Thursday, May 26, 2016

With the house under contract, we needed a break while we waited for our closing date.  To avoid the crazy Memorial Day weekend traffic, we left the Sawnee campground a day early, put the coach into storage and headed out in our toad.  Joani made a lot of calls to find a storage facility with a vacancy (it was amazing just how difficult that was).  It was just outside the Cumming, GA, city limits, so the drive in the coach was only 12.2 miles (76.735.6 total).

We drove the FIT another 240 miles to Lebanon, TN, to visit with the Parriott clan.  After a long weekend, I drove my mom and Joani (in mom's plush Maxima) up to Iowa to visit relatives.  We rolled into Story City, IA, in time for their annual Scandinavian Days Festival.

We had the chance to see Macy in a dance recital, eat at one of our favorite BBQ spots with the Osmundson clan and have some homemade ice cream at Sweet Treats in Jewell.  It was so great to see everyone.

This time the corn was planted and already knee-high, unlike three years ago when the fields were too wet to plant.  It was one of those rare times when we were able to extend our visit for a full ten days on the farm.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Our house had been on the market two days when our realtor, Tricia, held an open house for local agents to see the property in hopes of creating a buzz.  One agent brought a client by 15 minutes after the open house ended. A man from Portland, Oregon, wanted to relocate to the Atlanta area and our house fit the bill.  We had an offer.

We countered on the following Monday and everyone agreed and signed on Tuesday.  Since everything went well we considered it sold today!

He has no house to sell and wants a fast closing and so do we!  He liked our library and wants it as is and he liked the remote control curtains.  Hooray for books and technology, we can hit the road again!  

Friday, May 13, 2016

There were still quite a few things to finish, but Tricia wanted to get the house listed in time for a big open house weekend. She said it would be clear it was a work in progress and that it would not deter any prospective buyers. We consented and up went the sign. It was officially listed today!

I can't remember when the lawn looked better.

St. Joseph had a place of honor between the sign and the flowers.

Below is a sampling of the shots Tricia used for the sales flyer.  The laundry room and garage still needed work.

The books are what remained after everyone we knew picked out what they wanted!

Friday, April 29, 2016

After nearly three months at Twin Lakes, it was finally time to move. We weren't finished with the house, but close enough to reward ourselves with a little change of scenery.  Today's trip was a really short one to an Army Corps of Engineers park on Lake Lanier, 9.3 miles (76,723.4 total) away.

Sam gets very excited when you tell him it's "Moving Day."

The Sawnee Campground was very near Buford Dam and just under 11 miles from the house.  Site 32's pad was a bit short for our 40-foot motorhome, but the generous green spaces between sites was a welcome change from the all gravel parking lot at Twin Lakes.

It was at the top of a hill and next to one of the bathhouses.  There was a laundry and some pretty nice showers.  As a bonus, Home Depot and Steak'n Shake were both conveniently situated on the route from the park to the house (it seemed like we went to one or the other almost every day).

It felt like we were at Twin Lakes campground in Cumming, GA way too long, although we didn't actually spend much time at the park. We pretty much just slept in the coach each night after working on the house all day.

I'm not really sure why I thought we would be done with everything - it's not like we had any experience letting go of a lifetime's worth of collecting or trying to restore a 23-year-old house to "like new" condition.  It was the first time we lived in a house long enough for things to look dated and out-of-style.  In today's real estate market anything, brass screamed 90's and had to be banished.  I agreed with door hardware and plumbing fixtures, but I had to draw the line when it was suggested that the 2,000-pound brass chandelier suspended on 10 feet of brass chain in the foyer should be replaced or "rattle-canned."  Any potential new owner will just have to learn to love it or replace it themselves.

I thought the brass/white enamel fan in the master might be OK, but both Joani and our real estate agent said no.  At least I was able to salvage the drop rod with a little "rattle can" paint.

This had to go.  I can't say David was happy about that, but he was a trooper and went along with it.

It was worth it, but then I wasn't the one straddling the ladder!

While we had finished a lot of work, the remaining "to-do" list didn't seem to get any shorter.  I guess that was because I tended to trivialize some rather large tasks and then expand them to specifics later.  "Paint upstairs" was later replaced by "paint Jon's room, paint Kate's room," etc.  Then later it became "paint Jon's ceiling, Jon's walls, Jon's trim and Jon's windows and replace Jon's vents," etc.

I put up with an awful, torn linoleum laundry room floor for 20 years just to tile it for someone else.

We had made enough progress that I thought I could say with some confidence we would be finished in another two weeks.  The park had a maximum stay of 14 days, but we asked how strict they were about that policy just in case.  Josh, our camp host, suggested we might try reserving another two weeks in my name since Joani had made the original reservation in her name.  She got online and, voila!, we had another two weeks that I envisioned we would spend relaxing by the lake with nothing left to do at the house (we'll see how well that goes.)

Saturday, January 30, 2016

The final leg of our journey back to the old homestead took us 153.7 miles (76,714.1 miles total) to Twin Lakes campground in Cumming, GA.  Twin Lakes has no frills, in fact, there is really no draw to the park at all.  The only reason we chose the park was its proximity to our house (less than 2 miles).  Now the work begins!  We will be helping move our son, Jon, and his wife, Sara, into their new home, get the house move-in ready, dispose of a lifetime's collection of treasures and put the house on the market.  With nothing but hard work ahead of us and no sightseeing planned, there will, unfortunately, be a sizable gap in the blog.

We did not expect to see this white stuff falling from the sky!

I would like to think we can wrap everything up and get a FOR SALE sign in the front yard by mid-March.  Everyone says the market is hot right now, so maybe we can be back on the road by the end of May.  I know, that's probably a little optimistic, but I'm all about a positive attitude!

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Our trek home continued another 233.7 miles (76,560.4 miles total) with a stop at Twin Oaks RV park in Elko, GA. The park is conveniently located close to I-75 about 10 miles south of Perry, GA. It was a nice park and we enjoyed the whimsy that was evident in the dozens of birdhouses scattered between the sites.

Of course, the most important park feature was the jacuzzi.  The nights were too cold, so I enjoyed a hot soak during the much warmer afternoon hours.  I had the jets to myself except when Joani snapped the picture below.

At one point, as we were relaxing in the coach, we heard a loud bang and felt the coach rock.  I went outside to investigate - nothing had hit us.  I assumed it was a sonic boom from a jet based at Robbins AFB a few miles north of us.  A neighbor said there was a boom once or twice a week.  I think it was less than an hour before we heard another. Fortunately, that was the last we heard during our two-night stay. 

Sunday, January 24, 2016

We moved to a small, but nice park named Ocala North.  It was 130.0 miles (76,326.7 miles total), so it was another easy drive.  We were on our way back to the house where there was a lot of work waiting for us.  Getting the house ready to sell after nearly 23 years meant sorting through a lot of clutter, cleaning and painting, so we were not in a real hurry to get there.  We thought we could make a couple of stops and see a few interesting sites on the way back home.

Our campground choice allowed us to visit Ocala where there were a couple of museums and an old sinkhole we could investigate. The sinkhole had lots of stairs that would allow us to climb down inside. I was a little skeptical about going into a sinkhole - I mean, how can you be sure it's not going to sink any further?

The weather did not cooperate with our sightseeing plans.  There was a lot of rain for the first three days of our stay.  We added another day to wait out the rain and finally visited Ocala.  The two museums were on the Florida State University campus. Unfortunately, I did not like the parking situation.  Like most campus layouts there were color coded parking restrictions everywhere with the threat of towing and fines.  I can't say they made us feel welcome.  After maybe 15 minutes of circling to find the museum buildings, we decided to just have lunch and keep an eye on the weather.

There was a Golden Corral nearby and we were in a glutinous mood. That hardly ever happens! About mid-way through our meal, there was a power outage that lasted 20 minutes or more.  There was no way to get ice cream with no electricity so we nibbled on a few more choice entrees while we did another crossword puzzle at our tablet.  When the power returned, we decided we were too stuffed to be hiking to the bottom of a big hole in the ground and there was still the threat of more rain, so we just headed home.