Mom's Move to Bama

In early October, my mom made a big change - having retired over the summer, she decided she no longer wanted to live in the northern VA area, and moved down here to Birmingham!

It was a whirlwind affair - I flew up to VA on a Thursday night after work. On Friday, we picked up the rental truck and packed the truck with all of mom's worldly posessions. We were on the road by 6:30am Saturday morning. The moving crew was me, mom, Dana and Cesar, and between us we were taking the moving truck and mom's car the 725 miles from Bristow, VA to Birmingham, AL.

We could not have asked for a better road trip. The scenery was lovely as we followed the mountains the entire way (trivia: the Birmingham area is the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains). We went through Virginia, Tennessee, a corner of Georgia, and finally ended up in Alabama, for a total time of under 14 hours, not bad considering we had The Penske Whale and stopped for lunch (and for gas a bazillion times, what with the 10 mpg or so...).

Fun road trip facts:

• Number of vehicles: 2
• Number of vehicles whose Check Engine lights came on: 2
• Number of vehicles for which we ignored the Check Engine light: 2
• Number of Dunkin Donuts Fran can eat in a single road trip: at least 6, supplies ran out
  
• Number of vehicles that feel like they are going to vibrate apart at 75 mph: 1
• Number of sets of batteries we went through for the two-way radios: 4
• Winner of the "Guess how many Penske trucks we'll see on this road trip?": Mom
• Number of Penske trucks we saw: 28
• Person most ready to be a truck driver if he needs a second career: Cesar
  
• College football team whose fans all seem to really need to go to the bathroom: Virginia Tech (the lines at the rest stop were ridiculous!)
• Person who will guess every single movie star you try in the "guess the famous person that has these initials" game, no matter how obscure: Dana

Once arriving in Birmingham, we made a beeline for Jim N Nicks BBQ, for some much-deserved dinner. The next day, we moved mom into her apartment (I having wisely decided to hire help to do the unpacking of the truck).

Cesar headed back to VA that evening, and Dana spent Monday helping mom unpack before heading back herself. Now mom is officially an Alabama resident (and wow, is that a mug shot on her license or what?!) She seems to be settling in well. She's been to the library so many times already I hear they are thinking of naming it after her. (It is a pretty fantastic library, though). She's been lost in the car several times, and to her credit, she has never had to call for help getting home!

Katie and I immediately started receiving the benefits of this arrangement - home cooking! We are over there for dinner at least one weeknight each week and mom comes to the house on the weekends for dinner with friends. We've also done some movie nights, art fair outings and other excursions. Mom is enjoying the nice weather (70s all this week) and the leaves are beginning to change for the fall as well. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that mom is turning into a techie - I gave her an old computer of mine to give her something new to learn in all of her free time, and she's taken to it like a fish to water! She's emailing, chatting, watching news videos, Googling, the whole nine yards.

Unfortunately, we didn't think to take any pictures of this big adventure, so I don't have any fun ones to post. But, I still wanted to record it in the blog for posterity. So, welcome to Alabama, mom!