The Pilgrammage begins...

The Pilgramage begins…

So here’s the plan….

Sell house
Pack 1st half of house into Uhaul and drive it from Texas to storage in Virginia.
Fly home.
Pack 2nd half of house into Uhaul.
Pack 5th wheel travel trailer with remaining stuff that we don’t store for the next year and take it back to storage.
Pack daughter’s worldly possessions into Tahoe for trip to drop her off at college.
Close on house.
Drive 2nd half of house from Texas to yet another storage in Virginia.
Fly home…well technically now we’re homeless.
Family staying in extended stay…waiting for my return.
Drive daughter to college and drop her off in Michigan.
Drive back to Texas and pick up 28 ft. travel trailer, 3 vehicles…

Whew! …and finally head for Virginia to live in a campground for a year
While we build this house?

Who’s idea was this anyway?


Got a contract on the house…

Think that’s done? Wrong-oh chicken lips…

Now you have to put up with the buyers, inspectors, real estate people.
What ever happened to the concept of “As IS”. Take it or leave it.
Now you sell them a house and then you have to pay dearly AFTER they beat you out of $20,000 with a low ball offer.

The lady next door had to change out every window in the house after she took the offer from the buyer.

Also, this concept of sprucing up your house to sell…sucks.
Don’t believe everything you see on HGTV.

Fortunately the buyers didn’t make unreasonable demands but just the process of making changes to a house you’re trying to move out of is yet another hassle.

Changing out GFI’s. Putting GFI’s in outlets that never needed them because some inspector had to justify his existance. Oh well… another trip to Home Depot.

So here are the insane logistics:

- Accepted the offer on the house.
- Started selectivly packing like crazy while waiting for the 10 days of “oops
we changed our mind” er…grace period.

- 2 days of loading with help from a couple of high school kids and
1st Uhaul truck ( 2 gallons to the mile) and I’m off… driving from Texas to
Virginia with half the furniture. Wonder who’s going to help me unload?

- Got the request for changes to the house while I’m on the road somewhere in Tennessee. Great… Try fixing something long distance. It’ll have to wait until I get back.

- Come to Virginia and start trying to get the county to come inspect your temporary power box and the the power company to destroy your road with a trencher running power up the mountain. Sure hope they don’t cut the 13 drain pipes…but that’s another story for the blog I’m sure.

- Anyway, I arrived on a Thursday. Couldn’t get the county to inspect until Monday. Well, I’m got to stay around. Guess I’ll start cleaning out those clogged drains.

- You know…there’s something very peaceful about digging a ditch…nobody around just you and a shovel. Other than the cell phone, I was temporarily removed from the moving madness…if for only a weekend. We can do this…

- Bought a tractor from a man… Shook his hand, cut him a check for $15,000 and never even asked for a receipt…there’s something very comforting about that too. If you can’t buy a tractor on a handshake, what’s left in this country that’s worth having?

- Flying home now. Back to the madness of packing, daughter watching her whole life go into boxes, wife totally overwhelmed with getting everything in the house in the right pile, selling off furniture, giving the rest to Goodwill, dealing with the demands of the buyers wanting to take up a piece of the flooring so they can change see if they can change the color, turning off phones, internet, cable, power, daughter getting ready for college…but that’s her side of the story…

We’re committed now ! Retirement here we come…