We left Santa Rosa, New Mexico early for the drive to Coffeyville. The trip was uneventful, even managing to avoid Tulsa rush hour traffic. We arrived in late afternoon and spent the next two hours unloading my stuff of the Uhaul.

The sun was starting to set so roomier and I were on the porch enjoying a cold drink when a squirrel started chattering from the top of the Uhaul. The other neighborhood squirrels joined in. We went inside, but the squirrels chattered faster and louder. We look out the window and see a fox trotting down the street by our house. When the fox went past, the squirrel finally shut up and jumped in the tree. The rest of them went back to whatever they were doing before and we enjoyed a cool evening on the porch.

Sixteen years ago today, I left Phoenix to move to Kansas. It was memorable for the last minute chaos.

The City of Phoenix was buying my house and I chose July 11 as a closing date. The week before I quit my job at the PetSmart warehouse and closed on my house in Coffeyville. I drove my pickup loaded with some furniture and household goods, got the utilities turned on and unloaded the furniture. I then took a Greyhound bus back to Phoenix, arriving on Saturday. I lived five miles west of the Greyhound terminal, so catching the city bus home was easy.

Because federal funds were involved, I had to move my roommate to his hometown with my moving allowance. Strangely enough, it cost less to rent a Uhaul from Phoenix to Eau Claire, Wisconsin than Phoenix to Coffeyville, Kansas. I picked up the Uhaul on Sunday and we spent Monday and Tuesday loading up. The city buyout people were scheduled to do the final walk through Wednesday morning, then I would hand over the keys and leave.

Even with the stuff I moved earlier, we had more stuff than the Uhaul could hold. Most of the extra stuff we didn’t want anyway, and there were no takers. We had to get rid of the stuff to get the city to sign off, so we spent all night Tuesday throwing stuff in the alley. Most of it went into the cans provided but some of it was left for the bulk pickup due the next week.

I had arranged for the electric and landlines phone to be shut off that afternoon after we left, but the water was shut off at 6am. This meant no last minute shower and no swamp cooler. We washed up with the toilet tank water and waited for the city buyout people who were scheduled to be here at 10am.

At 9:30 I open the gate to let the buyout people in. A few minutes later our neighbor’s ancient, decrepit dog decides our shade tree is an excellent place to die. My roomier drags the dog to the neighbor’s house. The buyout people arrive. All we have to do is show the house is still standing, no junk is in the yard, sign the final paperwork, hand over the keys, get my move out allowance check, and leave. Dog decides he really wants to die under my tree right now and starts to dig out a place to lie down. Buyout lady is a real animal lover and is freaking out. We can’t call anybody because the landline phone is in the truck and we did not have cell phones. We finally get buyout dude to call the humane society while we discreetly dragged the dog to the other side of the fence where he could be in shade and off my property.

We left by 10:30 and drove to a rest area east of Santa Rosa, New Mexico and crashed for the night.