It was the beginning of summer in Georgia. We had all our bags packed and ready to leave. Dad said that the moving trucks would get to Montana before us, so we would need to leave soon.

“Dad,” I asked, “ how long will it take to get from here to Montana?”

“From Georgia to Montana?” he said. “ I would say with all the traffic and rest stops about five days to a week.”

“Oh,” I replied.

“Just think of it like a road trip,” he suggested.

“Dad, the car is all packed.” said my brother, Josh, who was fifteen.

“OK, we will just wait for everyone who wanted to say goodbye, and then we will leave.” Dad said. All of our friends and family members came and said goodbye. We hugged and talked and some of our family cried.

“Be sure to Skype us once you’re there,” my friend Rachel said.

“I will,” I said back. We all hugged once more and then we were on the road.

We had been on the road for about ten minutes when my little sister Elizabeth, who we call Lizzy, said, “Why do we have to move so far away?”

“Well, I had to get a new job and I got one in Montana,” Dad answered.

My brother Josh was drawing and my sister was eating a snack. So I put my earbuds in and listened to some music. After about two hours of doing nothing, I got tired of listening to music, so I pulled out my earbuds. My brother was still drawing.

“What are you drawing?” I asked.

He showed me. It was a beautiful mountain range.

“Wow,” I said. “You're really good.”

“Thanks,” he replied. “Do you want a piece of paper and pencil?”

“Sure.” I answered. I drew an anime girl who was listening to music. I drew for the rest of the first day, until it got too dark to draw. Then my dad said it was time to find a hotel. It took awhile, but we finally found one.

“We would like to stay one night in a room with two beds and a couch.” My dad said to the lady at the counter.

“OK,” said the lady. “Follow me.”

We got to our room and went to bed. Lizzy and I shared a bed and Josh got the couch. Mom came by each of us and said goodnight.

“Goodnight, Summer,” she said to me.

“Night, love you, mom.” I said back. It took awhile for me to get to sleep but I finally did.  Then out of nowhere I woke up. It was Mom.

“Summer, time to get up. We have to get an early start.”

 

I saw my dad trying to get Josh up, but he kept falling asleep. He finally woke up. When we got in the car, Lizzy, who was only six, went back to sleep. I looked at her and I also decided to go to sleep. When I woke up, it was about 10:21.

“Sleep well?” asked my mom. I nodded and rubbed my eyes. Lizzy was still asleep and Josh had his earbuds in and was listening to music.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Let me look,” Dad answered. “We are … just leaving Tennessee.” I sighed and got my book and started reading.

“How about we stop at a park?” Mom asked.

“OK,” we all answered.

We found a park in Illinois around 3:40 and stopped there and ate a very late lunch. After we ate, I went to swing and mess around. We left about half an hour later.

We were in the middle of nowhere with no buildings and hardly any cars. Suddenly, the car ran out of gas!

“Why here?” my dad shouted. Dad called a tow truck to come pick us up. We waited and waited but no one came. It was about 9:00 in the evening before anyone came, but it was not a tow truck. Dad kept calling and calling, but it was just answering machine. Finally, at 11:30 a tow truck came. He dropped us off at a gas station with a hotel next to it. It was so late.

We got a room at that hotel. The hotel was horrible. The wall paper was falling off walls and the beds were very rickety.

“This is disgusting,” Mom said with a disgusted look on her face. “Is there anywhere else we can go?”

“This is it,” Dad answered.

“How about we sleep in the car?” asked Josh.

“Yeah, how about we do that?” I agreed.

“No, we need to stay in here,” Dad said.

This was the longest night of my life! It was awful. It smelled really bad, and our neighbors in the room next to us were super loud. Josh and I had to sleep on the floor, because the couch had bugs and the other bed broke when we tried to lay down.

When we woke up, we left immediately!

“Sorry, we had to stay there kids,” Dad said. He also said to Mom “ We lost an entire day from that. We are going to be behind.”

“Its OK,” Mom said. “It's just one day.”

After a while Mom and Dad switched seats, and Dad took a nap while Mom drove the car. That day was much better, but pretty soon we got a little tired of being in the car with each other. After a while, we started fighting. It began when I accidentally bumped Josh’s arm while he was drawing.

“Summer!” he yelled. “I worked hard on that!”

“Sorry!” I yelled back. “Maybe if Lizzy would take a turn in the middle...”

“NO!” she yelled to us. We kept on fighting and then Mom jerked the car to the side of the road.

“What is the matter with you guys?” she screamed. “Why are you guys fighting so much?”

Dad was still asleep at the time.

“Mom,” Josh said. “I understand moving, but why so far away from home?”

“Guys, I know this has been hard on you but,” she said, “ this has been very hard on your father, too. He was worried you guys were going to be very mad with him. Please, I know you guys don't like this, but your father does not like it either. OK?”

“Sorry,” we all said to Mom and to each other.

“How about we talk to your father and see if we can take the rest of the day off at driving? We could go to a park and get ice-cream.”

“Sure,” we all said.

When he woke up, Dad said that it was OK, and that we were almost caught back up to where we should have been. We had an awesome time. We ended up deciding to drive up a little further to see what else we could find to do.

We found a pet store. We went inside and started playing with the animals. Josh and I found a dog that would not stop following us. She was a beautiful golden brown dog. We loved her, but the dog was $50 dollars.

“Hey, Josh,” I said. “ How much money do you have on you?”

“$24,” he said.

“I have $20,” I told him. “Looks like we will have to ask Mom and Dad to lend us $6 dollars.”

“Mom?” we asked at the same time, “could you lend us $6 dollars please?”

“What for?” she questioned.

“Well, we were going to buy the dog right there,” we told her.

She said she would talk to Dad, but she didn't seem too keen on the idea. Mom was talking to Dad and Dad got big eyes when she told him. He looked at us and smiled and gave us the thumbs up.

“OK, Summer, since your birthday is coming up next week, we will buy the dog for you two, but you guys will have to buy the collar, food bowl, food, and a bed for her.”

“Don't worry, we will!” we said.

“What should we name her?” I asked.

“Her birthday is in the summer, so give her a summery name,” Josh told me.

“OK,” I said. “Well, it's not very summery, but how about Belle?”

“Let's see if she will come,” he said.

We called her and she came running to us. We got everything we needed for her, and then we left.

The days after went by quickly.

Then one day, out of the blue, Dad yelled. “We are in Montana!”

We all cheered.

We arrived to our new home and went inside. All of our things were in the house. It was a beautiful house. It had one floor, three bedrooms, one bathroom, and, of course, a kitchen and a living room.

I Skyped my friends after we got everything in its place. I told them everything and showed them Belle.

This was the best move I ever had!