Next chapter

Our lives really work out like chapters in a book. You can define different portions of life with distinctive start and endpoints. I don’t mind closing out a chapter and going to another one, I am just not ready to finish the book just yet.

Prior to leaving Arizona, we got a few tasks completed or scheduled. The first was a chain-link fence on the eastern part of the property, about 310′ and 2 gates.

We also added a small section of ‘field fence’ to the southwest portion of the property. It is now fully fenced. We also took advantage of our absence to replace the existing flooring. It had carpeting and roll vinyl and was most likely original to the mobile home. We replaced it with LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tiling). This was done while we were gone so all we got to see were pictures when it was done:

We are also able to have a quick visit from our friends George and Marcia in their trailer. I smoothed out a spot for them:

Having purchased the house in Arizona we headed back to California to accomplish a certain set of tasks so we can get back here. The first step was to help our son move to their new home. Their home was being remodeled and was not quite done. This gave us an opportunity to fix a few things around the old house and get some logistics lined up, like renting a UHaul truck and trailer.

The moving day for our son did come and so did the movers to clear out the house. The house was now virtually empty so we had to start filling up the garage. We have been renting a 10’x10′ climate-controlled storage unit for our stuff which was primarily a large oak bedroom set. We took up one side of our garage with our storage unit items along with some other items that were accumulated from our son’s move. Prior to moving all their items, a pile grew on the other side of the garage that held items for a yard sale. Oh, happy day! Not a real yard sale fan. The garage was very difficult to walk through at this time.

Time to think about the sale of the house. Clean things, repair things, paint things, replace things, a whole lot of things, to do. Now the house is ready to show, just don’t look too hard in the garage. Our realtor had it lightly staged, and had photos taken. The house was listed on a Friday in the morning. That day we had around 10 showings, the next day was close to the same number. We had an open house on Sunday where the agent ran out of flyers. It was very popular. By Monday we had 8 offers and narrowed it to the primary and 2 secondary offers. They were all very generous offers.

The offer we took turned out to be the best one by far. The buyers had an offer on their house that technically was a contingency but the way it was structured, it really wasn’t. Everything went amazingly smoothly and escrow closed in 2 1/2 weeks! And just like that, we only owned one home.

During all this escrow time we were focused on getting back to Arizona, with all our stuff. Roxie didn’t trust anyone else hauling our items so we decided to rent a UHaul truck. Our son, Aaron, volunteered to drive the truck as we had the Airstream to drive back. How does he get back to California though? He could fly back from Vegas but that was a lot of moving parts. We decided to have him rent a car, we hauled it on an auto trailer behind the truck, and he was to drive it back when we completed the move.

We got the trailer on a Wednesday and took about 2 days to load it:

Finally, we hit the road on a Friday and did the whole trip in one day, it is around 400 miles. The truck started having some unknown issues about 20 miles from our place but we made it there. We unloaded the truck the next day and Aaron left, heading back to California. We were back home, again.

We weren’t able to sleep in the house yet, though. We had to find all the parts for our bed and that took a few days, but we still have the Airstream to sleep in. On the 4th night, we were able to sleep in our new home:

We had to take back the UHaul and trailer to Kingman, about 15 miles away. Given the minor issues we had, I decided on a more rural route. Boy did that pay off when the major issue arose:

It started losing power, then gave a message about low oil pressure, then the engine shut off and I had to coast to the side of the road. Three hours later and the truck was being towed to Las Vegas and the trailer was being towed to the UHaul drop-off. Good thing we are retired and didn’t have anything pressing.

We are settling in slowly, getting furniture and TVs installed, unpacking boxes, etc. One thing that happened was I get my Starlink Dishy delivered and installed! This is it after a night of 50mph winds:

We will now take a break from our full-timing but have plans to go see fall colors in the east with our friends. Roxie is looking forward to this respite and I can deal with it also. From the time we started in May of 2017, we have spent around 1760 nights in the trailer. End of this chapter.

And back to Texas

We were at our son’s in Visalia for a bit. We did some dog sitting for them while they took a short trip. We were going to get back on the road shortly after their return but Roxie got Covid, or at least that is what the test said. She was pretty much down for about 2 weeks with it. I think I got it also during that time, but I didn’t test. I was affected for about 2 days.

When we did our cross-country with the Chen’s we went through the upper panhandle of Texas. We usually look at house prices whenever we go through a town. We are, after all, still looking for a place to ‘settle’ down in. One place we went through was Amarillo and the prices there are very affordable. So we headed there to look around a bit and to get a breather from California.

We high-tailed it back east again on I40, doing one-night stops along the way. Adelanto CA, Kingman AZ, Winslow AZ, Paraje NM, Santa Rosa NM before Amarillo, and we only had to disconnect once. We stayed at a favorite stop of ours in Winslow, Homolovi State Park. Then in Santa Rosa, we discovered Santa Rosa Lake State Park (a nice place off the beaten path and only $18 for water and electricity):

We spent a week in Amarillo to get the vibe of the town and to look around at what properties there are. Amarillo is an OK town, it has more run-down areas and some nice ones. We concluded that we are more interested in being outside of the major city but still close enough. We also want space for the trailer to park by our house and you can’t really get that frequently in the cities. There was one house that interested us and was going to be an open house that weekend. We went to it but no open house, we contacted the realtor and there was an offer on it already. Oh well, off to Lubbock.

Lubbock is less than 200 miles south of Amarillo and is a college town. I like it better than Amarillo but it is a bit more expensive. We didn’t find anything that was a good match but there were some possibilities. One thought was to wait until we sold the house in California before really looking in earnest. Actually, this was my thought, not so much Roxie’s. Ironically, the house in Amarillo that supposedly had an open house was back on the market but we moved on further south to Midland/Odessa.

As we headed south, it wasn’t quite so nice. The scenery changed to a less lush look also this is where the oil wells really started in spades. It kind of reminded us of Bakersfield/Oildale but without the mountains. A benefit is that they don’t have as big of issues with bad weather (read tornados).

We found some interesting properties and actually enlisted the help of a realtor this time. We found locales outside the main cities and found that there were possibilities here if we wanted to live here. We were looking at one property in our price range and the realtor found out that there was one that just fell through that she really wanted to show us.

It appears the owners, children of the parents that owned this property, accepted a contingent offer for $100K less than the asking price. However, the contingency had fallen through. We went to see it. This property was 5 acres and part of it was kind of an ‘oasis’ in the area. The previous owners used it as a venue for weddings, photographs, etc. It, sadly, had fallen into disrepair. The house was old and very unique. The property was huge with many outbuildings but lots of yard work. But we put in an offer on it, the same offer that had fallen through but ours was not contingent so that was a positive. We had to wait now.

We had to wait a few days to find out if we were going to be homeowners in Odessa but it was not to be. Someone came in and offered them full price for the property which was $100K more than ours. It was a disappointment to not get it and it was a crazy 3 weeks of looking in Texas so we decided to head back to CA for the holidays. We would be tourists for change on the way back.

We next headed to Carlsbad, NM, for one primary purpose, the caverns! We tried to do it about 2 years ago but the elevator down was not functioning and that would not work for us. The first day we tried something different and went to the Living Desert State Park. They had a nice little pathway to walk around and see various indigenous animals:

The next day was the Caverns visit. The cavern tour cost is only $1, not including park admission. You can enter the caverns either via the elevator or the natural entrance. The natural entrance is pretty strenuous so we opted for the elevator. Roxie had been here before but she was so young she stayed in daycare at the top of the caverns. I had been here before also and remember eating a box lunch down in the caverns. This was essentially our first visit. Here are some shots:

It was very moist and a bit cool in the caverns. There are numerous loops you can take to see all the sights. Most of it was wheelchair accessible but there are some inclines to navigate. It was definitely fun.

My parents came here before, I think it was in the early ’50s on a west coast trip they took. Here are some comparative photos:

Time to keep heading back west. Trying to get through New Mexico as soon as we could. It was much more restrictive on lockdowns, etc. Going to Arizona!

We stopped for a few days in Tucson to visit some friends there. It was good to see them. We also looked at Tucson as a place to find a home and of course did our laundry!

The next stop was somewhere I have wanted to go for a bit, the White Tank Mountains State Park west of the Phoenix basin. Since Thanksgiving was very close, I could only get 2 nights. We enjoyed the two nights. They have some nice hiking trails and good views of the lights of the city.

Thanksgiving would put us in Kingman AZ. We had a small turkey breast in the oven with the requisite sides. It was a nice little meal but odd to be just us two on Thanksgiving. We keep getting drawn back to the Kingman/Golden Valley/Bullhead City area in house hunting. It has a good central location, 400 miles to our son, a bit more to our daughter, 90 miles to Vegas (for shopping), the desert life doesn’t scare us (we will be gone in the summer). The local towns have enough shopping, the taxes are not too restrictive and the prices are pretty affordable. We also know at least one person in town, Doug. He and I went through some grade school, JR high, and some high school together:

We contacted a realtor about some houses that we wanted to see. There were a couple that were interesting and one had just fallen through (sounds familiar).

We put in an offer on the one that fell through and it was accepted. We are currently in escrow on this house (in Golden Valley) and it is going on right through the holidays! Stay tuned about the status and eventual move.