Quick update as we’re eating breakfast, about to go unpack more stuff.

We got everything packed up on Saturday and Sunday. Dad says I already have too much stuff. Oh, well. I’m a packrat, what can I say? And by and large, the highest percentage of stuff I think was books, which is okay with me. Sunday afternoon, we hit a Uhaul snag. (Nothing like Barlow’s Uhaul experience, though…ours is positively boring in comparison.) Uhaul called around 3pm to confirm that the truck would be available for us to pick up on Monday after 11am. Except the guys Dad hired to load the truck were contracted for 9am. After talking with regional and national managers, Dad got nowhere with Uhaul and finally called Budget, who had a truck on the lot available at 8am for the same price, as long as Dad got there first to pick it up (no reserves on that short notice, but they could do first come first serve, I guess). So Dad picked up a Budget truck at 8:30, the loaders came at 8:45, and everything was on the truck by 10:00. (At which point Uhaul called and told us they had a truck ready, but um, a bit late.) So everything worked out great, but no more Uhaul for us, I think!

The trip down to Waco wasn’t quite as hilarious as the time I drove down with a friend of mine and we found EVERYTHING funny, but I think the trip will always hold some amount of humor, just because Missouri and Oklahoma rural areas are humorous. There’s a restaurant called “Missouri Hick BBQ”, which is listed on those signs that tell you what’s at each exit. I was afraid to ask whether the hicks were running the BBQ or if they were being BBQed. Grammatically, it could go either way. Then there was the ersatz fruit stand which was empty, but someone had put up a big piece of plywood in front of it and spraypainted “Bill Collins robbed my house, the dirty low-down coward” on it. (Name changed to protect the apparently guilty.) If you can’t get justice, at least whine about it so that all of I-44 can see it.

Restaurant recommendation for Joplin, MO: Pizza by Stout. Great pizza, subs, salad bar, cinnamon rolls, and more kinds of beer than you can shake a stick at. Looks like a dive on the outside, but it’s nice inside, and the service is as friendly as the food is good.

Gotta go now, the hotel is about to kick us out…we’re in Waco, safe and sound, and the truck is unloaded and most stuff is at least in nominal place. Still need to hook up the TV (hence why I stayed at the hotel again last night…had to get my So You Think You Can Dance fix!) and other electronics. Cable and internet should be on, though…it’s included with the apartment rent, which is the most awesome thing about the apartment. I’ve just got to get Time Warner to bring me a DVR, stat, and I’ll be all set.

Pray for Dad, if you get the chance. He’s on his way back from emergency dental care right now…he’s had a minor toothache for a couple of days, but last night and this morning it was significantly worse, so he found a dentist not too far away that could do emergencies. Apparently the tooth is abcessed, so he’s just got some stronger painkillers, but I don’t think it’ll be fixed until he gets home. Not sure on all that, I’m going on third-hand information. Mom and Dad should be leaving this afternoon sometime and getting home tomorrow afternoon.