That's great news though! Did come out to NH to bring here? That's a hell of a trip from California. I live 20 minutes west of Manchester, NH. It's weird. We can hit every NE state in most cases and hour for 4 and 2 hours for Conn and RI. What is it, 8 hours from the top of CA to the bottom?
The wife and daughter flew a red eye Sunday night and arrived in Boston Monday morning. They drove to my wife's aunt's house in western Mass, where we had some stuff shipped. They visited for a bit and went out for lunch and then drove up to Keene. I did the same flight itinerary (sans the family visit) the next day, so we were all in Keene by noon on Tuesday. Between the three of us and shipping stuff to the aunt, it was pretty easy to get everything there (except for the instruments....). Move-in day was Wednesday, almost immediately after which the wife got a migraine and was mostly down for the count until we drove back to Boston on Friday. We flew home on Saturday.
The kid and I made a Target run, and she noticed the sign on the highway indicating that Brattleboro, VT was about 19 miles away. She asked, "is Vermont really that close?!" I kinda laughed. Where we live, you have to drive nearly four hours to get to the closest state border, and you can get to the Mexican border in less time. I told her that, from where she is, you can drive to any of the other New England states in two hours or less. Apparently intent to prove me right, she has already made friends with someone with a car, and they drove to Gardner, Mass to go to Friendly's and to Brattleboro to go thrifting.
Yeah, I hit NH, Mass, Conn, NY Penn in a 7 hour trip to Nick's wedding. Crazy that someone can drive 7 hours and still be in state.
My daughter's best friend is going to Humboldt State, which is about 100 miles south of the CA/OR border. Her drive up the coast was just under 700 miles and took about 12 hours. Crossing Texas on the 10 is probably the worst. It's far longer than driving up the CA coast or driving across Montana, and it's not even remotely scenic. Of course, you could always do Homer, AK to Prudhoe Bay, which is nearly 1,000 miles and entirely within Alaska.
That's very heartwarming and I'm sure you are proud as you should be. I would pay to ship her instruments in a heartbeat.
I shipped them yesterday. The wife packed the instruments using clothes as padding. The box was slightly smaller than a banker's box and weighed 16#. My options were $47 with delivery next Tuesday or $108 with delivery by this Friday (and a few even more expensive options). I went with the $47 option and added $1,500 insurance at a cost of $17.