Shalom ATL

Leading up to my last day in Atlanta was quite stressful. Moving and filtering through 9 years of one's life takes lots of effort and time. I did make it a point to have some fun though. I enjoyed my time as much as possible and got to visit some of my favorite restaurants in the city as well as do somethings I'd always been meaning to do.

Last night out with the homie Lisa at Havana

Trying to get rid of my furniture proved difficult. I gave a substantial amount of my belongings to my local Goodwill. I tried selling my furniture on Craigslist, but I wasn't lucky. We all get by with a little help from our friends though and I am certainly no exception.

My friends have saved my sanity in the last few days of my moved for sure. My dining room set ended up being bought by one of my friends from the dog park the day before I moved. Thanks Sheila for the clutch save! :) And my friend Lisha offered to take the remaining items to her house and sell at her garage sale! She's awesome too! Kalia really saved my butt though. On D day she came over and helped me pack up the cars before we hit the road. Helped me clean up a little bit and also ended up taking the last few items for me that I couldn't fit in the car after we packed it up. Yes I have some of the most AWESOME friends ever!

The day before we left we had to make sure that we went to the dog park to say good bye to all of our friends. Axel's puppy friends all showed up to say goodbye to him and Ms Sheila brought Margaritas for the adults to enjoy! It was so much fun! I had several! It was my last night in ATL after all. I couldn't think of a better send off than Margaritas in the park! :)

Party at the dog park. The Dog behind Axel is Fletcher, one of his BFFs. We will miss him lots along with Dax, Axel's other BFF (not pictured).

My last night in Atlanta I barely slept. I went to bed around 1am because I still had packing to do and then I woke up around 4:30am to continue packing. My cousin and I went down to the airport to pick up the rental van that we were going to use to move my stuff down. Somehow we packed all of the stuff I cared about taking with me in my car and the minivan. We had to leave a few items, but they weren't important so I was ok leaving them. I will say moving day was quite stressful though. I went through every range of emotion that day.

I panicked thinking we weren't going to get everything in. I was also stressed because we were behind my planned departure time and I had to say bye to my neighbor Pam and Kalia right before I left. Needless to say the tears finally began to flow. Up until that day I'd been staying strong and hadn't cried, but the tears began then. I gained my composure and got the cars packed so we could get on the road. The cars were packed to the brim!

There was no room left inside so we had to strap stuff to the room. This limited how fast we could go on the highway though so we had to trim some fat in Perry, GA.

This was what the back of my car looked like. The dogs had limited space. Axel curled up on the front seat and Nemo shared it with him or got on the floor below him.

We finally hit the road but not without my cousin getting lost as soon as we hit the hwy. We merged onto 85N, but he got lost and got off at the 17th street exit instead of staying on the highway. So I had to turn around and go back to find him. He told me he was near Dillards so I went back to Atlantic Station to find him. However instead of staying in one spot he kept driving around Atlantic Station so I probably spent 20 mins or so driving around trying to catch up to him. I tried calling and bbming him but of course I couldn't get through when I needed to and then every time I did spot him driving around I'd loose him because I was trying to fight through the traffic in the area. Needless to say this set my mood to annoyed and then full on anger! I finally caught up to him and we hit the road.

We finally set out to leave Atlanta and head south to Florida. We weren't moving very fast at all. Anyone that knows me knows that I am a little speed demon so driving 60 mph on the hwy for almost 3 hrs and not really getting anywhere was driving me nuts. My cousin was afraid to speed because of the luggage strapped to the top of the van. Somewhere around Macon all of the emotions hit me and I had a good cry fest in my car. I was annoyed because we weren't moving quickly coupled with sadness at the fact that it'd hit me that I was leaving Atlanta and not sure when I'd be back. To make matters worse it started to rain! All I could think was WHY was this happening. I started to cry again because all I could think about was all of my clothes in those suitcases getting soaked in the rain. We pulled over a couple times under bridges, but that was only wasting more time.

We stopped in Perry, GA to trim some fat. It was fate that we pulled over in a parking lot that there was also a Goodwill. I took out some plastic drawers that I didn't really need and shuffled some stuff around to get the luggage in the van. I then left the other items to Goodwill. We got everything inside, walked the dogs, ate and then hit the road again.

We drove until we were absolutely exhausted. We made it to Orlando around 1am and checked-in at a La Quinta Inn (they allow pets to stay for free) and got a few hours sleep. We left again around 6am. We were trying to make it down to Ft Lauderdale before 10am to return the rental van to save $200 by turning in the rental early. We dropped my stuff off and headed to turn the car in. We didn't quite make it, we were about 40 mins late. I went inside in my sweats and t-shirt I'd been wearing from the day before, looking quite exhausted, I think by pleading with the manager to still credit us the $200+ along with the fact that I looked a mess (I still can't believe I was in public looking like that) she took pity on me and credited me the money! SCORE!

After turning in the van I went and repacked some of my stuff and then it was operation shower and sleep! That was officially the longest trip to Florida ever, but we made it safely!

 

Shalom ATL, until we meet again!