The final installation of the Saga of the Cross-Country Move...
Saturday, January 15
We threw out Rhodium's travel carrier, since it was so nasty. We went and saw the house in the morning, then went for lunch at the Old Country Buffet, which may (or may not) have been a bad decision.
We were going to return our rental van for two smaller cars, but on the way back to the airport, when stopping to feed Dorothy, Tom started feeling ill, and Dorothy threw up at the end of her meal. So we went back to the hotel. That night, Tom felt worse and worse, and wound up with vomiting and diarrhea through the night. Tom "stabilized" by early morning (3am?), and when it got closer to 7am, we called over to Jon & Caroline's room to ask for help with the baby, only to find out that Caroline had been sick all night too (starting 5 or so hours after Tom did). Given what everyone had eaten, we started to wonder if we'd gotten food poisoning at the Old Country Buffet....
Sunday, January 16
We were low key for most of the day, with Caroline and Tom not eating much of anything. Jon came over to Tom & Elizabeth's room to help with Dorothy, while Elizabeth went over to Jon & Caroline's room to get some sleep and watch her mom. Dorothy vomited three or four hours after we'd given her some breakfast (which she'd not wanted to eat much of), and was having diarrhea instead of normal poops. We were wondering how Dorothy would have managed to get food poisoning at the restaurant, given that she'd only eaten a tiny bit of rice and part of a green bean. Tom wondered if perhaps we'd gotten sick from the house water, which was from a well. But he'd been the only one to drink it earlier on Saturday.
We went over to the house again in the afternoon because we needed to do laundry and start planning furniture layout before the movers arrived, which was supposed to be perhaps as early as Monday.
Monday, January 17
The moving company told us in the morning that the 18-wheeler with our stuff was in Washington state, and would probably arrive the next day. We were supposed to hear from the driver, but he never called. Then we saw on TV that the highway just over the mountains east of Seattle was closed due to freezing rain and flooding, so we hoped the driver (and our truck) was OK and just sitting somewhere safe.
In the afternoon, we got a new rental car (a full size vehicle instead of a giant van), which was for Elizabeth and me while we waited for our car to arrive (we only rented the van for the few days while Jon & Caroline were in town).
We also went and bought an air mattress, which we'll use in the future as a guest bed. But we decided to get it now so that we could sleep at the house until our bed arrived (and got set up).
Monday night, our first night staying in the new house, Elizabeth felt ill and wound up with the same vomiting and diarrhea at night that Tom had had. In the morning, when we called her parents over at the hotel for help, we learned that this tiime Jon had also been sick all night long. Their getting sick 48 hours after Tom, Dorothy & Caroline got sick made us think that it was flu instead of food poisoning that we'd gotten. So maybe the Old Country Buffet was safe after all. But we were still all miserable with the illnesses.
Tuesday, January 18
We all did a bit of planning in anticipation of our stuff arriving, then Tom took Jon & Caroline to the airport and returned the first rental car. Jon wasn't feeling well, but he was OK on the airplane ride home.
Tom spoke with our contact at the moving company, and was told (again) that our stuff might arrive the next day.
Wednesday, January 19
Our stuff arrived! Tom spoke with our moving company contact around 6am local time, and was told that the mover would be here in a few hours. So much for 24 hours advance notice...
The labor guys and truck driver managed to unload everything in 6 hours, leaving us buried in boxes. But at least we had our stuff!
Thursday & Friday, January 20-21
We began to unpack. We didn't yet have bedding for our bed or for Dorothy's crib, so we were still sleeping on the airbed, with Dorothy in the port-a-crib, but at least we could start using things like Dorothy's high chair.
On Friday afternoon, we took a break from unpacking to visit Dorothy's new daycare center, which she was slated to start at on the following Monday.
Posted by Tom Nugent at January 26, 2005 11:59 PM