trailer into the station. So, we found a dirt lot, unhitched the trailer, and Josey went to fill up the truck with gas. There. There was the third thing. Nothing else could go wrong.
You're probably expecting me to say that something else did go wrong. But it didn't! The last stretch of roads were pretty sketchy, with no shoulder on the road and tons of bumps, but we made it. We stopped in Malta to register Josey's vehicle that was about to expire, and he got permanent plates.
Permanent plates people. Doesn't it sound scary? I asked him if it truly was necessary.. I mean come on, how do we know we are going to live in Montana permanently? After my minor freak-out, he told me that it's just a good financial decision. We know we are going to live here for at least two years, so if we stay in the state any longer than 2 years, it will be cheaper than reregistering every year.
Oh.
I love this guy, he's good with money and finding us the deals!
We spent the rest of the day unloading the trailer contents into the house and checking out our new classrooms and curriculum materials. The home is huge! We thought that maybe we wouldn't have enough storage for our combined belongings but boy were we wrong, there is a ton of storage. Storage for days.
I didn't take too many photos of the inside of the house because it's just not done- we hardly had 24 hours at the house altogether. But I am so thankful that we got as much done as we did- it will make the final move in a couple of weeks that much easier. I will share this photo of one of our bathrooms though- we got this awesome shower curtain as a wedding gift and it looks pretty darn neat!
The drive back home was uneventful, although we were pretty darn excited for the future. We didn't really want to leave, but there were many wedding things to get done at home! Josey and I talked plans and logistics and Danny just didn't want his photo taken.
Just two weeks before the wedding, we borrowed a pickup truck and a huge trailer to load all of our belongings into. Here is a picture of our moving buddy, Josey's brother, next to the trailer for a size comparison.
(Side note, we also brought him along as our personal photographer, although he is a little "shutter-happy" so we have a lot of pictures of the same thing....)
Can you imagine we filled this trailer? We didn't just fill it, we PACKED it up as high as we possibly could. The packing process had been going on for at least a month prior so that we wouldn't have to do a ton of work at any given time. The week of the move, we moved all of my boxes and belongings into my garage so that it was ready and easy to load into the trailer. It was quite the endeavor deciding what we needed to keep and what we didn't need for the next month. My nightmare was that we would accidentally send something to Saco that we needed for the wedding, but luckily that didn't happen.
Anyways, the adventure! We loaded up the trailer during the week and the night before so we could head out bright and early Friday morning. The three of us piled into the front of the truck and left at 7 am (wishful thinking, although we did pull out before 7:30!) We had barely gotten to Livingston when the trailer started shaking going down a hill- Josey noticed right away and took the very next exit, which thankfully was really close. We pulled into a gas station and Josey noticed a sheriff car following us. As soon as we stopped the truck, he turned his flashers on. Neither of us had ever been pulled over before! Although technically we sort of pulled ourselves over to check out this issue anyways. Our trailer had gotten unplugged, and therefore we lost trailer lights and trailer brakes! The officer was kind enough to let us off with just a warning and we were back on our way shortly after.
We continued driving east, and then took the exit at Big Timber to start the trek North. We had barely gotten out of Big Timber when the unthinkable happened... We blew a trailer tire! I have never been in a vehicle when a tire blew up- but we hardly felt it since it was a double axled trailer. Josey couldn't believe our bad luck, but honestly we were really lucky! No one was hurt, there was a good place to pull over, and a kind rancher stopped to help us right away. He got us a jack, and we did some "rearranging" in the back of the trailer to dig out the spare tire. It was next to impossible to get the spare on straight, but we drove super slowly to a nearby rancher's home and he let us blow up the spare with his air compressor. From there we drove REALLY SLOWLY back into Big Timber. We were also lucky that there was actually construction/chip sealing happening on that stretch of road so everyone was forced to drive as slow as we were.
It took quite a while to get a new tire, but the folks at Sweetgrass tire shop did a great job. I am not a hard believer in superstition but I like to think bad things come in "threes." When we got to Lewistown, we ate lunch and then tried to get gas, but there was only a teeny gas station on the way out of town and it was extremely busy. There was no way we were going to get our giant trailer into the station. So, we found a dirt lot, unhitched the trailer, and Josey went to fill up the truck with gas. There. There was the third thing. Nothing else could go wrong.
You're probably expecting me to say that something else did go wrong. But it didn't! The last stretch of roads were pretty sketchy, with no shoulder on the road and tons of bumps, but we made it. We stopped in Malta to register Josey's vehicle that was about to expire, and he got permanent plates.
Permanent plates people. Doesn't it sound scary? I asked him if it truly was necessary.. I mean come on, how do we know we are going to live in Montana permanently? After my minor freak-out, he told me that it's just a good financial decision. We know we are going to live here for at least two years, so if we stay in the state any longer than 2 years, it will be cheaper than reregistering every year.
Oh.
I love this guy, he's good with money and finding us the deals!
We spent the rest of the day unloading the trailer contents into the house and checking out our new classrooms and curriculum materials. The home is huge! We thought that maybe we wouldn't have enough storage for our combined belongings but boy were we wrong, there is a ton of storage. Storage for days.
We didn't get eaten alive by mosquitoes, but we were smart about bug spray and we were adequately warned. Josey and I did try to go for an evening stroll at about 11pm and then scratched that idea and went right back in the house after swatting at them for less than 60 seconds. It wasn't bad until then though, and I even caught some of the sunset with my phone camera without any mosquito problems.
By the time I had taken my sunset photos we had entirely unloaded the trailer contents into the living room and some of the correct bedrooms. We spent all of Saturday unpacking and shifting our belongings, it was fun to finally combine our stuff! Believe it or not, by the time we left on Saturday around 4pm we had almost entirely unpacked and arranged our home.
As you can see, we don't have a couch. We decided to be couch-less until we find one we really like. There was no sense in hauling a college couch that was just "ok" all the way to Saco. We also discovered that our current bar stools are much too short. I don't mind shopping though!
By the time I had taken my sunset photos we had entirely unloaded the trailer contents into the living room and some of the correct bedrooms. We spent all of Saturday unpacking and shifting our belongings, it was fun to finally combine our stuff! Believe it or not, by the time we left on Saturday around 4pm we had almost entirely unpacked and arranged our home.
Everything unloaded into the living room.
The same room after we moved most everything to its proper place!
As you can see, we don't have a couch. We decided to be couch-less until we find one we really like. There was no sense in hauling a college couch that was just "ok" all the way to Saco. We also discovered that our current bar stools are much too short. I don't mind shopping though!
I didn't take too many photos of the inside of the house because it's just not done- we hardly had 24 hours at the house altogether. But I am so thankful that we got as much done as we did- it will make the final move in a couple of weeks that much easier. I will share this photo of one of our bathrooms though- we got this awesome shower curtain as a wedding gift and it looks pretty darn neat!
Yes, I am putting a photo of a toilet on the Internet.
There are many more blog posts coming soon- I want to share about all of our "do it yourself" projects we did for the wedding, and share a bit about our honeymoon adventures. For now, enjoy this picture. I title it, "Too Many Mugs".
"Too Many Mugs"
Love,
Chelsea (& Josey)
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