Day 1 – Loading the Truck and Driving to Pensacola Beach
Contacting Lesley
After hearing from my buddy Carl that Lesley, a mutual friend of ours, needed some help I sent her a text on May 2nd asking her whats up.
She let me know that her circumstances had changed and she needed 10 days of my time to help getting a truck full of her belongings, and her and her dog driven to Las Vegas from the east coast of Florida.
For the last couple years my vagabonding had slowed down, and I’d transitioned back into what some would say is more “normal”, at least to Western societal standards. So, I have to admit at first when I saw Lesley asking for ’10 days’ of my time I thought to myself, “there’s no way I could do that now, I would have to take time off work, how could I pay my bills?!”. When she later explained that she needed these 10 days ASAP I definitely decided there was no way I could do it for her, but maybe I could find someone that would be willing, so I posted on Facebook and got a couple hopeful responses.
Unfortunately for everyone it was way too short of notice, therefor we were left to look for prices on hiring drivers. The prices were ridiculously high, and I started to realize that we were running out of options.
Finally we were able to come up with a plan to get Lesley’s belongings in storage, and she would take her time driving her car during daylight hours across the country. Meanwhile I would plan to drive the truck with her stuff next month.
Lesley took off from Stuart, Florida sometime around May 16th with her essentials and her big dog Valentino in her car. Then on May 24th I got a text from her saying, “I made it to Vegas”!!
I was set to leave June 7th, and to make things even better my mom booked a flight to join me for the journey!
Loading the Truck
Day 1 of the journey began just before sunrise on Thursday, June 7th, 2018. Carl and I got into my car and set off from Key West to Fort Lauderdale airport where we would pick up my mom, and then continue north to Stuart.
We got the 27 foot long Penske moving truck around 2 pm and drove to the three storage units that Lesley had and began loading the truck. Thank god her cousin Mark was there to help us!
In just two hours we fit everything into the truck, and my mom and I set off around 4:30 pm towards Pensacola Beach, where I had booked us an Air BnB for the night. I was just a little nervous driving this monster of a truck across the country. It was by far the biggest vehicle I had ever driven.
Thankfully the first drive went well, just a bit of rain, and by 3 am on July 8th we arrived in Pensacola Beach, Florida… exhausted.
Here’s some video footage of the first day of driving after loading the truck:
Don’t forget to “Czech” out more of my travels 😉
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