Bumps in the Road

Three weeks ago, on May 6, I wrote a post describing Changes to the Plan. In it,  I revealed that we were going to stay in Tucson and use it as a home base for a year or three. Rather than buy new furniture to use here, we opted to have our stuff moved from the East Coast to Tucson. Movers were supposed to have loaded up our stuff the day I wrote that post, a Friday, and deliver it to us a few days later on Sunday or Monday.

Sounds pretty fast, right? And maybe a little too good to be true?

As it turns out, it was a lot too good to be true. The “movers” we hired turned out to be yahoos. They sorta reminded me of people who might appear on that cable show, Shipping Wars. Where they get online requests for moving quotes, don’t really read the bid requests, and promise to do the job on the cheap and quickly.

Said yahoos showed up with a cargo van to move 1,300 cubic feet of household goods weighing 7,500 pounds. It was a clusterfuck. Long story short, our stuff did not get moved.

The following week, I did what I thought was sufficient research, and contracted with a moving broker (company who arranges moves) to move our stuff from the East Coast to Tucson. The broker negotiated with a carrier, a moving company with trucks and laborers, to move our stuff. The broker lied through his teeth to me. The representative told me it could take as long as two to 10 days, but more likely would only take five or six days.

The new movers loaded up our stuff on Saturday, May 14. Before loading, they told us it would cost about $3,600 more than the broker quoted us. (The sales rep had changed my size estimate to 1,086 cubic feet, and I missed it before signing the agreement.) When I hadn’t heard any updates by the end of that week, I called the movers. That is when I learned they have up to 21 business days to deliver our stuff.  That was on May 20. My contact said she’d give us 48 hours notice and thought the stuff might arrive this week.

It’s now ten business days since our stuff was picked up by the moving company. Yesterday, I was assuming we’re not getting our stuff this week either since I haven’t heard anything from the movers (a call I placed yesterday has not been returned). Then this morning we got the news… our stuff will arrive on Sunday. Yay!!!

Meanwhile, we have moved everything out of the coach (aka the big-ass RV) and into our new-to-us house. It’s amazing how much stuff we had in the coach! We had to buy a new mattress and box-spring anyway, so at least we have had something to sleep on. Oh, and we’re using patio furniture and lawn chairs as living room furniture.

In other good news… the coach left the RV park today, headed for the shop. Finally. The damage occurred on March 15th, roughly two and a half months ago. We are lucky the RV park we’d been staying in was able to accommodate our 1.5-month extra stay.

Things are finally falling into place. It should take four weeks for the repairs on the coach to be completed. Then we can sell the too-big-for-us RV and get a small travel trailer. I’m so looking forward to getting back on the road.  Here’s hoping the coach sells quickly.