The day has arrived, we're leaving home. Our good friends, Mickey and Cindy came over at 7:30 in the morning to pick up their new to them TV and stand plus a few other odds and ends I had earmarked for Cindy. Mickey helped Bob put the mattress in the 5th wheel and Cindy helped me put the last minute things in the trailer. At this point we're just throwing stuff on the bed, there was no place to put them anyway.
Bob went to motor vehicle and I went and visited some neighbors and then sat on the porch with Tanya for awhile.
Bob and I did a final walk through the house and as I closed the door for the final time,,,I cried.
We said our "so longs" to Ed and Bev, you guessed it, I cried. We made a stop down the street to say "so long" to John and Ruby, a wonderful older couple that Bob visited with on an almost daily basis. He's going to miss his buddy John, this I am sure of. Then came Tanya....Use your imagination on this one. I'll only cry if I have to write it out.
One stop at Walmart to pick up film I had dropped off there and then we are fulltimers!
Let the adventure begin......
Here's where we go from
REAL ESTATE
to
WHEEL ESTATE
I-95 here we come - Florida bound.
We made it the first day as far as southern Virginia. With the unexpected trip the DMV we didn't start as early as we hoped so therefore didn't get as far as we hoped.
We stayed in a nondescript mom and pop campground the first night.
We're running out of room in the 5th wheel already. Where, oh where are we gonna put this stuff? Bob showed me this tiny little pile of personal stuff he just has to have with him. OK, fine, but do you really need eleven pairs of dress pants? I think not! We weeded some more out and made another trip to Goodwill.
We still have a sofa and end table to get rid of in addition to the mattress from the RV. The living room sofa is "older" but still serviceable. I listed them on The Freecycle Network, a really cool site that lets you list things you want to give away to local people. If someone wants what you have to give away they contact you by email and you can then exchange phone numbers to set up times and give directions to your home. The sofa we had was also a queen sized sofa bed and it is VERY heavy. I told the young, 9 months pregnant woman she would have to bring help to load it as I knew I couldn't lift it even with the help of her husband and I didn't know if Bob would be home at the appointed hour. Lo and behold she called and said they couldn't be here at the agreed upon time of 6:30 but could make it at 9:30. Just what I wanted to hear! (Bob too!) So at 9:30 a knock comes at the door and there she stood - out to H E R E! In walked her husband, all 6 ft 4 of him weighing in at about 105 pounds. That's it, no help. To add further to the problem he had stitches in his hand for a deep cut he had gotten at work that day. Bob was not a happy camper. They did, somehow get it loaded into their pickup truck.
Our dog, Shag, is totally confused now. She always curled up in the right hand corner of the sofa to sleep. She walked around the coffee table and started to make her jump when she realized it wasn't there. She walked around the other side of the table and looked again. She looked at Bob as if to ask, "What the heck is going on here, where's my sofa?"
One week to go. Reality is setting in now. I can cry at the drop of a hat. Just thinking about saying "so long" to family and friends breaks my heart.We're making lists again of things we need to do such as calls that need to be made, people we have to see before we go, get the truck through inspection...so much stuff to do, so little time.The house still isn't sold. We talked with our agent today and decided to give $2000 settlement help. Maybe that will spur someone into making an offer. It's open house day again and we had several lookers come through. One seemed especially interested, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.Today I said goodbye to Karen, a longtime friend. She thinks we're nuts and repeatedly told me that there is always a bed in her house for me. Friends like her are few and far between. I'm glad she's mine.
We decided today that our target date to be on the road is November 11th.Today we emptied the 5th wheel of the things we know we aren't going to take with us. WOW! We have lots of room to put things. This is going to be a piece of cake.Bob's older son, Timothy, came by today and left with a truck full of tools. Bob has sorted through all of his tools and is determined to go "fully tooled" for any job that may come his way. With what he's taking with us we could open a hardware store, but there's no getting between him and his hammers and screwdrivers and power tools and levels and on and on and on.I had the unpleasant task of going through my holiday ceramics I've made over the years. I've given all but one away to family and friends.
Today we had a couple come through the house for the second time. My hopes are soaring! They love the house and I can tell they want it badly. Then they dropped the bomb on us. They have to sell an older mobile home in not the greatest of parks first. They asked if we would pull the house off the market and wait for them. They went on further to say that would have their place ready for sale in about a month or so. EXCUSE ME???? Let me see if I've got this right.... you want me to pull our house off the market, wait for you to replace a floor, not just carpet or tile but the FLOOR, sell this older trailer in a less than desirable location and hope you qualify for a mortgage because you haven't' even been to the bank yet? uh....NO! It could take you 6 months to a year to sell your place. Thanks, but no thanks!
The house still isn't sold. We are concerned about this because we'll have to make mortgage payments if we're here or not. If it isn't sold very soon, we're going anyway.
We didn't get out of Delaware last week like we hoped and it doesn't look like we're going to get of here this week either, too many loose ends to take care of.
Today we listed my 66 Mustang on Ebay. This was a gift from Bob on my 50th birthday. It is 95% restored with all the parts to finish it included. It just kills me to get rid of it, I never even got to drive it. There isn't enough time to finish it as we want to be out of here by the time the cold weather sets in. Enough said about that.
