Moving to Cali: NYC --> Chicago

Me in front of my (old) building

I will say that I am very thankful that the entire trip to California will not be like our road trip from New York to Chicago this past Thursday.  It was a brutal 14-hour drive (with stops).  I say "brutal" because I drove for all but an hour of it.  It seemed only fair to do it like that because Erik will be driving the rest of the day (albeit for shorter drives) since his car is stick.

We left NYC at 8:24am (only 24 minutes behind schedule, which is a HUGE record for us!).  It was surprisingly not painful to leave my apartment.  I don't think I'm really processing it.  I'm just happy that I finished my sightseeing, ate at my favorite restaurants one last time (hello, 6+ pounds of weight gain!) and spent time with my friends before leaving NYC.  We (the City and me) left on good terms.

Good bye, NYC (picture taken from New Jersey)

Yes, we are cheesy and took a photo of every state sign.

The first part of the drive was terrible.  It was rainy and Celeste would NOT
stop meowing.  She literally did not stop for most of the trip. By the end of
the day she was so hoarse, it was pathetic.

Ohio!

Erik at a rest stop in Ohio -- making plans for Friday night

Indiana, the state where we drove directly into the sun for hours...

  [Illinois not pictured because it was already dark when we got to the state.]

I guess I would cry too if I was stuck in a small mesh box...

Pericles was a great traveler. Usually, we would have them in the same carrier, but decided that for this trip, it would be best to have them separate.  That ended up
being a great idea... for Pericles.  Celeste was rolling around in her carrier and generally being a pain in the ass.  We also chose not to sedate them this time like we did for the move from Illinois out east.  It didn't really help much and just made them act drunk while doing the same things they did this time, which was more annoying than sober kitty meowing.  We tried Vetri-Science Composure Chews (we were told they were really helpful at calming cats down).  We gave it to her, but I'm not sure it worked.  That all being said, they made it safely and were fine when we got them to my in-laws.  We're lucky our cats are such troopers and don't freak out in new places.

Please no photos of me, I look terrible.
As you can see, Erik and I got a little bored in the car...
Also, we did not purchase a Jeep.  We rented a car from NYC to Chicago and will drive
Erik's old car from Chicago to California.  We also got this one-way rental for only $90!
Don't ask how we got such a crazy deal because we don't even know.  Luck!?

I think that the fact we made it to Illinois (803 miles) in one day without killing each other or any major arguments should be considered a HUGE accomplishment.  Let's hope that all our other drives go so well (but with less back pain for me).