Tamara Unleashed

These are simply to fun not to share.

The billboards start at least 15 miles ahead of the actual fudge factory. I am sure I probably missed some entertaining ones.

Another interesting visual is driving along side a wood turbine blade.

We felt like we had stepped back in time when we stopped for gas in Newark NM. This is the Route 66 gas station and Newkirk Post Office. I asked the owner how long he had been doing this and he said “too long”. The bathroom was porta-potty about 50 yards away.

In Santa Rosa NM, we happened upon a celebratory small town parade including police cars, fire engines and many cars for some high school event. On Facebook I was able to determine that we had just witnessed the send off for the High School Cheer Team going to the state competition.

We managed to have fun along the way.

We arrived safely at 10 PM and had a warm welcome from Susan and Dan, our host and Joyce. We had a snack, shower and are off to sleep! I can’t wait to see what it looks like in the morning. It will be great to get unloaded and to return that truck!!!!

Between St. James MO and Oklahoma City, the flags were all pretty much flying high and straight due to the wind. The base wind was about 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. It was slow going.

Maps indicates our trip yesterday should take 9 hours and 19 minutes. We were in the truck from 830 AM until 130 AM and Craig did all of the driving. He was not able to drive close to speed limit until we got to Oklahoma City. We only made one meal stop. We added an hour with our misadventures: a stop at a truck stop where the power had just gone out. Fortunately, we had enough gas to get to the next exit. There was construction at that exit with very confusing signage and we ended up going the wrong direction for about 8 miles before we could turn around. I kept Craig’s coffee mug full, his chapstick at the ready, his Kirkland nut bars open and was the DJ. A much easier day for me.

It started raining just as we entered Oklahoma and we started feeling water dripping down on our necks. It is hard to appreciate in the photo but the little bumps along the bottom of the black strip are drops of water. The seal between the cab and the “furniture” box was not water tight. Not much we could do about it so we kept on truckin.

Craig is using his shirt to collect the water that was dripping down his back. I didn’t realize until the next stop how wet I had gotten. When I stood up, my back and back of pants were soaked.

My laugh for the day was when I put my hoodie on when we got out of the truck to eat before I took my seatbelt off. I didn’t get very far!!

We will make it to Prescott at the end of today!!

Social Security update – I thought I would use truck time to wait on hold with Social Security to see if I can get my error corrected on my application. Guess what – the server is too busy to allow me access to my application. I will keep trying but I would guess I may have to get up very early tomorrow to try before the East Coast wakes up.

Craig is out for coffee. Our Economy Inn does not offer in room coffee – nor should it for $55/night. We were not sure how far we would be able to drive last night. Our original goal was Joplin MO. We quickly ruled that out; then set Springfield MO but then modified it to within an hour of Springfield as the trip progressed. We ended up in St. James MO – 2 hours from Springfield. Craig hit a wall not too long after his coffee ran out. This little motel had 4.5 rating on Yelp and those are accurate. Very basic old style motel. The room appears to have new carpet; hot water with good water pressure and an adequate bed. All that we needed.

This is the route we are taking. I love car trips and in my romantic version of this trip I saw us listening to books and me crocheting while I was not driving. Having never been in the cab of a truck like this I had no idea how limited the cab space was. There is no space behind the seats. Fortunately the middle seat folds up to create some floor space for our drinks and snacks. The footwell on passenger side is only large enough for two legs/feet so the yarn did not even make the trip. I will be doing a lot of Sudoko. We started listening to the novel James – Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective. Highly rated and it is excellent thus far.

As I got settled in the driver’s seat yesterday I started channeling my older brother Terry. I am still a bit nervous about having to change lanes in traffic. Maybe I won’t have to if Craig does all of the city driving.

With the winds, it is unclear whether we can make our original goal of Tucumari, NM. We will get as far as we can safely get.

The past 2 days could not have gone better. Susan had 90% of the packing done when we arrived Monday morning. We picked up the truck and were able to leave the car trailer at the rental place until today which was helpful. We loaded 90% yesterday and finished up this morning.

The truck is all loaded by 11 AM today. Susan in her empty, very clean apartment. Craig and I took the Susan’s Subaru to the rental place to load it on the trailer around 1130. After the car is on the trailer we notice that one of the trailer tires is low. So we have an unexpected trip to Discount Tires. I took a Lyft back to Susan’s to get the our car with her luggage as I was doing the airport drop. Susan and I drove the last of the cleaning supplies to the moving truck at Discount Tires and took off for lunch and the airport. Craig to managed the tire situation which took about an hour and half and headed for the Fairfield Inn in Plainfield where we were parking our car until we fly back from Phoenix next week.

I waited with Susan until her escort arrived to help her navigate the airport then drove 10 minutes to Plainfield met up with Craig. We headed west at 5 PM. About an hour outside of Indianapolis, I got my driving instructions from Craig. I have never driven a truck that big or anything with a trailer. The wind was pretty gusty. I did GREAT!!! I drove before sunset and then continued in the dark. As this was across rural IL, I did not have to pass anyone so that will be the challenge for tomorrow.

We are exhausted and thrilled that Susan landed safely in Phoenix and has almost arrived in Prescott on the shuttle. We will ALL sleep well.

I set a goal of leaving at noon today and we pulled out at 1200 PM to go to Indy to spend the night with a college friend.

I have new “uppity woman” glasses following the cataract surgery. The “uppity woman” is in reference to Gloria Steinem. I am totally function near and far without glasses but reading is much easier with them. This is my first time buying glasses online. These are progressive, transitions lenses. With frames they were $200 – a really good deal compared to getting them at optometrist.

Tomorrow we pick up the moving truck and do most of the loading. Final loading is Tuesday and then we drop Susan at Indy airport in the early afternoon and head southwest.

By the way, Craig lost 4 of the 5 pounds he intended to in a week.

After a week of daily exercise, sometimes feeling the effect of the drug on my appetite and sometimes feeling starved and one day of really low energy, I face my weigh in today with trepidation. If it was another week of minimal loss I would be very disheartened.

Fortunately I lost 4.5# which is just over 5# in 2 weeks which is going to be help reinforce my improved behaviors. Today was day 21 of exercising.

The journey continues.

I was on Hold for 3 hours and 33 minutes listening to muzak and messages telling me that most things can be handled on line and that I will be asked to share personal information that they can share. I cleaned out my inbox that had over 3300 items. I found 2 that I wanted to respond to. I read several articles, ate lunch and was just trying to figure out what to do next when the SSA representative answered. I appreciated that she did not apologize for the long wait.

I explained what I needed and she said I can do that online. Essentially I just need to do a new application using my SSN. She stayed on the line until I was well into filling out the application. I did plead for her to give me an appointment anyway just in case. It was at this point I explained that I had heard from 2 sources that I did need an appointment and I had waited on the line for 3 and a half hour just to get an appointment. I was extremely pleasant. I was not upset with HER at all. I would have asked her some questions about how she was doing, but that would’ve just taken time from someone else.

I successfully filled out the application except I made a mess in the part about prior marriages that I am not sure now this happened. There is no data marriage one; marriage 1 looks like marriage 2 and marriage 2 looks like marriage 3. The system would not accept application like this so I entered the data in the right places for marriage 1 and 2, and deleted data from marriage 3 except there is yes/no button for one question that cannot be undone (or at least I can’t figure out how to do it). Thus I get error messages for all of the fields not filled in for marriage 3. While I can save the application, I cannot submit it because of the yes/no button.

So now I face another call and likely long wait or just keep the May 1 appointment.

Before the call ended, the representative asked me to make sure to cancel the appointment if I don’t need the time which I said I would of course plan to do. I asked her how to cancel and she said to call the national number I had waited 3.5 hours to get an appointment. REALLY.

I had assumed I would get a email confirmation of appointment with option to cancel. Clearly there are improvements to the software and overall user experience, but the 3 SSA representatives I have spoken with over the years have be very pleasant knowledgeable and professional.

While I had the time today to do the wait and get my issue dealt with, most people would not be able to wait it out. I could Hate the federal government because of this experience but I don’t. Imagine the outrage if someone wants to access mySSA.com and there is a ERROR message that the server is offline for updates. Constituents would call their Congressional members to complain and the members call While House.

No matter what the challenge there is significant disruption associated with trying to solve or improve the problem that will negatively impact constituents who will complain. There is disincentive at every level to change. So things remain outdated far longer to avoid the complaints from angry constituents complaining about how poorly the government works.

A real conundrum.

I had intended to wait until I was 70 to start collection Social Security under my own number as I was eligible to collect survivor benefits from my first husband. I had NO idea this was the case until a SSA employee told me in a consultation in 2021 when I initially filed. With all the uncertainty, I decided to go ahead and convert 6 months early. I went online and was not able to figure out how to make this change.

Yesterday I left a message at the extension of the Nashville SSA employee that had been so helpful. The extension no longer belonged to Tonya, but I thought what the HECK. I also called the Nashville SSA office and waited on line for about 25 minutes before I got dropped. This was midafternoon.

This morning I found on a AARP website that this sort of conversion needs to be done in person so I called the Nashville office in hopes there was an option to just make an appointment. After waiting about 30 minutes, it sounded like I was being connected and then line went blank with no Muzak or messages, but I was still connected. I wasn’t sure what that meant but I waited 5 minutes just to make sure it was not the “next in line” place.

I decided since I was in Nashville anyway, I might as well drop by the office to see if I can walk in or at least get an appointment. The very nice security person just inside the door confirmed I did need to make an appointment to make that change but there was no way to make an appointment in person. He suggested I call the National SSA number rather than the Nashville number. I dialed from the parking lot.

There was an option for “make appointment” and then I was told it was a 120 minute wait to make an appointment. I have been waiting 1 hour and 9 minutes thus far. I will be ignoring all calls – anything that might accidentally disconnect me from this call.

To be fair, it may have been this bad BEFORE the recent mass firings of probationary employees but I doubt it.

One of the recorded messages is to please stay on the line to provide feedback which I will and hopefully the survey separates the system experience from the SSA employee experience because I expect the experiences will be quite different. I do hope people are not being too hard on the Federal employees right now. They are not at fault here.

If I am successful in getting an appointment, it may all be for naught if the government shuts down. Such a SHIT show.

Craig’s friend Susan (and now mine as well) moved from Prescott AZ to Lafayette IN a few years ago to be near her only remaining cousins. It was a decision that made sense post Covid but it did not work out as planned for a variety of reasons. The winter weather was very isolating and COLD. Susan was resigned to making do because the thought of moving again was stressful. Six weeks ago Craig and 2 friends (Dan and Bill from Prescott and Kingman AZ) decided it was time to get Susan back to Prescott where she has more friends, the weather is much warmer and the support services for older persons are excellent. A perfect duplex was quickly identified in Prescott. The hardest part was Susan accepting the short term stress of a move for the longer term gain. Many things fell into place (no lease penalties on her current place and new landlord renting below market rate) and the choice became obvious. Over the past 3 weeks Susan has been packing and I have been assisting as a Project Manager although Susan is super organized and has required little support.

Craig and I are driving up to IN on Sunday and will get the moving truck on Monday and start loading. We are going to trailer her car behind the truck so we can both drive. Susan will fly to AZ on Tuesday after we are done loading. A 3 day drive after the stressful month of packing would be cruel and unusual punishment. It is a 24 hour drive which we will do over 3 days starting Tuesday. Susan will get to Prescott Tuesday night and stay with Dan until we arrive at the end of the week with her possessions. We will get her stuff unloaded and unpacked enough to ensure she is functional in her new space before we fly back to Indy on Tuesday the 25th to get our car and drive back to Nashville.

We did investigate using a moving company or pods but we wanted to be sure we could make the moving in process as easy as possible. The only way we could be sure we could be there when the stuff arrived was to drive it.

I am very much looking forward to the car trip and look forward to seeing that part of AZ. I have never driven a big truck with a trailer so there will be a bit of a learning curve. I may not change lanes very often. I am sure there will be a few blog worthy experiences on this adventure.

Stay tuned.