Moving Truck

Spent the last two weeks packing up all the stuff in Lubbock that was left in the apartment and moving it to the new Phoenix apartment; all in all it went pretty well.

After an unseasonably warm winter, it became fantastically cold in Lubbock right as we were loading the truck, but our movers still did a great job.

Since this is a blog aimed at people moving from Lubbock to Phoenix, here’s what I learned from the experience.

Budget rental trucks have a 10% coupon in the United States Postal Service change of address form.  We got a rental truck from Budget Truck.com and it worked out great, they didn’t have the car carrier (the kind that completely lifts the car off the ground) available until 5:30 PM the day we picked up the truck.  That was fine since we weren’t planning to leave until the next day, but that would be something I would double check first.  My wife’s tiny car was so low to the ground that it didn’t clear the top of the side of the trailer when she opened the door, so we had to load it on the side and then get the door half open and climb halfway out the window then close the window from the outside.

A 15’ Budget Truck with a car carrier ended up being around $900+.  It would have been $850+ but we were over our miles because of the route we took.  Instead of taking the route I blogged about earlier, we decided to bypass the Guadalupe mountains by taking US 62 out to Odessa, then I 20, then I 10 to El Paso and spent the night at El Paso.  This added probably 100 miles onto the trip.  We hadn’t anticipated the increased fuel costs, time, and being over our mileage, but I would do it again if given the opportunity.  There were some uphills that the truck had trouble getting up, but it was worth it to avoid those crazy mountains East of El Paso.

We had the company “Affordable Moving” out of Lubbock load our truck, a great company that I would recommend to anyone, they charge at least a two hour minimum and a 4% surcharge for credit cards, so the total was $144.02, we had the guys for two hours and they loaded everything we had into the truck, it just barely fit.  If we had taken the washer and dryer with us we would have had to upgrade to the bigger truck.  My tip, drop by the rental office and ask to see the inside of a truck sometime so you have an idea of what kind of space you can work with.

Taking “the Odessa route” with that big moving truck and a car being towed on the back changed our travel time from Lubbock to El Paso to about 9 hours, from El Paso to Phoenix with that truck (but the usual I 10 route) took about 8 hours.  As always, I suggest the “spend the night in El Paso” option.

If you happen to drive your own rental truck, be very aware of the road at all times, continually check your mirrors, and watch out as semi trucks pass you (or you pass them) as the wind coming off their vehicles sometimes pushes you away or pulls you toward them.  Try to turn on your turn signal, wait as you check and then double check your mirrors, then change lanes, those blind spots are trouble.

Things took a turn for the worse once we got into Phoenix, the company I had arranged to unload consisted of two guys who showed up in a little car, one of them missing all his fingers but the thumb on his right hand and spoke no English.  It was likely he was just a “day laborer” that had been picked up on the way over.  I had specified on the phone that a dolly (hand truck) and furniture movers would be needed to transport our stuff from the truck to the new apartment, with no such tools at their disposal, it took 4 hours to unload as opposed to the 2 hours to load.  A big thumbs down for Big Mountain Movers.

The wife gives the new apartment a 90 out of 100.  We have spent our first few days in Phoenix together just going through all the boxes and making some general decisions about what goes where in our new apartment.