It was official.  I was no longer a resident of New York!  After locking up the trailer with the last of my belongings, we crossed the bridge and sped off to my Dad’s childhood home in Hershey, PA.  With my last Hershey visit being about 26 years ago, the chocolate cravings quickly began at the corner of Chocolate and Cocoa Ave.  But my favorite street name, by far, was Hockersville, eliciting memories of my old friend Eddie who drooled like no other.

NYC Life in a Trailer

Eddie, the King of Hockersville

We spent the next few days in Hershey, unpacking and repacking to help clear out the house, putting our tetris skills to the test.  How many years of memories could we fit into one trailer?

And what do you do when you need a packing break?  Head to Chocolate World, of course!

After taking the kiddie ride to learn about chocolate from animated cows, we loaded up on all the chocolate we could carry and set off for our final road trip preparations.

As if we didn’t have enough crazy weather with the start of our trip, we finished off our game of trailer tetris in the hail.  With the U-haul fully loaded and the car packed to overflowing, we set off towards Chicago.  While Dad was subjected to hours of country music with my amazing karaoke sing-alongs, we sped from state to state and finally made it to the Chicago-land area around 4AM.  While I wasn’t expecting to drive through the night, my bed was a very welcome sight!

After sleeping through my morning meeting (oops!), we unpacked the trailer of items needed at home – like that essential Europe box – and repacked everything headed to Wisconsin for storage.  My mom was extremely excited to see the boxes taking over her living room a mere 3 days before hosting a big party…

With the move into storage now complete, it was time to organize and start the next phase of packing.  I learned some important things on this move:

1. Get your friends to help pack – you have way more stuff than you know and they will call you out on keeping stuff you don’t need (thanks Helen)
2. Order ALL of the bubble wrap – you will treat even your pillows as fragile items, so regardless of how careful others are, pack and protect accordingly to reduce your stress
3. Expect it to rain – you (or more realistically your Dad) will be fully prepared with towels, tarps and waterproof gear so it can only get better than expected
4. Don’t expect to sleep – again, you have way more stuff than you realize so everything will take longer than expected…but wine always improves late nights
5. Be prepared for a workout – I can’t tell you how many times I picked up and moved the same box, but think of it as your gym workout for the week!
6. At the end of the day:

You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.  — Unknown