A False Start, But We're Not Complaining

Now that I’ve brought you up-to-date on our summer in Colorado, I’ll pick up from the post of June 12 where I left you hanging so long ago.  As you may recall, Tim and I had just listed our house for sale and had left Estes Park on Tuesday, April 9, to start our full-time RV adventure.  We were planning to head to South Dakota to establish our new domicile and had made plans to drive to Texas after that for Tim’s consulting project at Big Thicket National Preserve.  I closed that post with the following sentence:

Well, you know what they say about those best-laid plans.  I’ll tell you in the next post.

Well, here’s the much-delayed “next post.”

After leaving Colorado, we had a beautiful drive along the western edge of the Sandhills of Nebraska and made a quick stop at Carhenge, an unusual roadside attraction.  Carhenge was designed as a replica of Stonehenge in England.  However, as the name may suggest, old cars painted gray were used instead of the original’s monolithic rock pillars.  I had wanted to visit Carhenge for years, and it was as quirky as I had pictured.

Carhenge, Not Stonehenge

"Do You Have Anything Else on the Back Lot?" 

We arrived in South Dakota and visited our new “home,” a personal mailbox at Americas Mailbox, our mail forwarding service.  We picked up our mail, acquired our new drivers licenses, registered the RV and the car, registered to vote and transferred our insurance.  Everything went smoothly, and we returned to the RV to spend Friday night before our departure the next morning.

We Made It to Our New Home State

Our New Home - A Personal Mailbox

We Are Officially South Dakota Residents

On Saturday morning as Tim and I were eating breakfast, his cell phone rang.  It was our realtor.  “Are you sitting down?” she asked.  She then proceeded to tell us that she had an offer on our house.  Great, we thought.  But, this was not just any offer.  It was a full price, cash, close-in-30-days offer!  Can you say that we were speechless?  As soon as we recovered from the initial shock, we said “Yes!”

I had read blogs of several full-timers who had sold their house within the first day or two of listing it.  I had secretly hoped that something similar would happen to us, but I hadn’t even voiced that wish to Tim.  We knew that the house looked good, and should sell quickly, but in this still-evolving real estate market, you just never know.  

So, we had to quickly rethink our plans.  We were already scheduled to head back to Colorado that day, so we had some time to think while we were driving.  We stopped for the night at Cabela’s in Sidney, Nebraska, where we had stayed on the way up.  A major snowstorm was forecast, and we wanted to be off the road.  We filled the propane tank and planned to wait out the storm.  We were warm and toasty in the RV, but freezing rain and ice caused the water pump to freeze and we had no water.  That’s ok.  Nothing could dampen our spirits.

A Bit of a Weather Adventure

The weather cleared, and we were able to leave the next day.  Although we considered the possibility of finding a nice campground to stay in for a few weeks, we ultimately decided to just head back to the house in Estes Park.  Our new life as full-timers only lasted a week.  But we knew it would just be a temporary delay.  Because it was still winter in Estes Park, we made the decision to have the RV winterized again.  Didn’t we just have it de-winterized?  Better safe than sorry.

We also decided that Tim would fly to Texas for his project.  There was no way we could take the RV there.  I would remain at the house and finish packing and moving those things that were going into storage.  Tim would fly back to Colorado the day before closing, which was scheduled for May 9.  Since we had already downsized and had gotten rid of everything we were not planning to store or give to family, I though this part of the moving process would be fairly easy.  NOT!!  I really do hate moving – I don’t know how people move every few years.  Even with very few possessions, it’s not an easy process.  Packing everything we planned to store in as few boxes as possible to conserve space in the storage unit made things even more challenging.

Moving day finally arrived on May 7, the day before Tim would arrive back in Colorado.  Of course this was the only day that week that it rained.  I had mapped out the storage unit to determine the best way to arrange the boxes and furniture to maximize the use of the space.  It was like completing a 3-D puzzle to cram everything in just so.  With a few modifications, the movers made it work.  The move was over.  The house was empty.  I could relax.  I drove back to Estes Park and moved into the RV.  I was home.