Road Trip

Well it has been awhile since I've posted, but we've been busy. We are getting closer to our anticipated departure in January. We decided last month that we really do need a vehicle when we get to Liberia. Used vehicles are very expensive in Liberia, so we were advised to purchase a vehicle in the states and have it shipped. This also provides a place to pack all of your "stuff" when the vehicle is shipped.

So we purchased a 1994 Toyota Landcruiser a couple weeks ago. The past two weeks we've been shopping and packing everything from food to linens in the car. The original plan was for Jamie and Jennifer to drive the Landcruiser to Tennessee starting Thursday (tomorrow) around noon. They'd arrive in Murfreesboro on Sunday, give the vehicle to the shipping company, and fly back Monday morning. We received an email from the shipping company (STS) that they had just received a large load of goods for Liberia, and as soon as the vehicle was there they'd be ready to ship the container. In fact they had a second container half full. Jamie and Jennifer decided they'd leave Wednesday morning instead, so they'd have the Landcruiser delivered Friday and STS could finish packing the container over the weekend.

Everything seemed on target, until I received an email from STS last Saturday telling us we MUST have the vehicle title with the vehicle. Like I already said, we just purchased the vehicle two weeks ago, and somebody procrastinated transferring the title until last Thursday. So now we were a bit panicked. I happened to run into the vehicle licensing lady in Fred Meyers on Sunday and asked her when we could expect the title. She said about 6 weeks...and unfortunately there wasn't anything we could do to speed that up.

So Monday morning I was on the phone trying to get ahold of someone in Olympia to see if there was anything we could do. Jamie was supposed to leave in 2 days, and our vehicle was supposed to ship in about a week. A 6 week delay in the title would not only make us miss this container, but the next was over half full so we'd likely be waiting until the spring of next year before it would ship.

Luckily our local GOP party headquarters is upstairs from my office. I walked up and one of our local state reps. was there visiting (the day before the election). I explained my predicament and he called his assistant to have her contact the vehicle title people. At the same time another representative from the peninsula was efforting thanks to a local connection. Within an hour I was able to talk to a supervisor in Olympia who said they would get the title out as soon as possible...but it would still be about 2 weeks. They hadn't yet received the copy from Whatcom Cty, then it had to be imaged, then processed, then sent to Utah to be printed (seriously, Utah prints our vehicle titles).

So I contacted STS and told him our new timeline. He said to go ahead and get the vehicle there, they'd finish packing it and just wouldn't be able to ship the container until the title arrived. We were happy they'd hold the container for us, but a little disappointed we were holding everyone else up for two weeks.

So then the phone rings the next morning (yesterday). It is the supervisor in Olympia saying she's rec'd the title, imaged it, and has a title printed and will mail it out the same day. Wow, we went from 6 weeks to 2 weeks to 1 day.

So Jamie and Jennifer were off at about 4AM this morning. They should be into Montana by now. I wanted to get a pre-journey picture of them in the car, but didn't feel like following Jamie over to Jennifer's house, so I just have Jamie in the car.

There's the vehicle loaded to the gills. When we packed it we made sure the passenger seat would lay back enough for them to sleep...then I put the seat upright and forgot about it and packed the back full. Jamie and Jen had to spend 15 minutes re-packing to get the seat back down.

Wide awake and excited for the 38 hour drive! Please remember Jamie and Jennifer in your prayers the next couple days.