Friday, April 25, 2008

17 More days...


Kathy is in TN helping her son, Justin, move into a place in Johnson City, TN. He's finishing up his college schooling there and wants to be a teacher when he gets done. You can do it Justin!

I've about got the house all packed up except for the heavy furniture that the movers are going to put in our storage unit. The home appraisor is coming this morning, and if my home appraises for what our contract is for, then we have no worries and we'll be in our RV on 9 May, 2008. One last hurdle!

The price of diesel continues to climb. We're really going to have to watch how far we drive I guess. we'll probably stay at different parks a month at a time since the cost is much less for a 30 day stay compared to a one week or a one day stay. We're paying $250 for 7 days at Flamingo park and we could stay there for 30 days for $600!

I just want my home to appraise now....


Sunday, April 20, 2008

Looking for a Place To Live...

Well, our home inspection went off without a hitch yesterday. We have met the buyers and they are a great couple! She's pregnant and her due date is May 13th. Our original closing date was scheduled for 16 May, but now they want to move the date UP to May 9th!

Oh yeah, we're cool with that! We can close on May 9th!

Then all of a sudden, it hits me - we won't have a place to live after May 9th! Well, we'll have a RV, but where will I park the thing? Oh crap.

So we drag out the calendar and start trying to figure out what to do and WHERE to do whatever it is that we're going to do. (did that make sense?)

Ok, the dealer said we could park our RV in THEIR lot for a week or two if we needed to. And we do! We need to get our "toad" ready to tow which entails adding a transmission iol pump, and a tow bar assembly to the Sonata. the shop that does that is just about 1/2 miles away, so we will stay at Rivers RV for about 10 days until we get the tow car done, and then... and then... and then...????????

OH! How about staying at the Flamingo RV Park in Jacksonville for a week while I learn to DRIVE this monster thing and we try and figure out how to stock it with what we need?

So, we make reservations at http://flamingolake.com/ from 5-22 through 5-29-08. Cost - $250.00. $250???? For one week? THAT wasn't in our budget! Uh oh.

Come to find out that since it's Memorial weekend, there's no discounts for a week stay. We were told earlier that a 30 day stay was $600 which isn't bad for a park of this type, but I wasn't exception $250 for 7 days!

Lesson #1 - You don't get discounts during "holiday" weekends or "special events."

But wait - there's more! We pick and move into the RV on May 9th. we can stay in the dealers RV "park" for about a week. That takes us to May 16th. What are we going to do between May 16th and May 22nd until we get to Flamingo Lake? Crap. We need another place to go!

I joined www.passportamerica.com & www.campclubusa.com which are "discount" membership RV camping clubs that offer members 1/2 price off regular rates at certain RV Parks. Time to see if we can find a cheap place to stay!

Hmmmm - there's nothing IN Jacksonville that offers any discounts. ( I still wonder why that is.)

There IS a park in Saint George, GA which is fairly close - oops! That park is a "clothing optional resort!" HA! Do NOT want to go there!

There's a RV park in Cedar Ridge, GA that has 50 amp service ( There are 30 amp parks, but I need 50 apm hookups so I can run everything on my RV) that's only 50 miles from jacksonville and it only costs $10 a night (plus tax). Sweet! We'll stay there for a few days in between Rivers RV and Flamingo Lake. This give us some time to do some driving practice and practice setting up camp without being too far away.

It's settled then. We have places to stay the first 3 weeks.

Now all we have to do is figure out where to stay after that! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

We Sold Our Home!


Holy Molly... we got and accepted and offer on our home the other day! SWEET! We fully expected to be on the market for months and months, but we sold in 34 days.

Kathy and I were actually in our car driving to Rivers RV in Jacksonville to kill some time looking at RV's (which seemed to be about the only thing we were doing lately anyway) when the buyers agent called us. Oh crap. Now we actually have to get SERIOUS about finding a RV to live in (providing the offer was OK with us from the buyers). THAT put a whole new perspective on the day. Now we're not just "looking" we're freakin "shopping!" Cool :)

So we continue on to rivers RV to look at some Tiffins, which is the only brand they sell. Up to this point my decision was to buy a used RV (let someone else take the hit on depreciation right?), but a used Tiffin is hard to find. First, htere's a waiting list for them, and also a lot of people who own them like them so much that they just take their RV to Redbay, Alabama and have the Tiffin manufacturer make any updates/mods to their RV.

The pro side of buying new is you get what you want, you get a warranty, no one else has slept in your bed, and lastly... it's MY poop in the black tank, not someone else's. HA! I also wanted to buy from a local dealer and NOT have to drive to TX or Mississippi to pick up a RV. kathy and I talked about it. We decided that this was OUR dream and we were going to buy a NEW RV to treat ourselves for once!

The salesman (Shawn) took us around the lot and we started climbing into the new RV's.

Uh oh... we find one that has everything we wanted:
  • The color in nice on the outside, we love the interior colors (not white or a dark brown, but a nice neutral beige).
  • It has a king size bed with a HUGE closet in the bedroom
  • A STACKABLE washer & dryer so we can do our own laundry. Much better than the "all-in-one" washer/dryer combo units.
  • A BIG shower that I can actually move my fat butt around in it. The shower has a little garden tub that's big enough to give our dog, Elvis, a bath, and even big enough that Kathy could take a little soak if she wanted to. Way too small for me though! HA!
  • The toilet is in separate room (split bath) which gives us and any traveling companion privacy.
  • Lot's of counter space in the kitchen
  • A convection/microwave oven PLUS a regular baking oven.
  • Two couches so we both can lay down and watch TV!
  • An outside LCD TV already installed.