The Vehicle Shipping Fiasco

So, here we are. Orders in hand. Flight scheduled. Household goods gone. House cleared. Staying in hotel room with four little kids. Now it's time to get our vehicles shipped. By now, it's late at night, and we're ensconced in our Comfort Suites room. All the kids are asleep (finally). And the thought crosses my mind to check with the shipping company to make sure that we're good to ship both of our vehicles to Hawaii. I should have just gone to bed instead.
For the record, my husband and I both drive large vehicles. He drives a Chevy Silverado extended cab Z71. I drive a GMC Yukon XL (think Suburban). We love our cars, and upon checking into cheap jalopy prices in Honolulu, decided to keep our vehicles and pay out of pocket to ship my car. Since the Army only pays to ship one vehicle overseas (does ANYONE have a one-car family anymore), I had to call the vehicle shipper several weeks ago to get information about shipping my truck. So, I called the folks at Pasha Hawaii. The gentleman I spoke to was very nice and helpful (so I thought). He informed me that it would be no problem to ship my truck from Dallas, and that it would cost a measly $1790. OUCH! Well, $1790 is still cheaper than buying a beater vehicle...I asked him if I needed any kind of letter of permission from my lender, since my car is financed. He said that their company didn't require one. I asked about what could remain in the car, and he said nothing but car seats for the kids. I asked how much gas needed to be in the car, and he said that it didn't matter how much gas was in the car. I thanked him and hung up. This is where the sleepless night at the Comfort Suites comes in.
I'm lying there in our hotel room when I get to thinking about shipping the cars the next day. My husband's truck is on orders, so his should be ready to go. But, as anyone who has ever done anything with the military knows, there has to be a hitch to getting my vehicle there. "There has to be a hitch," I think to myself. So, I get up, turn on my trusty laptop, and get on the Pasha Hawaii site. First hitch: If you pay for your car to go to Hawaii online, you can use a credit card. If you wait to pay at the drop off site, you have to use a money order or cashier's check. GREAT. Not only do we bank with Bank of America, but I have no idea where a BofA location would be between here and there, and I certainly don't want to haul the kids into the bank. So, I need to pay with a credit card. You can book online with the site, but somehow I think I'd rather talk to someone on the phone. Of course, Pasha is closed until 10 a.m. CST the following morning. So I get to stew about paying for the car. Then, a second thought occurs to me: if I have to book, I wonder if I have to have an appointment at the drop off location. So, I get on the phone to call Dallas VPC. Again, closed. GREAT. I might mention at this point that at no time during our travel booking with the post did they mention ANYTHING about needing to book or scheduling an appointment with anyone. So I explain all of my frantic stressing to my husband in great detail. He supportively mumbles something about calling them in the morning, rolls over, and proceeds to snore. I spend the night tossing and turning.
Bright and early the following morning, I make my calls. I call Dallas VPC first. The lady on the phone explains that yes, I do need an appointment as well as the order number from Pasha. GREAT. I explain that we're in transit already, and ask if they have any availability for today. She puts me on hold. When she comes back on the line, she tells me that yes, they can get me in at 3 p.m. HALLELUJIAH! So, then, I call Pasha. Again, I get to talk to the same nice guy on the phone, who doesn't realize the error of his non-information giving ways. I book my truck's passage, grilling the guy the whole time. $1790 later (Again, OUCH!), he emails me my confirmation, which I then have to sign and fax back to him with a copy of my registration. Fortunately, Comfort Suites has a business center, and they are happy to fax my paperwork for me. Whew. Crisis averted.
So, after our complementary continental breakfast (Yeah, Frosted Flakes!), we load everyone into our trucks, and head off for Dallas. A few minutes after leaving the hotel, we have to stop and fill up both trucks with gas. (There's no restriction on gas level at Dallas VPC, right?) So, refueled, we take off again. Five seconds after we pull onto the highway, my 22-month-old, who we will call Houdini, stands up in her five-point-harness car seat. Since I am the last man in our two-car convoy, I flash my headlights at the lead vehicle, and signal to pull over. I manage to get the car pulled over before Houdini makes it to the floor of the vehicle. I unbuckle my seat belt, open my door, run around my vehicle to the passenger side, and snatch Houdini out of her seat. After a quick swat on the bottom and a stern "Stay in your seat!" from me, I fasten her in the seat again, and I tighten the straps as tight as I can get them without cutting off her circulation. By this time, my husband has pulled a standard median U-turn, and is approaching us on the service road. He sees that I am getting back in my seat, and executes a reverse U-turn onto the on-ramp of the highway, and we take off again. Two-and a half semi-peaceful hours later (Mom, she's touching my PILLOW!!!), I receive a text message from my husband. "Hugry yet?" He asks. I sigh. I'd really rather not stop, but if you don't feed the heathens, they tend to get cranky. So, I answer that yes, we're hungry. My husband, great man and hero that he is, has a singular talent for stopping in the armpit of nowhere on the side of the road. When he signals to get off the highway at Willie's Place (Yes, I mean Willie Nelson), I think he's gone off his rocker. We get to the top of the exit ramp, and sure enough, there is NOTHING. We make a quick left, cross over the highway, and there it is: Willie's Place. Hmmm....It's brand new, and appears to be clean from the outside. Upon closer examination, the dining room is clean, and the staff is friendly. They show us to an extra-large booth close to the restrooms, and take our orders. The food is actually good. I am amazed that I only have to make two trips to the bathroom during the meal because our two oldest girls have a bathroom fetish. We eat, and leave Willie's Place in under an hour.
If you've ever been through the Dallas/Ft. Worth area on I-35, you know that you NEVER want to take I-35E unless you've got an actual reason to go to downtown Dallas. I-35E is long, drawn out, and congested with traffic at the best of times. Well, Dallas VPC is in Lake Dallas, TX, which is just north of Dallas itself on I-35E. I figure that traffic shouldn't be too bad, since we'll be going through Dallas at 2:00. Traffic was great, until we got to within 10 miles of Dallas VPC, where TxDOT has closed the right lane of I-35E. Traffic backs up and proceeds at a snail's pace, because the single largest flaw of Texas drivers is that they don't kow the definition of the word MERGE. They all also apparently missed ALL of the signs for three miles prior to the lane closure that the lane would be closed ahead. It's getting very close to our 3 p.m. appointment by the time that we hit this traffic snarl. So, I think ahead, and I call Dallas VPC and tell them that we're on our way and we're caught in traffic. They inform me that "We'll be fine". We finally navigate our way to Dallas VPC 45 minutes later. Then I have to go get the rental car, which happens to be back the way we came (through the snarled traffic). So, we drop of my husband's truck, and drive like crazy people back to pick up the rental car. By now, my husband is cranky and upset because we have go backtrack to get the rental car. I can almost hear him thinking that we should have picked up the rental car on the way, but unless he wants our six-year-old to drive, two people can't drive three cars. So he drops me like a hot potato to pick up the rental car, and he hightails it back to Dallas VPC with the kids. I get our rental car (a KIA minivan) and hightail it right after him. By the time I arrive at Dallas VPC again, it is 4 p.m. I get inside with my two youngest children, and I'm sweating like a pig. The very nice man at the door informs me that we've "missed the cutoff". "Excuse me?" I say.
"We stop taking cars at 3:30," he says.
"I had a 3:00 appointment, and I called to say we were stuck in traffic," I tell him. He checks with another person and agrees to start processing the vehicles today.
Then he returns and tells me that they can't process today because his boss says no, and we need to wash both cars.
By now, I am completely exhausted, sweaty, and stressed out. I start to cry. They send my husband in to calm me down (and make me leave). So, we go outside, and he says, "I don't understand why you're so upset. I figured something like this would happen."
I told him, "Well, you're going to miss your surprise birthday party tomorrow. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

In the beginning....

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the Army decided that our family needed to move to Hawaii. "GREAT!" I said, "It'll be fantastic!" Psyched as I was at first, I had yet to think of everything that would be involved in this move. First of all, we have a LOT of stuff. We live in a four bedroom, 2100 square foot house with a two-car garage. The garage is FULL of stuff. Then there's the dog. She is old and does not do boarding well, much less a twelve hour flight in the cargo hold of a 747. Then, there's the biggest kicker of all: we have FOUR (yes, FOUR) kids. All of the kids are under the age of 7, and they're girls.
Many months (and orders changes) later, our PCS date had been pushed back. Further delays ensued. Frustration was born. Finally, my husband made it back from Afghanistan, and we could begin our long journey to Hawaii. Well, the office that does the orders here in Texas is backed up. So we have to wait for the orders. Again. Finally got the orders (two weeks later). But unlike every other post we have lived at, transportation needs separate dependant orders before they can give us a travel date. And in order to do that, we have to go to an EFMP screening. What EFMP? We don't utilize the services of EFMP, and never have. Why do we need a screening? You just do, they say. So, in typical hoop-jumping fashion, I make appointments for myself and all four kids to go have our screenings. Got to the screening office, and was told that they never received my medical records. I've been to see my primary care physician exactly three times in the two and a half years that we've lived here. And on top of that, the clinic where my PCM used to practice has closed and moved over an hour away. The EFMP screening folks inform me that they can't process my screening without my nonexistent medical records. GREAT. So, I call the appointment line again (they can't reschedule right there in the office) and make new appointments for the five of us, which I am told will not happen for two more weeks.
In the mean time, my wonderful husband has managed to fight the good fight and procure us a moving date. We're scheduled to have the movers come August 10-12 to pack and load all of our household goods. It will take at least 30 days for all of our possessions to make it to Hawaii. So, no stuff for a month. Alrighty then. Then, I get a call from transportation saying that because they do not have dependent orders, that they will have to put all of our stuff in storage instead of shipping it directly to Hawaii. Can't get the dependent orders because EFMP won't clear me without medical records, which I can't get because my doctor's office no longer exists. Rock, meet hard place. Eventually, I did manage to get some medical records faxed, and went to our second EFMP appointment (this screening is only supposed to take 20 minutes, and I've been back twice now). Get to the appointment, hand the receptionist all my paperwork, and she says, "Oh, you need a new 5888."
"What?" I say, "What do you mean?"
"This is the OLD 5888. You have to have the new version of the form."
At this point, I am slightly upset. Not only because this is the second time I've been there, but because I had to drag all four kids up there with me into their tiny office. This 5888 is the same exact one that I gave her two weeks ago, and she didn't say anything then. Are you serious??? So, I called my loving, wonderful husband. Several expletives and a lot of shouting from him later, they magically made a new 5888 appear. We were processed and ready to go. Finally.
So, we sent the EFMP blessing off to get dependent orders, which took blessedly no time at all to get. Transportation came through in a flash and corrected our move to a direct shipment. Woohoo!! Things are looking up!
So, I decided to put in our 30 days notice with our landlord. As a reward for my thoughtful gesture, I receive four more pages of paperwork, which I must return with a stack of receipts for things like lawn fertilization and carpet cleaning. Equipped with my extended move-out inspection list ($75 cleaning fee if the air conditioning registers are dusty), I go home and immediately freak out. My husband tells me that I'm stressing over nothing, as usual, which I am. But, seriously, I tell him, what kind of renter honestly has their lawn fertilized?
After that, things continued to crawl along for a bit. Friends and family came to visit at various times to say goodbye. We cleaned out the garage and the closets. Then moving day arrived.....

Bless our movers! All three days of our move were above 100 degrees. The ladies that came to pack our things were speedy quick, and even finished packing early on the second day! The guys who came to load the stuff worked hard through blistering heat AND rain, and stayed at our house for over 12 hours. Stuff loaded. Check. Now to clean and then drop off our vehicles in Dallas.

Four days of back breaking cleaning later, we finally checked into the hotel. (And, let me tell you, there is nothing sexier than a man scrubbing the floor at midnight.) Yep, that's right we slept on air mattresses and nap mats for FOUR DAYS. Four little kids out of their own beds is not fun. The first night they stayed up until 11 p.m. giggling. So, no sleep = cranky all day = crying melt downs in the afternoon. Joy. Anyway, we did our move-out inspection, which went okay. Then we checked into the Comfort Suites in Killeen. I had specifically chosen this hotel because it said PET FRIENDLY. Well, yeah, if your pet weighs less than 10 lbs. Sorry, but our dog weighs 50! So, the poor dog is stuck outside in her crate. Other than that, though, the room was nice, and the kids did okay.

More on our moving experience tomorrow!!!