Now we have to figure out how to get her there
“your mission, should you choose to accept it”
It’s starting to feel like college is “Mission Impossible” or something. Except I know (I preached to myself a little last night - hehehe) that God’s going to accomplish it.
I just have issues with not having a plan set in stone. (Plans can be changed, as long as the change is immediate. They don’t even have to be GOOD plans. But I NEED A PLAN.) Guess I didn’t learn the lesson well enough over these past few months.
We did formulate a “sort of” plan yesterday. A “let’s try this” plan. I like it better than no plan, but there’s still too many variables.
The mission: To get myself, Ken, and Kayti, her stuff, and her car to Lakeland, Florida on or before August 18… to leave her stuff, and her car there (all right, we’ll leave her too. If we have to. If she insists! :::cries:::) and get Ken and I back here to North Carolina.
The issues: Her car is older, and we’ve never taken it out of town. Chances are it’ll make it (it’s a good little car, really), but with no friends along the way to help, no guarantee of a town having a Mercedes repair shop…No way we’d try it. We don’t own a vehicle capable of towing anything that heavy, that far… plus we’re not sure our vehicles are up for a 1300-mile round trip. She’s going to have a fair amount of stuff going.
So I started calling rentacar places, thinking that surely they must rent vehicles capable of towing. They do - they just don’t allow you to tow with them. Except for Enterprise, which rents trucks (grudgingly) to consumers with one million dollars worth of auto insurance (usually it’s business-only) at a rate that really ought to be illegal.
So that’s out.
We called Penske and U-Haul. Penske will rent us their only truck capable of seating 3 and towing (a 24-footer… imagine the fuel costs?) - for an outrageous sum. UH did better with a 14-foot, 3 seater truck and car trailer for under $700. But that’s one way.
We contemplated sending her without a car. Then we could either fly or take the Amtrak. No way it would work. She’s going to have to have a job off-campus in order to live there. Which means having wheels. Plus, how would her stuff get there?
Ken’s asking the UPS guy he works with to give him a quote on shipping at least some of it. I don’t entertain visions of that being cheap, either. We’ve also looked at shipping her car via truck or train. NOT cheap (actually it’s probably not terribly bad… but still, it’s $500+ for the cheapest quote.
Our TENTATIVE plan right now is to sell her car (anyone want an 83 Mercedes 300TD? See below) and buy her something that’s smaller, newer, and we are sure we can get repairs for if we need them. We’ll all travel down to FL in said car, with her stuff, and then Ken and I will fly or take the train back from either Tampa or Orlando.
If anyone’s got a better idea, I’m all ears!
Re: the Mercedes - it’s a nice little car…1983 light blue 300D (turbo). The engine is in great shape. AFAWK it’s never been in an accident or had storm/flood damage or anything like that. We just put a brand-new battery in it. It’s got a few needs but I don’t think there’s anything that would be considered major or that would be a bar to putting it to use immediately. This was Ken’s going-to-work car, which is why it’s not been out of town. Like I said above - it would probably make it to Florida just fine, but we’re trying to reduce variables! It’ll make someone a great car! If you’re interested in more info on it, shoot me an email and I’ll put you in touch with Ken.