Dragging to a Close

Ye Gads!! The contract on our house is very slowly moving to a close, or at least we hope so.  The buyers have their ducks in a row after a couple of false starts, We’ve been told that the loan application is completed and accepted, and is the hands of the underwriter for final approval.

A strange phenomenon in central Texas has shaped our lives in a new direction.  We have actually been “ful time” in the RV (because the house was emptied last year in anticipation of a quick sale) for over a year now.  Since we still had the 6+ acres and a really large dog run, and the garage to store stuff and work in, it wasn’t quite the same as it will be.  And we only moved the RV for service and camping trips (if you call a 40 foot land cruiser “yacht” a “camper”) and put it back on the side of our property.  Well, the rainfall this year has been phenomenal for normally very dry Texas.  We moved out early one week and spent it in a nearby Corps of Engineers park at a local lake to avoid getting trapped by the rain and mud.

We had lined up a spot in a local long term “campground” to be in for the last two months I will be working, before we hit the road for bummning around the countryside and decided with the forecast, we needed to go ahead and move.  We should close on the house in another week or so and would need to be out, but the forecast is for continuing wet weather.  I proceeded to get roaylly stuck off to the side of the drive when trying to turn the Beast around to get it out.  Took a tow truck to winch us out of that one, and then got it stuck on the other side of the drive as well.  So the winch was used twice.

We finally got it out, and are now in a semi-permanent “home” site about 30 miles from the house and work, so the amount of travel needed is way up.  We are cleaning out the last of the belongings in the house and garage, and trying to get the place in shape for the new owners.  The really bad news is that the A/C isn’t working.  It has a major leak and the choices are an expensive band-aid (re-fill the Freon and hope it holds a few weeks), try to find parts for an old R-22 system and pay a bunch to get them installed, or replace the whole thing.  They are coming back this afternoon to replace it.  Another two weeks on it, and I wouldn’t feel bad about the one year warranty that’s part of the sale kicking in to replace it, but we can’t sell it knowing there is a major issue with it.

As I said in the title, we are dragging to a close on the house.  The dogs miss their big play pen, but otherwise we’ll be happy to move on to the next chapter.  Come August, we’ll be free to roam the countryside.

Somewhere in Texas,

May 24, 2016