moving cross country with amtrak

When we were preparing to move across country we weighed out and priced out all of our options. We looked into movers, shared movers, PODS and the like, shipping through USPS, shipping through other outlets, renting a truck and towing the car, driving the car and towing a trailer… the list goes on. We spent days and days figuring out the most budget friendly, practical way to move our belongings.

The thing was, that we had sold all of our furniture and only had 20 boxes, plus our every day wardrobes and necessities – but those items we took in the car with us. So, it didn’t make sense for us to rent a whole truck or POD or even to pay movers since we had so little. While researching I stumbled upon info on shipping through Amtrak. That’s right, the same credible company that sends trains all over the country!

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I did my research, I emailed the company, called them and researched more reviews. I couldn’t find one negative review on shipping through Amtrak. When I called the company with a list of 12 questions, the last one being: “What is protocol if you lose everything I own?!” the kind woman on the other end paused, then responded with – “Well ma’am, I don’t know because it’s honestly never happened.”

It cost us $394 to ship 20 boxes, 800 pounds of belongings. The other prices we were looking at were $1000 – $1500. Amtrak was $49 for the first 100 pounds and 46 cents every pound after that. Amazing!

There were some restrictions though, but luckily for us it wasn’t a problem. Things like you couldn’t ship furniture or small appliances. We had no furniture and we were able to pack two bins with the small appliance and take them in the car with us. There were also box size requirements you had to obey and each box couldn’t be over 50 pounds. We had no issues with that.

To stay organized and be prepared (just in case!), I numbered each box 1-20 and then had a detailed contents list of each.

We dropped our shipment off at the loading dock in Boston and within three days we had a call that all of our belongings had arrived in Colorado. The other great part though, they’ll hold your items for up to 48 hours. And after that, it’s only $3 per item, per day to store – which is still a steal! The extra 48 hours storage was key for us because we were only somewhere around Des Moines when we got the call that our things had arrived.

When we got to Denver, we pulled right up to their loading dock and everything was packed neatly on a pallet all wrapped together. We jammed our car with boxes and our friend helped us with his pickup truck.

It was the easiest, mindless process and you can not beat the cost. I will always recommend Amtrak after this experience. If you need or want to find out more information I suggest giving them a call, they were so helpful. Thanks Amtrak, for leaving a lasting impression!

By the way, Amtrak has no clue who I am. I was just really, really, REALLY pleased with their services!

tips for a successful road trip

After we embarked on our four day road trip from Massachusetts to Colorado I realized there were lots of things I wanted to share with you guys. Road trips can be daunting, especially if you’re not prepared. And in our case, we drove for four straight days only stopping for bathroom breaks and to sleep. We had a deadline and we had to stick to it.

To make sure we had a smooth trip I made sure we were prepared for everything. A lot of the prep has to do with how the car is packed too. So, I was sure to leave one bag behind the front seats of things we might want during the trip – books, magazines, notebook, Catch Phrase, etc – and left a few things even closer in the side pocket on the passenger door – maps, pen, smaller notebook, etc. Behind the other seat was the easily accessible cooler with food and drinks.
Here are some other tips I thought of that worked really well for us…

How to Have a Successful Road Trip

• Have maps. Even in the days of GPS you have to be prepared for the technology to fail. It always does when you need it most! So we were equipped with maps as well.

• Have a first aid kit readily available. I kept one in the same bag behind the seat with the books and magazines. I used one of those plastic take out food containers, cleaned out of course. It was the perfect size for bandaids, advil, alcohol wipes, etc.

• Keep a flashlight in the car. You never know.

• Line the center console cup holders with thick napkins or paper towels. This was actually super helpful for when drinks would sweat or spill. It made clean up a lot easier.

• Pack easy to eat food. We had lots of snacks and my sister kindly made a bunch of sandwiches for us (she also made us a big road trip bag of snacks so really she gets all the credit for us eating on this trip). We knew we’d get bored of eating the same thing every day so we had a different sandwich each day (chicken salad, tuna, pb&j) and then one day we actually had mac and cheese! We made it before we left, put it in a reusable container and ate it right out of the container. This was a little messier, but it was great to have the different variety, and that day we just ate while at a rest stop instead. We also had hard boiled eggs which were easy to eat on the go.

• We had lots of easy snacks: apples, bananas, trail mix, beef jerky, baked chips and so on. All things were easy finger foods.

• Hydrate. Sitting on your butt for 8-11 hours each day is a lot. To avoid cramping we made sure to drink lots. We had reusable water bottles that we refilled with gallons of water we had with us.

• Bring a cell phone charger that connects to the car. You’d hate to have a dead phone when you need it most.

• Have contact information for where ever you’ll be staying. In our case we stayed with friends two nights, so it was easy to give them a call and let them know we were close. One night we stayed in a hotel and it was helpful to call to ask about parking, check in, complimentary breakfast, etc.

• Be comfy. We had a pillow and blanket accessible for whomever wasn’t the driver. Just in case they wanted to get cozy and take a snooze. The pillow was also helpful for me when I was the driver, it gave me a little extra back support because my back was hurting a little from sitting so much.

• Have your camera out and ready! I think this was my favorite part. I never thought I would get so many great photos while riding in the car. Some though, are ones I know we’ll love looking at in many years to come.

• Pack separate over night bags from the rest of your packed clothes or wardrobe. We traveled with a lot of clothing. Only because I was starting work a few days after arriving and I didn’t want to risk our clothes getting lost or delayed with the rest of our belongings. We packed one medium sized duffel that was easy for us to grab out of the car when we were staying over night.

• Have fun and play Catch Phrase. We really did have the best time during our road trip. We were stuck in the car together for 34 hours straight. We laughed, we yelled, we smiled and we talked. It was a lot of fun. We played Catch Phrase and it was hilarious.

Whatever you do to prepare for your road trip, make sure it works for your family. These are things that worked for us and things that we found helpful. I’d love to hear any other tips you might have. And really, bring Catch Phrase along!

cross country road trip day 4 {last day} – omaha to denver

What a trip this was. We were so sad to know that our road trip together was coming to an end. We had really had the best time talking, laughing, playing catch phrase and spotting things along the ride. We didn’t rush to get on the road. We had breakfast at the hotel and then packed up and hit the road by about 10am.

I drove the first few hours of the trip so Al could get a few calls made that he needed to follow-up on. It was a dark, gloomy day with rain sprinkles here and there. Made it harder to drive and not want to just take a nap!

We saw a lot of bails of hay as we drove through Nebraska. A really lot. The sights were much of the same from the last day, a lot of farms, cows, birds, open space, hay, corn and fields.

One thing that was quite fascinating to me was how dark black the cows were. They were jet black. They always looked pretty cool in a big field together.

We hit the 2000 mile mark on our new car and when we reached Denver our total mileage for the trip was 2019.5.

Overall our trip was great. We only wished we could have made it longer, stopped in more places and visited more things along the way. We still loved seeing our friends and family along the way and we loved our time in Omaha.

Now, we’re staying with friends while we look for a place to live. Hopefully this weekend something will come through and we’ll be getting settled in no time. Two totally tired faces after driving for 32 hours and 4 days straight!

Hope you’ve enjoyed following us as much as we’ve enjoyed chronicling the trip for you. Thank you for all your well wishes, good thoughts, kind words and prayers. We’re so excited for this new adventure and will continue to keep you updated.

Next week I plan to share some tips on moving cross-country and preparing for road trips…two things I wish I was able to find more info on before our move. Stay tuned, and have a great weekend!

cross country road trip day 3 – chicago to omaha

Today was a cool day of driving because, well, neither of us have ever been to Iowa and there were some interesting sights there!

Al started his day with some beef jerky. He ate a lot of beef jerky during this road trip. I’m convinced his sodium levels are through the roof.

This day of travel was an exciting one. We were half way through our trip and we were both excited to see what Omaha was all about. Along the way we stopped in Des Moines, which was not that exciting of a place! We also passed the world’s largest truck stop, lots of wind turbines and so many trucks. So. Many. Trucks.

Cool thing about the trucks was that each one was always carrying something different from the last. We saw massive trucks carrying parts to the wind turbines. Like the huge blades strapped to a truck. They’re like 150 feet long!

We also saw a whole lot of farming equipment and machinery being transported. And so many of the trucks were wide loads. Humongous wide loads.

We saw a truck that was loaded up with train wheels; just the wheels. I think that was my favorite one out of all of them.

Once we got to Omaha we were tired and hungry. We checked into the hotel and just our luck it was complimentary beer and wine night! We decided to walk downtown while it was still light out and check out a little of the city.

Quite a beautiful city it was. We stumbled upon this massive building that was a candy store, antique mall, small dinner, movie theater… and a whole lot more things. All in this one place!

After that we walked downtown around what they call the Market to find a delicious steak. We ate at a great brewery that had tasty beer and even tastier food.

Omaha was a pretty fun city, we only wish we had more time there. I think we might actually make a trip back for longer in the future! We were pretty pooped after dinner so we headed back and I was out cold by 9pm. Great night sleep that was. More later on our last day of travel…to Denver!

cross country road trip day 2 – buffalo to chicago

We got a bit of a later start than we hoped for, but we had to do a major re-org of the car. It looked like a tornado; things were rattling, shifting, shaking and it was a disaster. So we got up and took everything out before putting it all back in to solve the issues. Visibility is better, we can reach our food better and the darn golf clubs aren’t rattling for 10 hours straight!

Once we did get on the road it was smooth sailing. No traffic and nice flat driving. It’s so cool to see all these different states. The pumpkin patches in the fields on the sides of the highway are amazing in Ohio! After about four hours of driving we stopped in Cleveland at a Panera to stretch out, grab a cool drink and use a little Internet time to catch up on a few things. Was a quick stop and we were back on the road in no time.

Al has been a champion driver. I contributed a whole two hours yesterday. I don’t mind driving but if he’s happy to then I don’t complain either! We’ve been trying to stop every few hours even if to just stretch our legs out. The stops usually coincide with either a fuel up or bathroom trip so it’s been working out well.

At one of the stops I noticed that the whole bumper was speckled black. I got a little closer and it was seriously like a bug cemetery. I couldn’t believe it! I mean it was totally gross but fascinating at the same time.

There were some beautiful things to see along the way, that’s for sure. It was just so flat everywhere, the sky was so big because it was so flat!

We also put the first 1000 miles on our new car in just 8 days! Don’t worry Mom, we weren’t speeding. Limit is 70 out in the flat lands!

We were psyched when we were able to see the city line of Chicago. Though it was a quick trip, Al loved it (I’ve been before).

We’re definitely going to plan a trip back for longer than 12 hours. We had a great time visiting Al’s brother Jack, his fiance Mici, and Emily and Peter. Thanks for hosting us Em and Peter!

Next up – Omaha, Nebraska. Stay tuned!!

cross country road trip day 1 – boston to buffalo

This week we’ll be chronicling our journey from Boston to Denver to keep all of our family and friends updated. Enjoy!

We are officially one day into our road trip to Colorado! Things like this are bittersweet in the toughest way possible. The good byes that took place over the last few days were really tough. But, this is also such an exciting time for us and we can’t wait to embark on this adventure. So, our emotions are currently all over the place!

Day one of traveling went pretty well. We bought a new car a week before we hit the road, which has been great. We had some issues with the cargo carrier on top of the car. We tried out three different ones and not one of them fit properly. By the third one we had to just make it work because we needed the additional space on the roof. That lasted about two hours. We got to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts and knew we had to do something. Our gas mileage was comparable to a small box truck and the car felt like it was dragging pretty badly.

This world of technology we live in is amazing. Within minutes I was able to use my computer connected to the Internet from my phone, look up a store, use one phone to call to have them hold a new cargo carrier while using the other phone to map the directions.

We usually buy everything through REI or LL Bean (lifetime guarantees!) but neither had a store anywhere in the vicinity so we found a Sears and was able to get a much better cargo carrier. The whole process set us back a little over an hour but it was totally worth it. Gas mileage was better, it was larger, so fit more in it, and the entire ride felt so much smoother. It was hilarious trying to get it installed. I literally had to climb in it to get it secured to the roof. But it worked and we felt a lot better about the rest of the trip.

After stopping at the Sears we decided to take the scenic route back to the highway. I was so glad we did. It was absolutely gorgeous. The foliage, the lakes, the barns. All of it was so beautiful. I did my best to capture photos but it was tricky to do while driving

We didn’t hit any traffic so overall the drive was great. Our friends Maria and Jack hosted us for the night in their new home in Buffalo. By the time we got there we were ready to stretch, eat and have a beer! We had a great time with them, and even though it was nighttime and pitch black out they still gave us a great tour of the city, showed us the beautiful Lake Erie and shared their new city and home with us.

The best part for me yesterday was the fact that when we got off the highway to go to the Sears we were in the exact area we were when we got engaged. We passed the restaurant we ate at, hotel we stayed, stores we stopped at and the mountain Al proposed at. What are the odds?! We had no clue until we were driving along the route and it was all so familiar. I also loved driving through western Mass. I know I’ve been as a child but I don’t think I’ve ever been (or if I have I don’t remember it) during the peak of the fall season. It was amazing.

More later, to fill you in about day two!