Homeward Bound

I'm giving up my lunch break in Possibility City to get this typed before all the AP detrius clouds my memories of leaving Athens.
Well, we made it out. Anders enjoyed the ride, but not so much for Trudy.
We received good help from Todd, Pete, and Paul in moving the big stuff, but a surprising amount of the small stuff was unpacked. A closet here, a vanity there, a half bathroom there...it all adds up in a hurry.
Anna stopped sleeping on Wednesday. She couldn't get to sleep. Then she didn't sleep much on Thursday and no one slept on Friday.
We felt that it was time to leave Athens more than ever on Friday as we had no one who could watch Anders as we packed. It goes really slowly when one person is trying to pack the house. We strung together some help from a couple of neighbors, but we didn't make much of a dent in the packing until Anders went to bed. Anders awakened just before we left the house at 1:35 am EDT on Saturday, May 28. 96 minutes after we legally agreed to leave our house. When Anna got him up she told him, "Anders, it's time to go, go, go."
Anders replied, "Go?! Go!"
I packed up his pack 'n play, while Anna put him in his carseat. Once in his carseat, he started saying, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"
Trudy was not as happy. Anna tried not to laugh too loudly as I wrangled Trudy with the help of colorful metaphors by dragging her across the wooden floors.
Trudy had all sorts of stuff piled on her cage and Anna had baskets of stuff on her lap. On our way out of town, we dropped off the keys at the new owners' place on 1st Street and the ascended out of the SEO. Trudy was meowing and welping and making new crazy cat sounds the whole way out, which led Anders to laugh hysterically. You are not likely to meet three people laughing as hard was we were at 2 am in Nelsonville on a Friday night, that is without chemical assistance.
So Anders taunted Trudy on our trip up to Columbus. In true "Dad" fashion, I had made a non-refundable motel booking on the west side of Columbus. Plus, I didn't want to wake up to the voice of Chris Riddle on WOUB one more time. The Econolodge was a dump. I'm never booking there again. In April, I stayed at one in Charlottesville where my neighbor was a pimp. A few years ago, Paul and I staying at one in Columbia where there was blood in the bathroom. This place smelled like a cigarette factory and was less than clean.
But Trudy got her revenge. On Saturday as we drove up to Chicago, Trudy turned to Anders as he was about to drift off to sleep and started meowing loudly to keep him awake. There were constant shenanigans like that from the Back Row during out three day oddysey.
We stayed with Brad and Martha in Chicago. Lucas brought his lovely fiance Sarah over so that we could meet her. Anna was really excited to meet Sarah, but in putting Anders to bed she crashed. I guess not really sleeping for three days will do that.
Sunday was not so bad, aside from the severe weather in Northern Illinois. At the Madison Panera, I encountered some bathroom grafiti. It looked like a faded swatiska, then I looked closer and it said, "Hi!" That more than anything encapsulated where we were and where we were going. I also always love reacclaimating to friendly service employees versus surly service employees. Despite being nominally in the South, Louisville is full of the latter.
We arrived in Zimmerman about 7 pm CDT on Sunday.
That's probably it for me for a while, since I haven't see Anders since Tuesday and I will not see him again until a week from Sunday.
"End of Stretch Break..." (A bit of AP US history grading humor for the one or two people who get it).