Well, we made it. To bring everyone up to speed, let me start from the beginning:
Mom & Dad came to visit the last week we were in Finger to help pack & get things loaded onto the U-Haul: Thank you, Mom & Dad!!!! I love you so, so much, and not just because you worked like fiends to get us moved! And, Dad had the great idea to try to get the U-Haul a day early to get it loaded (or start the loading process), so we were able to get a truck, but they didn't have a 17' truck like I requested...the smallest they had was a 24' beast. (They also had 26' trucks, too, that were newer & shinier, but we had qualms about getting the 17' truck, much less the 24' truck, out of our driveway, so I really didn't want to push our luck with 2 extra feet.) So, we picked up the truck, and with yours truly behind the wheel, Dad & I bounced & jerked our way to the storage unit we had in Henderson. We got the storage unit unloaded and into the truck...that was pretty much uneventful. Except that the "Check Gauge" light kept coming on & making a really annoying "beep." But, all the gauges were fine, so I made the executive decision to just ignore it...then the light & noise would cease, so we figured it was just a short. No biggie.
Patrick flew in on Sat. morning, Mom & Dad drove back to Florida, so it was just us and a big-ass truck to get 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, dining room & kitchen loaded up & to Greenville, SC. No problem.
We did get the truck loaded up, and headed out at 8:45 a.m. on Sunday morning. A little bit of a late start, but overall, we were happy with what we'd done. I even got the kitties to take their "happy pills" without too much trouble!
We were on the road, Patrick in the truck behind me, spotting, and me in the 24' U-Haul, bouncing & jerking and listening to that infernal "beep beep beep" telling me to check my gauges...well, I checked 'em, they're fine, now shut up! We've got our walkie-talkies, and when Patrick calls me, I can hear Mouse meowing in the background, but it's not too bad, and Smokey isn't puking, so we're happy. We get to Lebanon, and I notice that my fuel guage has dropped from 3/4-1/2 tank to just about empty. And it's not like I haven't been checking my gauges (beep beep beep) every 30 seconds, so this just happened over the course of a couple of miles. So we stop into a truck stop for fuel--both us & the trucks. $99 later, we're on the road, the U-Haul is now showing a full tank (so it really wasn't that full when I picked it up after all....), and I've got my portable Subway sammich, so we're good to go.
We get to just about Crab Orchard (do you know where Crab Orchard is? I didn't either. I do now!), which is around exit 259 (I think...the memory is trying to stay buried.). All of a sudden, I hear a loud bang! and I think it's something in the back of the truck...then it happens again, and Patrick (who is behind me in another vehicle) hears it, too. He thinks it sounds like a backfire. I think it sounds like the truck is going to explode, as all the lights on the dash come on--check gauges, service engine soon, check park brake...and the volt-o-meter (or whatever the thing is that tells you how much juice your battery has) has dropped. So we pull into the scariest BP station ever, and the truck just dies. Won't start. And it's started raining.
Luckily, U-Haul has an emergency number posted in about 42 locations in the cab of the truck, so I start calling. This is at 2:15 p.m. I don't even think we've gone 300 miles. The first person I talk to says someone will call me back "shortly" with the ETA on when the mechanic will get there. So after 20 minutes, and no call back, I call again. I'm put on terminal hold...for 20 minutes or so. I figure they're forgotten about me, so I hang up, call again. Another 2 minutes of hold time, then I talk to Monique--who is the nicest, best person to talk to if you ever break down in a U-Haul!!! I explain that I'm in Crab Orchard, next to the scariest BP station ever, I'm about to cry, it's raining, and we have 2 cats and a fully loaded truck, and we've got to get to SC tonight. Monique tells me she'll find a mechanic, and call me right back...and she does. She says that the mechanic is about 1 1/2-2 hours from us, but he'll be there. Not the best news, but at least we know that someone is coming...and we're praying that we won't have to unload our big-ass U-Haul in the parking lot of the BP!!!! Billy the Mechanic shows up; apparently Monique told him we had smoke coming out from under the hood...which wasn't correct, but it got him to us, and now we have him, and now he's going to fix our truck!!! He thinks it's the battery, but maybe the alternator, so he'll go back to his shop, and bring a battery & an alternator back. His shop is about a 30 min. round-trip. So we wait again...he gets back, puts the battery in, and notices that the alternator's main wire wasn't connected. I'm not sure how they missed that in the inspection that the truck had prior to us getting it, but there you go. Billy fixes us up, and at 6:15 p.m. we're back on the road. That's four hours after we pulled off the interstate. I'm worried that the kitty sedatives won't last, and that we're going to be driving this U-Haul through SC in the dark....but Patrick is now in the U-Haul, so he knows the way, so off we go.
We get to SC around midnight...and have to stop to fill up again ($75 this time), and I was so excited when we pulled off the road...I thought "we're here!" only to find our destination was a gas station. So we get back out on the road (and, by the way, Happy Anniversary, Patrick--at midnight the date switched to July 4, our 7th Anniversary) and we finally get there. We tussle with the U-Haul in the apartment parking lot (we did manage to pole a hole in the side of the U-Haul due to a close encounter with a parked tractor-trailer), and wrestled what was in the bed of the pick-up & the mattress & sheets from the U-Haul, then we parked that bad-boy, and went to Waffle House for dinner/breakfast. We got back to the apartment & fell asleep...it was 2 a.m.
The next day, we did a little creative thinking, and since we couldn't pull the U-Haul close to the unit, we just backed the truck up to the U-Haul, loaded the furniture into the truck, and backed the truck up as close as we could. We finished w/apartment furniture around 2, then went to the storage unit. We dropped th rest of our stuff there & droped off the U-Haul...where luckily we didn't have to pay for more gas, and they didn't seem to notice the hole in the side of the truck. We did go over our allotted miles, though, and had to pay an extra $3.
We're here, though; I just filled out the on-line BellSouth "change your phone number" stuff, and they'll send me a $35 Target card for doing it on-line, which is great (you know how I love Target!), but they won't have the phone up until 7/9...so we're still going to use the cell phone fro now.
Oh, and one more thing: Patrick's "service engine soon" light came on in his truck yesterday after we dropped the U-Haul off...and last night, we had to get my car jumped ...and my "service engine light" is on. I think it needs a new alternator. No, I'm not joking.

*Sigh*