transportation issues

In a couple of weeks, my brother Jon will be traveling from DC to SLC for an open house celebrating his recent marriage (which we happily attended in Texas!). He graciously offered to transport our stuff for us to North Carolina from Salt Lake. Now the question is: how?

A couple years back, we acquired a 2005 Dodge Caravan from Tim's sister as a second car. Once Tim accepted his new teaching position in NC, we formulated a plan in our limited time frame: Tim would drive out our Civic with a few items that would fit inside the car. I would change my return flight from Texas to North Carolina, packing as much luggage on the plane as possible. The rest of our stuff would go in a storage locker in Salt Lake, get sold, or get donated or thrown away. Then, Jon would retrieve the van, load a trailer from the storage unit, and drive . . . and drive . . . and drive (sung to the tune of "Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked").

The van has a hitch installed on it from when Tim's sister and brother-in-law used it to haul a loaded 4x8 trailer from Seattle to Boise area. We want to use the same size trailer, but haul it 2000 miles instead of 500. I have spent a lot of time worrying that this plan wouldn't work. It's been mostly unproductive worry and stress. A lot of people who've heard of our plan are super skeptical. And we have taken the naysaying seriously. We've explored renting a truck, selling our van, towing our van with a rental truck, shipping our books separately, keeping the storage locker, etc.. It's terribly tempting to rent a trailer for approximately 300 dollars as opposed to a moving truck for over 1000, especially when it includes regaining access to a second car.

Our only car out here is our Civic, which Tim drove out over three weeks before I came, and it's sadly having issues at the moment,  which may or may not be related to its recent cross-country trip. On our way home from the airport, the front bumper was falling off, so we had to drive 35 mph the entire way (it took a long time) to avoid losing our undercarriage. Separate from that, it was making a funky noise. So we took it into the shop and they said it needed a new A/C kit, A/C compressor, and some other A/C system components/ repairs. We don't really know the area or have a way of getting to another mechanic for a second opinion, so I hope the 1400 dollar repair required is necessary. We need a car out here, so we went ahead and ordered the work. It's crappy-expensive though. As if moving wasn't expensive enough! I need a job!