Oleg accepted a job with a company on the other coast, and so we packed up his apartment, hired a big truck, and took a road trip to move him south. He drove his car, Tom drove the truck, and Darcy and I drove my van with Grammy in the backseat, along for the adventure.
Grammy's college friend lives in that same area, and since they hadn't seen one another in while, she joined us so she could spend some time with her friend. Because Darcy had to pick up a prescription, we were late getting on the road. Tom insisted we avoid the toll roads so by the time the van head out, approximately twenty minutes or more after the other two, we hit every single light. On the two-lane road. Then we got behind big trucks. On the two-lane road. Then our windshield was attacked by lovebugs, and when I say that, I mean they were smacking into the glass at a rate of three per second until Darcy could barely see out to drive.
We had to pull over at a gas station just to wash the windshield. This was also during the week of the "big gas shortage" due to the pipeline hack, which shouldn't have affected our area, but, of course, people panicked. Like they did with the toilet paper. So, when we finally found a gas station, not only were we thrilled to be cleaning our windshield, we were thrilled to find gas!
Every single car in line was really there for the windshield cleaner and scraper, but hey, since there was gas, well everyone filled up too.
I took the wheel then, told Darcy we were done with the no-toll roads, got on to the interstate, and we ended up arriving at our destination just as the men were getting out of their cars. Oh, and the bug situation? They weren't immune either.
Oleg found a roommate and is sharing a two-bedroom townhouse. We met the guy who was quite chill about all of us traipsing in and out of his house, bumping furniture into his walls, and chatting a mile a minute as we did so.
The men returned the truck while Darcy and I set up Oleg's bedroom with Grammy's advice from her perch on the bed. Then we thanked the roommate and met the men for dinner. Where Grammy discovered she'd left her wallet back home.
That was several minutes of frantically emptying her purse and digging through the van, but a call to her SIL who went to her house turned up the wallet. It's now our new family joke.
Grammy: "This is my treat!"
Us: "Uh-huh, left your wallet at home again, didn't you?"
We spent several days at the resort further south from Oleg's. Grammy visited with her friend. Darcy and Oleg had a date night to finally celebrate his new job and their graduation. I got to swim laps in a pool larger than my backyard one, and Tom...well, he did a lot of driving, getting people to and fro.
Saying goodbye to Oleg on Sunday was quite sad. There were a lot of tears. But, as we reminded him, we're only a three hour, bugs in our windshield, drive away!
And then, I made him send me a selfie of his first day of work on Monday!
Yay to new beginnings!
