Our house sale is finally complete. The proceeds landed in our account today. Kristen is not going to have to fly back to California to kick some butt.
Two years ago when we were headed East, we fought the wind all the way until we were well into Texas. Fortunately, it was behind us or buffeting from the side. This trip has been pretty much wind free until today. This morning, from the time that we crossed the the New Mexico border, we were headed directly into a very strong wind. Even when we were driving downhill, it felt like we were driving up a steep grade. This did not make for great gas mileage.
The campground that we are staying at is associated with the Sky City Casino (an Indian casino) and is about 58 miles west of Albuquerque.
We went to dinner over at the casino. The meal prices were very reasonable and there was a senior discount to boot. Someone suggested that we scan our drivers licenses and join the Players Club. When you join, you spin the wheel to see how much free play you get on the card. We each won $25 free play. We used our free play to play one of the penny slots (you know the kind of penny slot where the minimum bet is 300 pennies - sounds like a $3 slot to me). We were very successful and not only covered the cost of our dinner but probably covered the cost of our campsite as well.
No photos today - this isn't a very photogenic place.
-JC-
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
Stop 3: Holbrook, AZ
First of all, we made some progress with our close today. The buyer's lender finally managed to wire the funding to the correct title company and they, in turn, successfully recorded the change in title. All that's missing now is our being compensated for the house. The money will supposedly transfer into our account tomorrow morning. We can't honestly say that we're comfortable with the process at this point but at least we'll know who to sue.
We had a 190 mile trip to Holbrook today and, what with the many uphill grades, we came as close to empty as our gas tank has ever come. It's a 20 gallon tank and it took nearly 18 gallons to top it off. We always have an extra 5 gallons in a gas can just in case but didn't use them today.
Coming into Holbrook, I thought that this would be the only repeat park from our trip 2 years ago. As it turned out, I accidentally booked a different park and we like it better.
We haven't done much here other than run a few errands. I needed new gas cap and a new spout for my gas can. Fortunately, we found both. at our first stop. We also had some marketing to do.
Exciting day, huh?
-JC-
We had a 190 mile trip to Holbrook today and, what with the many uphill grades, we came as close to empty as our gas tank has ever come. It's a 20 gallon tank and it took nearly 18 gallons to top it off. We always have an extra 5 gallons in a gas can just in case but didn't use them today.
Coming into Holbrook, I thought that this would be the only repeat park from our trip 2 years ago. As it turned out, I accidentally booked a different park and we like it better.
We haven't done much here other than run a few errands. I needed new gas cap and a new spout for my gas can. Fortunately, we found both. at our first stop. We also had some marketing to do.
Exciting day, huh?
-JC-
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Stop 2: Black Canyon City, AZ
Happy Mothers Day!
We got a very early start this morning. I guess that we're lucky to have gotten any sleep at all but, at about 3am, we became aware that some sort of outdoor rap music festival was going on on the California side of the river. They got louder and louder and then abruptly stopped just after dawn. I looked online to see what in might be but the only outdoor festival that I could find this year in Blythe is something that Linkin Park will headline next weekend.
We had a pleasant trip today. Our route had us get off of the I-10 about 120 mile West of Phoenix. We followed some very straight roads through some pretty desert and passed through Wickenberg before joining the 17 about 25 miles North of Phoenix. We'd never heard of Wickenberg before but it appears to be a very nice place.
Black Canyon City is about midway between Phoenix and Flagstaff. The hills here are covered with Saguaro Cactus and Palo Verde trees that are all in bloom. Because of Mothers Day, we have this place almost completely to ourselves. The manager here has recommended a restaurant across the highway and I'll be taking Kristen out for Mothers Day dinner.
We got gas earlier and our credit card worked! I guess that Visa finally got their act together yesterday.
-JC-
We got a very early start this morning. I guess that we're lucky to have gotten any sleep at all but, at about 3am, we became aware that some sort of outdoor rap music festival was going on on the California side of the river. They got louder and louder and then abruptly stopped just after dawn. I looked online to see what in might be but the only outdoor festival that I could find this year in Blythe is something that Linkin Park will headline next weekend.
We had a pleasant trip today. Our route had us get off of the I-10 about 120 mile West of Phoenix. We followed some very straight roads through some pretty desert and passed through Wickenberg before joining the 17 about 25 miles North of Phoenix. We'd never heard of Wickenberg before but it appears to be a very nice place.
Black Canyon City is about midway between Phoenix and Flagstaff. The hills here are covered with Saguaro Cactus and Palo Verde trees that are all in bloom. Because of Mothers Day, we have this place almost completely to ourselves. The manager here has recommended a restaurant across the highway and I'll be taking Kristen out for Mothers Day dinner.
We got gas earlier and our credit card worked! I guess that Visa finally got their act together yesterday.
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| Our first trailer shots of the year. |
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| Some of those Saguaros and Palo Verdes |
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| Saguaros, Palo Verdes and something else. |
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| Prize specimens. |
-JC-
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Stop 1: Ehrenberg, AZ
I'm not going to count Hemet as stop 1 since it was essentially a holding place near Murrieta while we tried to complete our sale there. "Tried" is the word for it. Subsequent to our last post, the buyer's lender eventually reported that they'd been able to recover the money that they'd wired to the wrong title company. By that time, it was too late to rewire it to the correct company. They'll be rewiring it first thing Monday morning and the title company will do a special expedited recording of title at that point. The proceeds that were supposed to be wired into our account on Friday, might make it on Tuesday.
We intentionally allowed what we thought would be enough time to see things through but the time came when we had reservations in RV parks all across the country. This morning, it was time to take off. If it comes about that one of us actually needs to be present to straighten out whatever mess the escrow or title companies might make of things, we'll put Kristen on a plane while I continue to move East.
Today's trip was uneventful until we got here. Actually, until we almost got here. When we pulled off the highway into a brand new traffic circle, our GPS went into a recompute loop that it never came out of. We had to call the RV Park for the final directions.
Once we were set up, I went to refill the gas tank. A simple enough process ordinarily. I went back to the highway to fill up at a Flying J station. I should have remembered our previous encounter with Flying J. When you slide your card, they put a $150 hold against your card that hangs around for months. In this case, I slid my card and it said "Please see cashier". I went to see the cashier and saw that the line was a mile long and left. Guess what! That put a lock on my card. I discovered that when I went down the street to the only other station, a Texaco, where I also got a Please see cashier. After several calls to Visa and, finally, putting Visa on the phone with the cashier, we found that there was a problem with the pump. Finally, we got it taken care of. Interestingly enough, the cashier at Texaco used to work at Flying J. She said that one credit card user in 3 gets the "Please see cashier" message in the hope that they'll buy something else while they are inside.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I left a station in disgust and lost the gas cap that I had failed to replace. Fortunately, I had a spare (who carries a spare gas cap?).
Ehrenberg is on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, directly across from Blythe. This park is right on the river and we've noticed that many of the residents spend their day in lawn chairs that are so deep into the soft mud that their butts are in the river.
-JC-
We intentionally allowed what we thought would be enough time to see things through but the time came when we had reservations in RV parks all across the country. This morning, it was time to take off. If it comes about that one of us actually needs to be present to straighten out whatever mess the escrow or title companies might make of things, we'll put Kristen on a plane while I continue to move East.
Today's trip was uneventful until we got here. Actually, until we almost got here. When we pulled off the highway into a brand new traffic circle, our GPS went into a recompute loop that it never came out of. We had to call the RV Park for the final directions.
Once we were set up, I went to refill the gas tank. A simple enough process ordinarily. I went back to the highway to fill up at a Flying J station. I should have remembered our previous encounter with Flying J. When you slide your card, they put a $150 hold against your card that hangs around for months. In this case, I slid my card and it said "Please see cashier". I went to see the cashier and saw that the line was a mile long and left. Guess what! That put a lock on my card. I discovered that when I went down the street to the only other station, a Texaco, where I also got a Please see cashier. After several calls to Visa and, finally, putting Visa on the phone with the cashier, we found that there was a problem with the pump. Finally, we got it taken care of. Interestingly enough, the cashier at Texaco used to work at Flying J. She said that one credit card user in 3 gets the "Please see cashier" message in the hope that they'll buy something else while they are inside.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I left a station in disgust and lost the gas cap that I had failed to replace. Fortunately, I had a spare (who carries a spare gas cap?).
Ehrenberg is on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, directly across from Blythe. This park is right on the river and we've noticed that many of the residents spend their day in lawn chairs that are so deep into the soft mud that their butts are in the river.
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| Looking downstream towards the I-10. |
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| This is the wonderful "beach" where the chairs were sunk into the mud up to their occupants' butts. Our parting view of California across the river. |
Friday, May 8, 2015
Getting Frustrated
Yesterday was supposed to be the day that the sale of our home closed. We'd been told that, if the bank funded the loan in the morning, the title would record in the afternoon and the proceeds of the sale would be wired into our account this morning.
The escrow officer emailed us at noon yesterday that the loan had been funded and that title was ready to record. Based on that information, we cancelled our homeowners insurance and turned in the devices that allowed us through the gates to reach our former home.
At 6:30 PM, we received an email from our realtor that the funds had never reached the title company and that an investigation was underway (our realtor and the escrow officer had known this much earlier but hadn't bothered to let us know). Our insurance agent's office was closed but we sent an email and then phoned 1st thing this morning to make sure that our policy didn't cancel.
We've just heard that the problem was that the lender wired the money into the wrong account at the wrong title company. This is apparently unusual enough that they weren't sure how to set things right. The lender can't just call the transfer back. The wrong title company has to somehow reject the transfer. With the money back in the lender's account, they will then be able to rewire it to the correct title company (of course, we're thinking that, since it was their mistake, they should wire the money to the correct account first and then go about trying to recover the money that they tried to flush down the toilet).
The escrow officer was hoping that things would happen fast enough that she could still record title this afternoon. Of course that's being complicated by the fact that Riverside County will be doing some work on their systems this weekend and will be shutting them down early today.
So, if a miracle happens and they record title today, the transfer into our account will take place on Monday. More likely, it'll be on Tuesday. Sure glad that this wasn't like our last sale/purchase where we had both closes on the same day and had the proceeds of the sale wired to fund the purchase.
Our buyers must be a little frustrated as well. They had probably planned to start moving in this weekend. Unless title posts today, they won't get a key until Monday.
We had hoped to be around to make sure that everything came off smoothly but, our plans are to leave tomorrow and we have reservations all the way across the country. If it turns out that one of us needs to be here to straighten things out, we'll just have to put Kristen on a plane and I'll continue our cross country itinerary alone.
-JC-
The escrow officer emailed us at noon yesterday that the loan had been funded and that title was ready to record. Based on that information, we cancelled our homeowners insurance and turned in the devices that allowed us through the gates to reach our former home.
At 6:30 PM, we received an email from our realtor that the funds had never reached the title company and that an investigation was underway (our realtor and the escrow officer had known this much earlier but hadn't bothered to let us know). Our insurance agent's office was closed but we sent an email and then phoned 1st thing this morning to make sure that our policy didn't cancel.
We've just heard that the problem was that the lender wired the money into the wrong account at the wrong title company. This is apparently unusual enough that they weren't sure how to set things right. The lender can't just call the transfer back. The wrong title company has to somehow reject the transfer. With the money back in the lender's account, they will then be able to rewire it to the correct title company (of course, we're thinking that, since it was their mistake, they should wire the money to the correct account first and then go about trying to recover the money that they tried to flush down the toilet).
The escrow officer was hoping that things would happen fast enough that she could still record title this afternoon. Of course that's being complicated by the fact that Riverside County will be doing some work on their systems this weekend and will be shutting them down early today.
So, if a miracle happens and they record title today, the transfer into our account will take place on Monday. More likely, it'll be on Tuesday. Sure glad that this wasn't like our last sale/purchase where we had both closes on the same day and had the proceeds of the sale wired to fund the purchase.
Our buyers must be a little frustrated as well. They had probably planned to start moving in this weekend. Unless title posts today, they won't get a key until Monday.
We had hoped to be around to make sure that everything came off smoothly but, our plans are to leave tomorrow and we have reservations all the way across the country. If it turns out that one of us needs to be here to straighten things out, we'll just have to put Kristen on a plane and I'll continue our cross country itinerary alone.
-JC-
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Moving Day!!
On Sunday, we made our move to the Golden Village Palms RV Resort in Hemet. We'll be here through next Saturday. It's actually one of the nicer, more secure, parks that we've stayed at. We're surrounded by Jacaranda trees ("It's JacaRHONDA Grandpa" as Niko used to say when he was about 2) that are very pretty. This place has facilities like we've never seen in an RV prk including a pool complex that looks like something you'd see in Las Vegas. Some unusual rules about nudity have us wondering if the place used to be a nudist resort.
Monday (yesterday) morning, we had to be back at the house early to let the buyers in for their final walk through (no problems). We also finished up our last bit of packing.
This morning, we were at the house at 7am to meet the movers. Of course, they didn't show up until almost 9am and then they showed up in force - 6 guys with 3 trucks. The largest truck carried 7 huge crates (they call them vaults). A second truck opened up to reveal 3 more vaults plus a large area for items too big for the vaults. The third truck was for the packers and contained all of their packing materials.
The packers took care of packing up the kitchen, china cabinet, grandfather clock and all of the mattresses while the other guys started moving stuff out of the house. The packers finished up after lunch and took off. The other guys managed to get all 10 vaults just as full as they could possibly be. The only thing that had to go in the oversize area was the sectional from the family room.
By now, all 10 vaults and the sectional have been moved to a warehouse in Riverside. Once we buy a new home and know our move-in date, we'll call the mover up and have everything shipped East. The cross country mover will move everything out of the vaults when he loads his truck. That seems weird to me but, apparently, they can get all 10 vaults and the sectional into half of a big cross-country moving van.
Tomorrow, we'll relax a bit and get over to the house late to do our final bit of cleanup. It's trash day so we want to be there late enough to bring the cans in.
Everything looks like a go for a close on Thursday
Monday (yesterday) morning, we had to be back at the house early to let the buyers in for their final walk through (no problems). We also finished up our last bit of packing.
This morning, we were at the house at 7am to meet the movers. Of course, they didn't show up until almost 9am and then they showed up in force - 6 guys with 3 trucks. The largest truck carried 7 huge crates (they call them vaults). A second truck opened up to reveal 3 more vaults plus a large area for items too big for the vaults. The third truck was for the packers and contained all of their packing materials.
The packers took care of packing up the kitchen, china cabinet, grandfather clock and all of the mattresses while the other guys started moving stuff out of the house. The packers finished up after lunch and took off. The other guys managed to get all 10 vaults just as full as they could possibly be. The only thing that had to go in the oversize area was the sectional from the family room.
By now, all 10 vaults and the sectional have been moved to a warehouse in Riverside. Once we buy a new home and know our move-in date, we'll call the mover up and have everything shipped East. The cross country mover will move everything out of the vaults when he loads his truck. That seems weird to me but, apparently, they can get all 10 vaults and the sectional into half of a big cross-country moving van.
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| The first 7 vaults |
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| Thats the packers truck across the street and the truck with 3 more vaults and oversize storage down at the corner. |
Tomorrow, we'll relax a bit and get over to the house late to do our final bit of cleanup. It's trash day so we want to be there late enough to bring the cans in.
Everything looks like a go for a close on Thursday
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Last Night at Home
The trailer is loaded and, come tomorrow, we're ready to go. We'll be staying in Hemet for 6 nights while we finish packing, deal with the movers, do our last bit of cleanup and close on the sale. We also have the buyers coming through on Monday morning for their final inspection.
We had a bunch of "toxic waste" that the movers are unwilling to move. Fortunately, today was a toxic waste drop off day in one of the neighboring communities. Seemed easy enough except that our GPS seemed to think that the most direct route to the drop-off point involved driving over a canal on a nonexistent bridge. Eventually found my way there but it wasn't easy.
-JC-
We had a bunch of "toxic waste" that the movers are unwilling to move. Fortunately, today was a toxic waste drop off day in one of the neighboring communities. Seemed easy enough except that our GPS seemed to think that the most direct route to the drop-off point involved driving over a canal on a nonexistent bridge. Eventually found my way there but it wasn't easy.
-JC-
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