Boy it’s been a while since I last blogged. A lot has happened. I had a realtor friend come over about six weeks ago to look at the house, and boy did she open my eyes. While she said she believes the house will sell fast there are a few big things we have to do.. Buyers today do not want carpet, they do not like wood nick nacks up, and they do not like much of anything hanging up on the walls.  So for the last little while we have been doing work that needs to be done and slowly taking things down and even throwing things away. We have a new floor in the entry way and old spa room, which does look nice. The bottom line she said your old life here has to go ,so that potential buyers see basically a staged house with very few things from our life in it. I guess I can see that, but we have a lot of work to do.

 

Nest week we are going to Sedona for a week of vacationing so that throws a little crimp in things and when we get back we are going to have a really big garage, moving sale for a few days. So for now that it.

Well another big step has happened. Last year it was the new Big Country 3450, and now Last week I finally retired from the job I had for 18 + years. It was bittersweet. I have known for a while it was time to move on. Haven’t been happy for a few years, and my work started to affect home life. My job was simple, as a building inspector for the town I live in, my job was to enforce the rules and regulations. Well too much outside influence started creeping in and it started to be a real hassle. Us late baby boomers do not like change and have a hard time listening to the younger , so called know it alls . So having to give 6 months notice, I thought was the hard part, boy was I wrong.  I trained a new guy for the last few months and all of a sudden it was here THE LAST DAY. They had a party for me at lunch, which was very special to me and after that I was out the door, just like that. Now with a few days behind me, my mind has been hit with this reality that , hay you can’t go back , you no longer have a job, your retired. But wait isn’t that what I wanted, to retire, the answer to that is a resounding YES.  So my mind has been a little conflicked, but it will pass and I will be better for it.

The bad part of it all is that I really am going to miss some of the people, it was like a second family to me, that is the hard part. As I have said before though , in order to move on in life you have to make hard decisions and this has been a big one. The path to full time Rving is getting closer and that is the main goal.

Next SELLING THE HOUSE oh boy!!!!

Wow it’s Feburary already. We had a good holidays and new years. Really antsy about getting back into the Rv, but winter hangs on long around here. Right now we are starting to think about things we need to fix and do to possibly get the house for sale, earliest would be May.

The other big thing going on is I only have 6 weeks of work left before I retire. I had to give 6 months notice and wow time is flying by. I am training a new guy and I feel he will be fine so that is a little relief, although with retiring should I even care, but I do.

We also got a neat Christmas present from Melissa’s sister, I guess it sums it up nice. Picture is below. For now that’s it

 

Well it’s the end of the year. A very good year in that we got the Rv this year, and kind of a bad year, in the way of a few health issues. Everything right now seems to be on an even keel, so that’s good.

We put up some Christmas decorations a few weeks ago, and we both said maybe this will be the last year we are in the house doing that, I hope so. Time has a way of getting by us, and the more you kind of stay stagnant the more likely you are of never taking the next step. Hopefully come January, we will be taking a giant leap forward toward our next journey.
Right now we are focused on enjoying the holidays with good friends and family and go from there. Otherwise not much else.

I did however find out a few weeks ago that when we ordered the Big Country 3450, that we were most likely having one of the last ones built. They no longer offer this model in the coming year. The new one is about 4′ longer and more money. We are very happy that we were able to get what we had been looking for this year.

WELL, HO, HO, HO AND MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

On Oct 14 we had the unit towed to a storage building. I want it in a building so that there will not be any snow, ice and all the crap that comes with winter. although it will be cold it is now in a safe place. We covered all the vent holes took the LP tanks out and removed the battery. I also leveled up the unit so in spring when I put the battery back in, it will be easier to program the level up, system, I hope.

Other wise that is it. It has been a very exciting experience getting to learn and get to know our brand new rig, and hopefully next year, will be easier.

Been a long time between posts. We have done a lot and had a lot to do in and around the Rv. Too many good things to say so will be a brief post. Got a lot accomplished and sorted out this summer. September although has been a month of a few health issues, which as of now seem to be sorting themselves out. Will be putting the Rv in storage come mid October. It will be in a storage building so it will not get any snow and all the freezing crap all over it. That is about it and may not be any updates for a while. It has been a very exciting spring and summer .

We have had a very exciting last two weeks. Have a lot to bring up to speed.

The Big Country was delivered to us on June 18th at @ 10:30. I kept going to the edge of the driveway to see if it was coming and then there it was. The first thing I thought of was Oh boy it’s big. The driver got it in and placed it where we wanted, unhitched, got her leveled and there it was. He said it drove like a dream.

Once he left we opened her up , got the slides out and just stood there a few minutes, both of us thinking WOW, here it is. I got the water and electric hooked up and tested the plumbing all again. Put out the awning, and as it was a hot day turned on the front air for the first time, we were not able to do that at the dealers, so I was a little worried. We have the new Dometic A/C system, and I let it run all day. There’s a lot more to this story, so i’ll save that for later. Melissa started cleaning all the cabinet’s and stuff, I was busy with rechecking all the electrical, propane and electrical stuff.

Before we knew it was about 4 our friend’s Beth and Fran along with her mother arrived. We had invited them for dinner. We showed them around for a while and then I cooked up steak and chicken on the grill and we had dinner. It was a great time and before we knew it, it was about 8 p.m. So after they left we got ourselves situated and geared up for going to bed. We slept o. k. , the mattress Is very hard. We got up about 9 or so and went out to breakfast in Newfane to a little place called Bob’s Diner. When we got back we kind of got packed up and headed back home, (The RV is at my brother Steve’s house in Newfane).When we got all unwound, we just looked at each other with smile’s, the Big Country is everything we had hoped for and more. It is now HOME.

What an experience we had last Friday at Ballards Camping Center. I was nervous and apprehensive for days before. When we got there the 3450 was set up on one of there camp sites. It was owe some to see, and big. We spent about 3 hours with a few of the tech guys, who showed us all the workings of the coach. I don’t remember any of it, it was too much to take in. Once they were done we were able to stay the rest of the day and overnight. That gave us a lot of time to get a little familiar with all of it. They hooked us up to water and sewer, and power, although it was only 110, so we could not use the air or heat. We were assured it all worked fine. I was deathly afraid of a water leak, all was good.  Had the hot water tank turned on, which worked well. As a matter of fact as hard as I tried I could not find a lot of issues, which we were very pleased with .The dealer prep work on the coach was really a good job. I did find a few nicks and other small items that need attention, inside.  There is one slide out that needs adjusting, a slide bracket that needs a screw tightened, and a front corner mold piece that is cocked. That is the biggest thing, done wrong right at the factory and missed by the inspector. Not sure how this is going to play out, leave it or try to fix it!!!!.

After all that Saturday morning we met with Daryl, let him know the issues we had,and finished up all the paperwork and such. It  went by so fast, the next thing we knew we were back home. We had hoped it would have been delivered this week, but so far no go, I think some of the work had to be approved by Heartland first to get done. Hopefully in the next few days we will have it at Steve’s and start to use it. I plan right now to be there most of the June 27 week to put it through all its paces. The picture below of Melissa speaks for itself. We are very excited and  happy with everything so far.

Now we are getting very excited. The big country has arrived and the dealer is doing all his prep work. He said so far no issues and everything looks and works great. We will see. This Friday we will be going in the afternoon for the walk through and they are letting us stay overnight. This will give me a good amount of time to do my pre inspection, which is a mile long. Any issues hopefully can be corrected  quickly. Looking forward to it.

Heard from the dealer on May 21st the big country is done and will be shipped to him by the 25th. It’s really happening. He has a lot of prep to do and I know he is very busy this time of year, so I am going to ask him to hold off a week or so and do the extensive prep work , then. This way he will not be rushed. We also will be able to stay overnight at his small campground , to do the pre inspection and stay in it and see how all things work, with any bugs he may need to fix. This looks like it will be the week end of June 11th.

Melissa seems to be getting very excited, me on the other hand , I am excited but I seem a little blah about it, work has been a major issue lately.