Our First House Guests!

     We had our first overnight visitors!  Chad and Amanda were in the Dallas area and decided to come see us.  We were pretty excited about that.  They stopped and picked up lunch from a place called Woody’s in Centerville, Texas.  We had stopped there for gas on our way down.  Inside they had smoked meats that smelled heavenly.  Clark saw they had turkey legs for $6.95 and had been salivating over them ever since.  We didn't get any at the time because we were trying to get to Livingston before dark that day, so we had no time to waste.  We may as well have stopped because, if you recall, we didn't make it before dark.  Anyway, since they were going to be going right past there, we asked them to stop and pick up two turkey legs for Clark.  He would have one for lunch on Saturday and save the other for later.  The saying that everything is bigger in Texas certainly proved to be true, at least regarding these turkey legs!  Clark was in heaven.



Does this turkey leg make me look small?



Are you sure this is really from a turkey?

Chad was hangry (said Amanda!) so we ate as soon as they arrived! 

Amanda muggin' it up for Mug root beer.

  

     Chad and Amanda taught me how to play Farkel.  Amanda kept score the first game and beat us bad.  Of course, she did confess she forgot to write one of my scores down, so I kept score the next game.  Yep, I won that one!  We gave Chad a chance to keep score too but he passed on that.  Evidently, he didn't mind losing.

     Chad and Amanda slept on our couch that makes out into a bed; it has an air mattress.  I wasn't sure of the mattress size so I had packed a set of full sheets as well as a set Clark’s mom had used in her RV.  I remember at the time she gave them to me she said they were for a ¾ bed.  I wasn't sure what that was but I had kept them.  I was sure glad because the double bed sheets were too small and hers fit this mattress perfectly!  Chad and Amanda said they slept pretty well on it.  They did let out a little of the air so it wasn't quite so firm. 

Tucking Amanda in for the night.

Looked so comfy I had to try it.

Guess three's company.
Amanda told Chad to get the pillow - this is an inside joke and it cracked me up!!

     It was a good trial run to see if we could stand to have extra people in such close quarters.  We had a good visit and found we could handle 4 people in here pretty well as long as everyone was respectful of each other’s space.  Good to know!

Weighing and Paying

We had so much to do today we actually set an alarm.  YUCK!!!!  I won’t say how late we normally sleep but suffice it to say we feel we may need to start setting an alarm everyday to become “normal” people rather than vampires! 

Anyway, back to the busy day…We decided to get weighed today, and isn't that always fun.  We wanted to find out how badly we had over-packed our 5^th wheel.   I won’t go into detail everything that is required before you get weighed, but it seemed to be a lot.  Plus, you have to “break camp” which is never much fun but especially when you aren't even moving to a new destination.  Anyway, on the few minute drive over to the RV weigh station (available here in the Escapees’ Rainbow Park for $55.00), we were talking about all of the stuff we could get rid of so we could lose weight.  Of course, I could think of lots of things we could get rid of, but Clark began to notice it was all his stuff!

I am happy to report that for the first time in either of our lives, we don’t have to lose weight!  We were so shocked by this we celebrated with ice cream…just kidding.  We really were surprised though.   The one area we can work on would be to try to balance the weight a little more evenly but we were better than we expected.  If we want to, we can get a re-weigh for $25.00 if we do it within 6 months.

After completing that process, it was time to get our truck and 5^th wheel inspected as is required by law in Texas – annually.  That didn't take too long and the guy who did it was very friendly.  That cost $31.00.  He said it would be $31.00 for both, I thought he meant each, so I gave him $62.00.  Thankfully, he was honest and said no, $31.00 total.  Nice guy!  Anyway, he said it would be something like $15.00 next time; it was just more this time because it was the first time we were registering in Texas. 

Now for the fun part, we went to the Polk County Tax Office to register our vehicles and get our Texas tags – yee haw!  Let me start by saying that we stopped into their office while we were in town yesterday to make sure of what we would need so we would be prepared.  Unlike the horrid office back home, there was no line, no numbers to pull, not even chairs to sit on because you won’t be there long.  That was pleasant and that is about where the pleasantness ended.  The gal we talked to yesterday told us we would need proof of insurance and the inspection form as well as our titles so we walked in there today with those items. 

We got a different woman this time (she was mildly friendly).  She took all of our paperwork and asked us if we had completed the forms yet.  Forms?  What forms?  Oh, the forms that someone could have given us the day before when we were in the office asking what we needed?  Oh and also, did we have a picture of our rig?  No, didn't know we needed that.  Yep, but at least they had an email address we could send it in to them.  So, home we came to get pictures of the rig and the info on the cargo weight, etc. and complete the paperwork to the best of our ability.  Also, I would interject here that she asked us if we wanted new titles that said Texas so they would match the tags.  We hadn't even given that a thought but if you are planning to do this anytime soon, you should decide that in advance.  She also told us she noticed our Kansas titles said Clark and/or Sandra.  She said Texas doesn't recognize and/or, it has to be both.  I think there may be a lot of things Texas doesn't recognize!

Back to the tax office for round three.  This time we got the most unpleasant woman I believe I have ever encountered in a public position.  No kidding.  I had to remind myself of what Pastor Mark always tells us and that is you never know the circumstances in that person’s life that may be causing them to behave in such a manner so show God’s love and be kind.  There were a few blanks on the form we had not filled in because we had questions.  She was not happy that she had to answer them, she was not happy that she had to get the email to get our pictures and basically I don’t think she was happy that we were breathing either.  Anyway, she told us what we needed to complete and then pretty much told us to move somewhere else to complete the form.  I very happily obliged and moved way down the counter and told Clark we would stand there until the office closed if that is what it took to get a different gal to wait on us.  I thought that would be the best way show kindness.  We did get a different gal, sort of.  We got the gal from yesterday who was so helpful with giving us the information of what we needed except the part about the forms!  She processed our paperwork and gave us our tags never smiling or saying have a nice day or welcome to Texas…nothing.  She just took our $426.00 and slid us our tags.   It was such a pleasant experience I can hardly wait to do it again next year! 

Oh yeah, almost forgot…remember how much fun I said it was to move?  Well, we did such a poor job of leveling when we got back from weighing, we are going to pull in the slides tomorrow and try again.  Maybe we should do it tonight in the dark.  After all, we did a better job when we came in on Tuesday in the dark than we did today in broad daylight!  Well maybe after a good night’s rest with all of our blood rushing to our heads we will be able to do a better job!

Until Later…God Bless!

Officially Full-Timers

Wowww!!!!  The last week was so much harder than I thought it would be in so many ways!  First off, we had to stop and thank God for the beautiful weather we had during the last week.  We had the 5^th wheel open and we were able to take multiple trips hauling our essential belongings from the house to our new home without tracking in snow or mud or having to wear coats!  It was gorgeous weather for packing.

Monday morning we got up early and packed the last of our belongings then left to go sign the papers on the sale of the house.  We stopped at the bank then headed home to hook-up and leave.  The whole way into town to close on the house we were so giddy.  We talked about how exciting this was and how hard we had worked to make this happen.  No tears – just huge grins!  But, I will confess, when we got back to hook-up and pull out the tears started.  I made the mistake of walking through the house one more time…stupid, stupid, stupid!  I took pictures and cried as memories slammed me from everywhere.  I have to say right now, though, that there was never a time we ever doubted our decision.  Even in my sadness of leaving our home of 23 years where we raised our boys, I still knew that I wanted to continue down our chosen path, but the actual leaving was bittersweet.

Our Old Home and Our New Home

Clark preparing to start out on our new life!

We didn’t pull out until 2:00 in the afternoon.  Our destination was the Escapees’ Rainbow Park in Livingston, TX where we will officially become Texans.  We weren't sure of the specifics of the trip to get there.  We thought we had a plan but we changed our minds and decided to drive through Oklahoma City during the night to avoid the horrible traffic we have experienced there in the past on I-35. 

Driving through the gate one last time.

Pulling away...

Looking back one last time...

We saw quite a few other rigs on the road but they were all heading north.  We appeared to be fish swimming upstream!  I am sure they were thinking we were idiots and were heading the wrong way.  We know we were thinking that about them!  We were telling them to turn back – it was still cold up north!  The trip was pretty uneventful other than the wind.  We drove into the wind the entire way to Livingston.  We will not do that in the future unless we have to, but we felt the need to get down here so we could get our truck and 5^th wheel licensed as our tags expire at the end of the month. 

Oh what a beautiful sunset we saw on our first night of freedom – from the cab of the truck but that was ok. 

The sky looked like it was burning.

  Anyway, we spend our first night in an Oklahoma rest stop between two semi-trucks.  We thought it was wonderful and it was within our budget!  

Our beautiful view at our first "site" (the Oklahoma rest stop)

We crawled into bed and snuggled under lots of blankets because it was pretty cold.  We lay there and talked about all of the thoughts still bouncing around in our heads.  Clark finally drifted off.  I know this because he began snoring and I thought, well, that’s it for me – no sleep’s gonna come my way!  I started singing 100 bottles of beer on the wall in my head, and got into the 70s but kept losing track where I was.  Thankfully, Sleeping Beauty finally rolled over from his back to his side and the snoring stopped.    Normally, I don’t have a problem poking the bear to get him to roll over, but since he was going to be driving me - and all of the things I decided I must have - down the road the next day while I slept, I thought maybe it would be best to let him sleep while he could! 

We woke up (yes, I did finally drift off) a tad chilly but finally forced ourselves to get up and at it.  Boy was it cold but we were so excited to be on the road again.  When we got to Fort Worth, we realized we would have been better off to drive all through the night to get through the traffic there!  Two words…road construction…we idled our way down the highway for more than an hour!  When we finally got to go 10 mph we thought we were flying!!!!  We didn't care; we didn't have to be anywhere, so we patiently got through that mess. 

Of course, that was enough to screw up our arrival time at the park.  We called ahead to let them know we would be in after office hours and asked what sites we could pick from when we got there – I told Sunny we planned to stay for 2 weeks.  Boy were we shocked when she said she only had one site available for that duration – and grateful that there was still one left.  We hadn't even thought about making reservations! This was all new to us because in the past when we traveled on the Harley we rode until we felt like stopping.  Reservations…we don’t need no stinking reservations!  (Think Sierra Madre).  Well, it turned out we didn't need reservations THIS time but we may need to rethink our opinion about reservations.  Again – thank you God for looking out for us! 

We arrived after dark (but not after quiet hours) and backed into our spot.  Not our brightest move (yes, pun intended.)  Our new neighbors were getting home about that same time so they pulled their truck in and left their headlights on for us so we could see better.  We got all set up without any issue but we don’t want to make a habit of setting up after dark!  We slept in this morning and boy did that feel good.  For awhile, we sat in our chairs, which we turned around to look out our big back window, and gazed out at all of the other rigs in the park and just smiled.  We were “home”. 

Tomorrow we will be more productive than we were today. We plan to talk to the Escapees people here in the park about what we need to do and where we need to go to become residents of Texas.  They help folks like us do this all of the time so we are grateful to have them as a resource.

Lulu was very happy when we made camp.  She has been out of sorts for the past few weeks and Monday morning when we were running back and forth carrying things out, she refused to come back into the house.  She just lay down by the truck and waited to leave.  She had been in the 5^th wheel with us all week as we were packing our belongings away, and she knew nothing in the house was as it should be.  She may not have understood what exactly was happening but she at least thought we were going on a trip and she knew she wasn't going to be left behind.  Dogs are so smart!  Her happiness was short –lived though because she got a bath tonight!

The cost for this park for a 50 AMP site is $128.00 per week.  This includes electricity and is the price for Escapee members, which we are.

The Countdown Is On!

Today is March 1^st which means we have 16 days left to finish packing, loading, tossing, hauling, and/or selling everything left in the house.  I look around and it still seems we have much to do, and yet Clark says we have plenty of time still!  I will trust his judgment on this and keep plugging along. 

   

It has been a very emotional time for sure.  When we first started this process, I cried frequently as the memories of 23 years in this house where we raised our boys came rushing in at every turn.  I would think about this being the last time for this or that, or I would say remember when this and such happened…lots of happy memories.  Now, as the time is getting closer and the house is in such a shambles I cannot wait to get out of here!  Of course this freezing cold, wet winter has played a huge role in this change of focus.  I have to say, though, that never have we doubted our decision to fulltime.  We truly know this is what we want to do. 

We stepped into the 5^th wheel the other day and looked around and it got us so excited to get on the road.  We want to spend some time planning our route to Livingston and talk about what else we would like to do for the 6 weeks we will be gone.  We need to be back here the first of May for some appointments and graduations.

We have a list of things to do, besides getting the house emptied, that Clark is working on.  We have taken care of several already.  We got copies of our birth certificates so we can get passports in case we ever decide to go to Mexico.  We also have our mailing address set up in Livingston. 

These 16 days are going to fly by and boy am I glad since we are going to get sleet and snow tonight and tomorrow.  It is 20 degrees here right now and 76 in Livingston…March 17^th cannot get here fast enough!

We have a start date - March 17, 2014

Tomorrow’s high is 6 – can you believe that?!  What the heck are we doing still in Kansas?  The good news is we do have a buyer for our house and we are closing on March 17^th and then we will be heading to Texas to establish residency.  That leaves us about two and a half months to get rid of everything that is not essential for living in our 5^th wheel.  The really sweet part about it is that we know the buyer well and he understands our situation so if the weather doesn’t allow for us to actually leave on the 17^th we will still close but he will let us stay until we can get out.  Hopefully there won’t be snow and we can pull out on the 17^th but his generosity does take the stress out of the situation.

We are not going to rent a storage unit so what we don’t take with us we will put in a sale.  My family has been generous in offering to let us store some tubs with them.  At this time, the only items we plan to store are pictures and books.  Pictures for obvious reasons; books because Clark cannot bring himself to get rid of his prized possessions.  Clark loves books.  He loves to read so many different types of books fiction and non-fiction.  He even reads books about books.  My favorite book story to tell on Clark, though, is about the book I got him during our first year of marriage about procrastination.  He started it but never got around to finishing it, and that is a true story.  Well actually, after being teased about this for so many years, he did finally finish it, though just recently, so I really cannot say that anymore.  Anyway, he is going to save a couple of tubs of books and when we pass through Kansas he will stop and pick up a few from the tubs until he has read them all.  I know there are a few he will always want to keep though.

I sorted through all of our pictures and divided them up between our two sons.  We kept one storage container for us which we will store with one of my sisters.  Clark has been cleaning out our files.  Unbelievable what we have hung onto through the years.  We have gone through all of the boys’ toys we kept for all of these years.  At Christmas, we got our decorations out and let the boys take any items they wanted and we kept just a few things for the 5^th wheel.  Everything else was boxed up and is going to the sale.  I admit I did get a little teary at Christmas when it really sunk in that this was the last Christmas for us in this home with our family.   As things are leaving the house, it doesn’t look so homey anymore, pictures are off of the walls, a lot of our furniture is gone, and boxes are sitting about.  I think this will actually make it easier to go as it is a little unsettling living like this. 

Well, back to packing…

How we chose our "home"

How We Chose Our “Home”

Making the decision to full-time was just the start of many decisions to come.  When we came to this conclusion, we did not even have a camper of any sort, let alone one we could live in!  So, the conversation began regarding what time of unit we wanted.  We had to choose between a 5^th wheel and truck or a motorhome and pull our Harley for transportation.  We looked at both and just kept going back to the idea of the 5^th wheel.  For us, it just seemed roomier and homier than a motorhome in our price range.  Did we even want to keep the Harley?  That is where we started.  We decided that when it came time to sell our stick house, that would be the end of our Harley-riding days.  We felt we would be ready to let that chapter of our lives end as we began a new chapter – living and traveling in a 5^th wheel.

Now, how to pick the 5^th wheel we wanted.  After several years of dreaming, we got serious in February 2013.  Clark began searching the Internet for floor plans and specs.   He would capture the pictures and put them in a file.  We would enter the specs on a spreadsheet.   After we felt we had “seen ‘um all” (we could no longer find anything new out there), we began reviewing all of the pictures in the file.

We would look at the pictures of a unit and see if there was anything about it that would be a deal breaker, if so we moved it to another file – Not Interested.  This way we would know we had already considered that particular model.  In addition to analyzing the photos, we reviewed the specs from the spreadsheet on that unit.  If there was anything on the specs we didn’t like, we moved that unit to the “not interested” file.  We went down the line until we got down to 2 units.  We kept coming back to this Mountaineer.  There wasn’t really anything we couldn’t live with about it and there were a lot of things we were looking for in it.  We finally had a winner!  The problem was the particular model we liked was a 2012 – both the 2013s and 2014s had some differences we did not care for.  It was hard to find the older year and model we really desired because we wanted to buy new since we planned to live in it.  Finding a “new” 2012 in 2013 with the 2014s coming out was not easy, but Clark did find a few online.  We finally made a purchase but we had to drive from Kansas to Michigan to get it.  Wow!  But it was so worth it.  It is such a relief to have made the purchase so we could move on toward our goal.  It was really beginning to become an obsession. 

We love our new home and are excited to start our adventure, just not yet.  We still have a house to empty.  This will be truly difficult having lived in this house for 22 years.  Plus, this was the home Clark grew up in so he has even more memories.  When we begin to wonder what the heck we are doing, we look outside to the 5^th wheel and see adventure calling to us and we are fortified and ready to go at it again.

Sandra announces retirement date of Oct 1, 2013

I have given my notice at work!!!  October 1^st will be my last day on the job and then the fun begins.  Since the last blog we posted, we bought our new “home” – a 38’ Montana Mountaineer.  We love, love, love it! We are both excited and relieved to have finally made the purchase after years of “research” on the internet reading blogs, looking at floor plans, going to RV shows etc.  Now what?  Where to begin?

The next step is to start the process of getting rid of our “stuff.”  So, we had our boys and their wives do a walk-through of the house and they have decided on the furniture they each want.  Doug and Morgan were ready for the Hoosier in our kitchen so we went ahead and let them have it as they are setting up house since their marriage on May 31^st.  But, where to put all of the stuff I had in that?  Good gravy that was hard to let go.  He’d like the desk anytime too because he will be going back to school and could use it to study.   Hummmm…where will all of the stuff in that go?  Chad was ready to take our dining room table…Hello!!!  Where does he think we will eat?  We had to say not yet to that one. 

We really haven’t had much time to get much further in this “process”.  Clark has been extremely busy keeping up with the mowing and trimming trees back that are hanging over the fields.  We have had quite a bit of rain so the grass is growing like crazy.  We have a lot of old shade which means a lot of old branches falling with every storm…some of them quite large.

Clark was visiting with a workman recently and talk of our full-timing plans came up.  He looked around and asked if we were seriously going to give this place up.  He commented on how private and serene it is here and that this is what most retirees desire to retire to not get away from.  It is a wonderful place.  We see so much wildlife, deer, turkeys, coyotes, and our favorite, a pair of Great Horned Owls.  They come out each evening, like clockwork, and have their area they hunt.  We follow their routine each evening because we know what trees they go to and the pattern of their flight.  They have gotten pretty used to us and land on the ground close to the house where we can see the yellow in their eyes.  It is so cool.  I will miss that the most, I believe.

 Yet, with this wonderful place comes a lot of work and with the age of the home, the well, the plumbing,  the electrical…there are always issues popping up and things needing to be done and THAT is what we desire to leave behind.  In addition, we really want to travel about and see small towns, state parks, zoos, libraries...these things seem to call to us to explore places we have never been before.  We know our decision is the right one but the actual business of getting there seems overwhelming but possible.