As PCS season draws near for many, myself included, we can all fondly look back over the many years of moving and celebrate our successes and also laugh at our failures. What do you do when your move is anything but smooth? I fondly look back at my last PCS from Nevada to Texas and have to laugh, otherwise I may find myself crying and rocking myself in a corner. It all began when the moving truck wasn’t available on the day we had scheduled. We were stationed in Las Vegas, but the nearest available truck (even though we reserved it months in advance) was over an hour away in Utah.  We were about halfway to Utah when my husband decided to give the company a call to let them know we were on our way.  It was at that point that we realized the company has messed up… the location we had been told to head to didn’t have any more trucks in stock. That was strike one, but alas we persevered. The next day we loaded three kids into the car to make an attempt to get the moving truck that we so desperately needed to leave Nevada, this time at a different location in Utah. As we got closer we decided to call to ensure someone would be able to help us get a truck. We were a mere 30 minutes away when we were advised that yes, they had a truck but the AC wasn’t blowing super cold. Now, this was in July when Nevada is around 110 degrees, but we thought it would get better when it was moving. We made it back and began loading the truck! We were able to successfully load the truck in a day and my husband prepped to leave. He was going to fly back after he dropped off the belongings at our new home in Texas. That way, we would have enough space for the remaining belongings. As he embarked on the voyage to Texas, the truck overheated and he had to pull over and at this point the AC was shot. It took about 3 hours before a truck was able to tow it to a shop and all this time we waited on the side of the road with our three small children. Next thing we know, the truck is in the shop for several days and the company that we rented from was charging us all the while even though they gave us a faulty vehicle. It took about three days before the vehicle was repaired, and this had cost us a plane ticket because my husband didn’t have enough time to make an extra trip and return before we had to clear housing. So now we had to scramble to find a car dolly to move my car because my spouse had to drive the moving truck. They were able to find us a car dolly and we hooked it up and planned to leave the next morning. I was so happy to think the end of this nightmare was near. We were expected to clear housing and head out the next day. We go out to leave in the morning with 3 kids, 2 cats, and 2 dogs and find out that the car dolly has a flat tire. We lived on base so it took multiple hours for the repair person to access base. All during the while we had cleared housing and planned to turn our keys over. The guy comes to change the tire and at this time informs us the car dolly is missing several bolts and we’re lucky the tire didn’t completely fall off. We then had to scramble to find another shop to repair this dolly all the while begging housing to not kick us out and let us stay another night. Thank goodness, the repair shop was able to help us. I use the term shop very loosely because we drove to junkyard on the south side of Vegas and that is where they repaired the car dolly. This was all done while I sat in the truck with a dog and three children under 5. However, this was the last hurdle we had to make to leave Las Vegas. I’m happy to say that we survived this move and hopefully our next PCS is much less eventful. I’m not sure how my family and I survived this last move but we did and if you’re also enduring a disastrous PCS just know you’re in good company. I have experienced it and as you’ll see many other military spouses have had their fair share of not so smooth PCS’s. Check back next week for Part 2 of our 4 part series on the Not So Smooth Moves!

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse…the flat tire!