The joys of living on the road...

I'm sitting at a Starbucks (free Wi-Fi and I LOVE Vanilla Bean Frappucinos) and am trying to figure out what to do next.

I survived the move. I crashed at a friend's place on the way up, then got a hotel once I got close to my new school. I spent the next day putting my belongings in storage, getting new car insurance (my old one expires today, so I figured this was a good time to switch over to this new state) and taking care of a million little things. Everything seemed to go wrong though. So U-Haul says that they give you a month free storage after you've rented a trailer - "at participating locations." Well, I clicked on the link in the e-mail with this offer and picked the first location. Once I got there, the staff informed me that they did not participate in this program and that it would cost me $100 per month to store my stuff here. What??? Ridiculous!!!! After some arguing back and forth, I gave up and called U-Haul in hope of finding a "participating" location that actually participated in the program. I found one, about a half hour away. On my way, I stopped by the public library. I figured, since I'd be on the road for a while, it'd be good to have new reading material. Well, it would have been.... The library required that you had proof of your address - a letter that was mailed to you, a billing statement, something. Since I don't have a new address yet, I got nothing. :( I guess I'll be re-reading the same four books I've been reading all summer. Ha.
I made it to the storage unit and spent two hours in the sun unpacking the UHaul trailer and moving my belongings into the storage unit. By the end, I was sweaty and gross, but since I hadn't planned on staying here for another night but wanted to drive to the place where the concert was the next day, I had no other choice but to keep going and just I didn't smell too bad. ;)
Next I tried to tackle the car insurance issue. I'd been doing research for a while online, asking for quotes, communicating with various companies. The first one I stopped by, the one who'd given me by far the lowest rate in our online communication, suddenly had a completely different rate. How does that happen? I'd given them all my information! *sigh*
I moved on to the next one. Fortunately, the rate for that one only went up about $30. I guess that 's something I can live with. It was still cheaper than the others.

By now it was 5 pm and I still had a 5-hour drive ahead of me. I jumped back in the car and started driving. I like driving. I love the freedom of the road. I love blasting music, singing along and not having to worry what anyone thinks about me. The first day of a roadtrip is always fun. By the second though, I can feel my butt and my back hurting; I can't find a comfortable way to sit in the car anymore. I stop every few hours, just to get out and move around a little. I spend hours sitting in fast food restaurants, eating my food very very slowly and reading a book. By the third day, I know I need a break. This was day three and while running errands hadn't been fun, it at least gave me that much-needed break.

The next day was then a lot of fun - a concert, hanging out in the sun outside, NOT DRIVING!!! Well, at least not driving until late at night, when I'd decided to put in a few hours in the direction of my next stop - a friend's wedding. I drove until I got tired, crashed at a rest area, and as soon as I woke up, continued to drive.

The wedding was in the evening and since the hotel didn't let me check-in until 3 pm, I barely managed to take a shower and get ready. Once I got back from the wedding (which was wonderful...it was nice to see friends again that I hadn't met up with in a while), I took another shower just because I could. ;) Well and the wedding had been outside and I'd once again gotten kinda sweaty and gross. But yeah, you really start to appreciate showers when you're traveling.

Now yesterday was supposed to be fun and it started out that way. I only drove for a few hours, then set up my tent at the beach (literally on the beach) at a campground. There were a ton of people around (also with tents) and I'm not that big of a fan of being surrounded by crowds of people when I'm on vacation, but I dealt with it and just enjoyed sitting out in the sun reading and relaxing. I got ready for bed around 10 pm. I could see lighting moving toward us from across the ocean - it looked impressive but I started to wonder a little how safe it was to sleep in a tent when there was lighting. But then again, there were a ton of people around - why would the lightening strike my tent (okay, not the best logic but it made me feel better)? What I hadn't even thought about was what to do if it started storming. Oh and how it stormed. I found myself crouching on one side of my tent, holding on to the tent poles in the hopes of stopping the tent from blowing away or falling on top of me. I could feel sand hitting the side of the tent. And then it started to pour. Now my tent usually stays dry (I've been caught in rain a few times before), but this time it was different - the whole tent was leaning over to the side because of the storm; the water was able to get in through the windows on top that are usually covered by the second tent wall - but that one was being blown in every direction and it was surprising it hadn't been ripped off and completely blown away yet. I didn't know what to do. How long could I sit there like this? When would this stop? How wet would the tent get? I really didn't want to get sick again - I'd been sick the last four days in Austria and it had NOT been fun.
I started to throw my belongings in a big bag, so I could grab them, in case I needed to run. Suddenly, an especially strong wind gust hit the tent wall and pushed over my little cooler. Now there was ice cold water and ice cubs everywhere. I decided this was the sign that it was time to give up. I gathered as much as I could carry and ran to my car. Once in the car, I tried to clear my head and figure out what to do next. I should probably go out and take down the tent - at least so far that it wouldn't be blown away and maybe hit someone or something. But before I could get up the courage to go out in the downpour, someone knocked on my car door. It was the guy from the big tent next to mine. He'd been outside tightening the strings holding down his tent and was soaking wet. He offered to take down my tent. I was beyond relieved and could have hugged him at that moment. :) Now I only had to move some of the bags in my car around to create more space and then I could attempt to get some sleep while the rain was pounding on my car.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 am. The sun was coming up and it had stopped raining. I went outside and tried to look at the damage. My tent was a heap of soaking wet material - with my poor air mattress still inside, equally soaked. I sighted and tried to put up the tent again in the hope of getting it to dry. Once I'd accomplished that, I crawled back into the car and tried to get some more sleep. I kept waking up about every hour and looked out to check on my tent. It seemed to be fine and the weather didn't look too bad either - until I woke up at 9 am and it was once again pouring. My tent had also once again decided to collapse. I checked the weather on my phone; it said rain for the rest of the day. Yikes! It was time to just give up and cut my losses. I grabbed the tent and stuffed it in the back of my car. I tried to spread it out as much as possible but even a Jeep Liberty can't fit a tent in the back of it. I just hope it doesn't start molding or something. It'd be so much easier if I had a home to go to where I could set up the tent and let it dry out. Instead I'm not sure what to do next. I've paid for two nights at the campground. I could go back and just sleep in my car; provided I can move the tent over enough to find space for me to sleep. I don't feel like driving for hours and hours, which is what I'd have to in order to get to a friend's house where I could crash for the night.

And I'm still waiting to hear about what's going on with the immigration paperwork and when I'll be able to move in.... It'd be a bit easier to plan the next few days if I knew those answers.