Day -1: Government Operation

“This is like a government operation, there’s so many people but nothing is getting done.” – Aarushi’s dad

This quote pretty much encapsulates our whole day spent packing.

I woke up this morning on three hours of sleep after getting back from Howl at the Moon the night before where I danced and cried for the last time with all of my college friends. Today, Aarushi and I had a deadline to move out of Burton Conner by 12PM. However, at 9AM my room was only 90% done, our Spokes luggage was maybe 10% done, and Aarushi, whose room which was 0% done, was nowhere to be found… I knew we were in for a long day.

I said a hurried goodbye to my parents and my sister as they were rushing to the airport in the pouring rain with my six checked bags that carried my whole life these past four years. Then I coordinated selling the remaining furniture in my room. I ate lunch. Then, at 12:30PM I hurried to meet Nate to go pick up our rental cargo van to transport our bikes from Boston to D.C. All the way in Arlington, MA, we come face to face with this GINORMOUS car that’s like 10,000 feet long and I volunteer Nate to drive us back home.

Very cautiously, we make it back home by 2PM so we can finish our individual final packing and goodbyes with friends. I visited Aarushi’s room where she and her parents had finally begun their packing (two hours past our move out deadline). I then took a one hour nap which was super restorative and awesome. I woke up at 5PM (the time that we had coordinated to begin packing our spokes stuff) and Nate is back with the cargo van outside BC. Tatiana had also just texted that some of her gear was stolen. So with Aarushi’s room still in shambles and Tatiana’s crisis, it was just Nate and I against a mountain of cardboard boxes. At this point, the situation was looking dire and we estimated that we would be up all night packing everything.

We spent a good hour unpacking, sorting, and checking that we had everything we ordered and needed for our trip. Our next obstacle was figuring out how to attach the soft storage compartment to the top of our minivan without any roof railings. This way we could put all of our camping gear (tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and pillows) above the car and save room inside the car for other things. For maybe half an hour, Nate and I struggled in the cold rainy windy weather hooking and unhooking and trying everything possible to attach this storage compartment. Nothing was working, so we phoned Spokes 2025 to help us out. Sarah came to advise us but since we have a different car model than the 2025s, we couldn’t use their method.

Thankfully, Tatiana’s boyfriend (Noah) and Aarushi’s dad (Sandeep) came as reinforcements so the two of them plus Nate worked on the storage compartment while Sarah Aarushi and I went inside to warm up and do some other packing.

Inside, we miraculously made all our Learning Festival supplies fit neatly into two large bins. We put all our kitchen ware and cooking supplies into another large bin and all our bike gear, first aid, and other miscellaneous items in our final large bin. Big SHOUTOUT to Sarah for helping us with this!

Then we paused for dinner at 8PM. Nate and Noah, our GOAT, managed to find a solution for the car storage top. BIG SHOUTOUT to Noah again because he was the one who came up with the idea to reconfigure the straps on the compartment to be longer and attach to the rear window of the minivan (from Nate). Sandeep Uncle, also GOAT, ordered us three delicious pizzas from Area 4 and we had an amazing feast. Meanwhile, Nate went to meet his friends at Five Spices for a final goodbye dinner and also to pick up Drew and Nate’s Learning Festival supplies that were still at Edgerton.

Now it was 10PM, I finished the last small bits and pieces of our packing, and added labels to our boxes for organization purposes. Aarushi went back to packing her room (now 10 hours past the deadline) and Tatiana, Nate, Noah, and I brought everything to the minivan to load in and see how much extra space we would have for our personal luggage. Honestly this was the easiest part of the day. Somehow this car is the perfect shape to fit all of our boxes and has all the perfect nooks and crannies for our miscellaneous items such as our propane tank and our giant hand sanitizer bottle.

We ended the night by folding down our mountain of cardboard waste from all of our packages and said goodnight at 11PM.

At this point Aarushi’s room was 90% done being packed and we wanted to go say bye to our friends one last time who were at the club. We quickly Ubered there at 1AM and we stood outside hugging and crying for half an hour before we went home, finished packing, and went to sleep at 3AM for a 6AM wakeup to drive to D.C.!!!!

See you next week!

Nunu