Strange But True

When we left Wisconsin Dells, we knew we would have to come back to Milwaukee to bring Joe and Melissa their things that were still in Ohio. Joe had a lot of his gaming stuff there, Melissa her childhood memories. There was also some furniture that the needed. We knew we would have to rent a trailer to get this done. First we had to get the van fixed. Little did we know, after spending all summer without our car, that it would only cost $140.00 to fix. It needed a new distributor cap and spark plug. But at least it got fixed. After getting it back, we also had to buy it a new tire. We hoped this would not become a habit.

I decided to call U-Haul to see if we could get a trailer to take the stuff to Milwaukee. We knew we could not take a truck, it would be too expensive. A trailer would be $29.00 per day. The man I talked to got really excited when he saw our number on caller id. He knew it was a Milwaukee number by the area code. I explained I was in Milford, the family plan our phone is on was from Milwaukee. He thought if we were coming down from Milwaukee, we could bring his bed. He had moved to Ohio about a month ago, and was sleeping on an air mattress and wanted his bed. He said he would work out a deal on the trailer if we were interested. We went to set up the trailer, and got a great deal. We took our stuff up to Milwaukee, stopped at his parents business in Hales Corners and get his bed, and got the trailer for free. How sweeter of a deal can you get.

The day we went to pick up the trailer was weird. We got to U-haul about 8am. figuring we could get on the road by 9am. But this did not happen. The wiring on the van was messed up. We could not get the blinkers to work. The manager at U-haul ended up working on the van for 2 hours to get the lights to work. He had to cross wire it and when we turned on the left blinker, all the lights on the back blinked, but at least the brakes worked properly. I could deal with the blinkers.

We got to Sara's house just after 10am. We loaded up the trailer. This took about an hours. It was totally full, and we did not bring the Christmas stuff Melissa wanted. But we got all of Joe's and Melissa's stuff in the trailer. We did get on the road around 11:30 after getting gas. We knew this trip could be very bad. Chicago during rush hour. But it was not as bad as it could be. We never got stopped in Chicago, moved very slow, but got through. Got to Joe and Melissa's around 7pm. Got the trailer unloaded and got to set down by 8pm. We ordered pizza for dinner, and crashed their for the night. We stole Joe's bed.

The next morning got up to go the DMV office down town Milwaukee to renew my drivers license. We took the bus down town. We got a transfer when we got on the bus. We got to the office, got his license, got back on the bus and back to Melissa's on one transfer. When we got back we called the U-haul manager's parents business to let them know we were coming down. Said good-bye to Joe and Melissa and left.

We got to Hales Corners and got his stuff. They had the bed ready, but when his mom and sister saw how much room we had, they sent all of the stuff. We got it all packed, and got on our way. We left Milwaukee around 3:30pm. This meant Chicago during rush hour again. We could not win. We just kept driving.

We got to Shelbyville Indiana around 10 pm and was just too tired to go any farther. We asked if we could stay, and they said we could, but the police might give us a ticket for loitering. We decided not to stay and just keep driving. At the next exit, there was a Love's truck stop. We stayed there. We did not want to leave the trailer without anyone watching it. So we had to make sure we got to Milford after 7am. Then the manager would be at U-haul.

We left the truck stop around 6am. We got to Milford at 7:30 am. He was happy to get all of his stuff. Just like he said. We brought his stuff, so the trailer was free.

It was kinda of strange. We did not know this guy. He trusted us with all the things he had in the world. He did not know us before we called for the trailer. But this is the kind of thing Judy and I do. Some one needed help, and we did it. We do it for our family all the time, now we are doing it for strangers. But now we have a new friend, Steve at U-haul.