~Tuesday, April 18, 2023~
Day 1,039
With all the uncertainty about exactly WHEN we’ll land in Illinois, and WHEN we’ll find the right house, we didn’t book any lodging past that. Everything prior had been booked almost a year in advance. Being huge planners, we’re feeling a little uneasy about it, especially with summer right around the corner. It just doesn’t behoove us to wait and wing it, forcing us to stay at undesirable locations or the inability to stay for large chunks of time at any one spot. So the thought now is to go ahead and book campgrounds with the hope that we’ll have a minimum of cancellation fees.
It’s hard to believe our in-person real estate search is finally here. Rather than bore you with the details of our property hunting on a daily basis, we’ll keep you in the loop once a week, but in real time (I know Mimi’s happy about that one!) Between maintenance on the rig, staying abreast of any properties that come on the market as well as doing our own research, we will have no problem filling our time. This process is all too important to let anything fall through the cracks. We have 2 realtors that we’ll be interviewing….Ed, whom I’ve been emailing back and forth with for over 2 years now and another, Randall who my best friend Michelle set us up with just a week ago. Today would be our first phone meeting with Randall to introduce ourselves and explain our criteria. We really liked his energy and his explanation of the market in a broad sense. Moving forward, the plan is to meet together over breakfast on Thursday to get a better sense of how well we’d work together and to understand the process of North Carolina buying. It’s waaaaay different from California. Once we understand it ourselves, we’ll fill ‘ya in. Following that meeting, we then meet Ed at his office in downtown Asheville. We’ll let you know how things go.
Next on the to do’s……an overdue nail trim for Sadie. The closest groomer I could find was in Hendersonville, about 20 minutes away from our campsite in Brevard, but it would at least re-acquaint us with the area. And my goodness are there churches. There is a church on nearly every block and of varying religions though mostly Baptist. Being in the “Bible Belt”, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Everything went well with Sadie as I cautioned the groomer that she’s had some issues with her front right leg. She’s not limping as much, but her middle “toe” seems to be sticking out further than it used to, so we’re wondering if she sprang it? Her appointment is in about a week, so we and Sadie look forward to an expert opinion.
Our next stop was at a local Tractor Supply store (they seem to be popping up everywhere) to fill up 2 tanks of propane which we’ll be using a lot more of without electric hookups and because of the cooler weather on the horizon. Temps are supposed to be somewhere around the low 30’s, a far cry from the low of 60’s we got used to in Florida. Jeff was also in pursuit of hydraulic fluid for our bottle jack with none to be had, so off we went to an automotive store for that. The last thing we need is a bottle jack that doesn’t work when it’s an absolute must.
With my mom’s move right around the corner, I was able to finally change our address with USPS. To where you might ask? We decided it would just be simpler to keep our physical address in California until our final move into whatever state we end up. We don’t want to complicate issues with our healthcare, DMV, etc. so until then, we’ll be using Shane’s address. To help minimize the amount of mail, we’ve decided to switch over everything to “paperless” in the meantime, which is hard for me, the traditional type. I still like the old-fashioned in the mail, in the file style. I guess a few months of the “hip” approach won’t kill me.