Wisconsin Or Bust

 Update:  Bryan got all done with unloading yesterday and made his way up to Phillips.  He went and visited the Kroger store there and he felt like it went pretty well.  He also got us a post office box!  Yay! PO Box 8, Phillips WI 54555 So, until we have a home, that's our mail stop for right now.  Don't send anything there quite yet.  Wait until we move on the 10th.     Hot water is fixed thank goodness.  I got dishes done and shower taken.  I checked the hot water heater after the shower, and that puppy fired up and I have good hot water in the kitchen sink.  So thankful!  It was the thermocouple, and the plumber guy was really helpful.  Under $300.  Whew, that was a bullet dodged.  Just let it last 11 more days! I did not get anything moved yesterday.  I got stuff done for school, and applied for a bunch of jobs, which takes forever to get 5 contacts.   I got some stuff moved this morning.  I'm going to head back into the fray again this afternoon.  Hope to have my room

I sure miss my poor old guy.  And of course I can't help but worry.     Bryan is doing ok in Tomah.  Crazy man and his truck driver obsession with driving all night led to him oversleeping his alarm by 2 hours this morning.  Not that he HAD to be anywhere.  He just wanted to get the unloading finished so he could go up to Phillips to visit the grocery store.   By the way, Phillips is the latest town Bryan has decided upon.  I think this will be the final destination.  I HOPE this will be the final destination.  Bryan has been worried all this time that if he picks a store, he won't like the houses, and if he picks a house, he won't like the store.  I think we have a winner this time.  Phillips is almost 3 hours away from Tomah. We are going to buy a camper on the next trip out, get it parked, and set up housekeeping in it while we get our forever house.  Bryan wants to go to the Phillips post office too, to see about getting a PO box.  He's going to look for camp ground

 Started this post last night and never got back to it.   Bryan left yesterday, around 9:30am.  He made it, as far as I can tell, to Greenwood Nebraska.  Looks like he ran into some weather. I know he gets into truck driver mode and just goes.  He doesn't have phone capability built into the truck, like my car does, where you can voice text while you drive.  So he has to stop to text.  So...there's that.   Ah, I just checked and he is in Huxley Iowa.  At least his credit card is! Then shortly thereafter he texted me that he was in Minnesota.    The water heater guy was here and he's going to send an estimate.  I have a feeling he's going to try to charge me the max.  I won't have much choice.  It has to be done, and done soon, and they know we don't have a whole lot of plumbers around.  I should quit stressing over things I can't control!  Breathe, pay the money, and get on with things.  What's a girl to do? By the way, I did the math on that first trip

 Update.   Hot water heater is dead.  Bryan thinks it's the thermocouple.  Great.  He's supposed to leave tonight or tomorrow for Wisconsin.  I think our good luck streak did not kick in.  Not sure if he can get it fixed before he goes.  Holey hand grenades Bat Man!  Really?!?! Could it have just lasted a couple more weeks?  (HEAVY SIGH) We will likely be able to e-sign for the closing.  If not we either have to go to Winter Park or Dillon.  They are going to get with us to discuss how it will go down.   Now for another catch up on the recent Wisconsin trip: Selfie captured on the Laramie Plains, when we were happy as heck to have gotten over the worst parts of the mountains.  Still only Sherman Hill to go.  (Captured by the world's worst selfie taker, yours truly!) Of course, we entered Nebraska, and when in Nebraska, you do what the Nebraskans do.  You have Runza.   Bryan, enjoying his Runza with cheese and onion rings.  I just had the Runza and one of Bryan's onion r

  We found a new way to haul the trailer. Just kidding.  Bryan thought it looked funny and that you would think it's funny.  No, we cannot possibly haul that thing with the Ford.  Snow is melting enough to not support the for sale sign anymore.  It's not in the ground, only in the snow bank.   Busy busy day.  I packed a lot of stuff, the stuff we will have to do without from now until we unpack at our new place.  We were down to mostly bare necessities, and now the time has come to pack those up.  Down to lawn chairs and a folding table, but still sleeping in our real beds.  Things are looking really empty.   Bryan worked today, and now he's loading garage things in the pickup bed and bringing them around to load in the trailer in front.   I called all the utilities today and got them to switch off our billing on April 10.  Bryan is going to haul another load to Wisconsin, leaving Wednesday 3/27.  I am not crazy about the idea, but it will solve a lot of problems to get ano

 First for an update: We are packing and loading the trailer once again.  Out front.  Not in the back.   Bryan came up with a brilliant idea.  We didn't want to move the trailer back through the mud, and the only way to bring stuff forward was through the house.   Lots of muddy footprints that way.  So his idea was to load all the garage stuff onto our little wire-mesh 5x7 trailer, hook it to the truck, and bring it around front to transfer to the big trailer.  That has worked great so far.   I packed my entire dresser, got more stuff out of my closet, emptied the pantry, and got a good share of the kitchen closet packed.   The house is getting emptier and emptier! Now, although the trip to Wisconsin was a white-knuckler, it was a lot of fun and we had a good time! Sun rises and sun sets were spectacular! This is the bright sun glinting off the trucks and the reflective signs on I80 in Nebraska. The sun reflected off the truck and trailer into my mirror.  It looked cooler in person

 First of all, a disclaimer.  We are not experts in trucks, trailers, moving, DOT, or anything of that nature.  Please do not try what we did, at home.  We do not advocate what we've done in any way.  We only say this to show what can go wrong, what might go wrong.  Please take this as a warning to NOT do what we did.   The trailer was too heavy.  We knew it.  But there was nothing we could do but go with it.  We could take it back there in the mud and snow where it was stuck again, take everything off of it, and reload it.  But we are rapidly becoming desperate for time.   We probably should have weighed it.  But we didn't want to know.   Our 2013 Chevy 3500 Silverado has plenty of towing capacity.  It has the towing package, good transmission; 6 speed with manual over-ride, and brand new trailer brakes.  We had no doubt it could pull the weight.  The problem was the tongue weight.  The trailer was only a few inches off the ground. To get the trailer out of the mud in back of

 Where I left off, we were unloading and reloading the trailer because it was too heavy and stuck in the mud and snow in the back yard, and we could not get it hooked to the truck.   There's the drift in front of the trailer from the west end of the alley. We pulled a lot of things off and rearranged the load.  The problem was that all of the tools, and I mean ALL of the heavy tools were in the nose of the trailer, and we didn't want to take any of that off.  That would have taken several days.  So we went with our minor rearrangements.  After a lot of hunting and screwing around, we finally found the compressor, and got it off the truck, and pumped up the tires.     That allowed us to actually get the trailer high enough out of the mud to hitch it to the truck.  Bryan hitched up, and the trailer came out of our yard just fine.  Bryan worked at it only a short time, and I looked out the kitchen window and saw that the trailer was out of the yard!  I thought YAY!  He got it out!

 First of all, current updates: We signed a bunch of paperwork yesterday for the current loan payoff.  The appraisal must have gone through ok because we were notified of the buyer's loan amount and our tax information for the proceeds.   I started work trying to figure out the post office issues.  I figure we can use the current PO Box, but put a hold on the mail, and collect it when we come back on our trips to get our stuff.   We know for sure that there will be at least 2 trips, and possibly three.   So, we did go out to Wisconsin with a load of stuff, and made it back.  But man-oh-man, it was quite the trip.  I will do my best to capture it in a couple of blog posts.  It was a successful trip for sure, but an odyssey none-the-less.  Stand by and keep reading!  

 We did not leave yesterday.  The trailer was too heavy, and we could not get it hooked up.  Combo sunk in mud, and the tires were flat, and the compressor was buried in trailer.   So we unloaded and rearranged and got the compressor off, and got the tires pumped up.  Bryan says we are leaving this morning.   I helped for a while, but then had to quit.  I hope I didn't over do it.   I had everything packed, but had to get some things back out, like my laptop!  So I just have a few things to pack back up.  Then I will be ready.  

 Leaving today.    The house will be watched like a hawk.  We set up some webcams on it, so we will catch anyone that tries anything.  Our neighbor Christine is watching Poor Kitty. We think the snow has melted enough that we can get to the back alley.  I will take pictures of it and share them tomorrow or later today.  Bryan drove back there with the pickup, and got in and out in 2WD.  So we think he can get the trailer.  If he gets stuck, he will just call a tow truck.  That would have been the cost of having the alley plowed anyway, so it won't be any skin off our noses if that takes place.  But we think we got this.   No ice dams.  It was warm enough yesterday that everything melted.   We can't get the ATV today because there's a mechanical issue with it.  So we are going to get the log splitter into the pickup box, along with the BBQ and the smoker.  Bryan thinks a load in the box will help with the trailer because of the added weight on the wheels.   I have food and c

 This blogging thing is going to be a challenge the next couple weeks!  I have so much going on! Update First:  We were going to leave on our first trip to Wisconsin Saturday 3/16, but decided to put it off until Sunday 3/17.  Poor Bry has too much to do to get ready.  He has to work with the Town of Kremmling, or our neighbor guy, to get the alley plowed so we can get the trailer out of the 2 FEET of snow it's stuck in.  And he has to bust up the ice dams that have formed AGAIN on the roof, so that no leakage occurs while we are gone.  Stupid ice dams!  ARGH!   I REALLY hope we don't have ice dams at our new place.  But it's Wisconsin.  I was looking at a map of the US that told what the main WEATHER cause of death was in each state.  (If you're interested, Colorado's main causes of weather deaths were lightning and avalanches.)  Wisconsin's main cause was COLD.  So, ya.  There's that.  But I keep saying that I will take cold over hot any day of the week. 

 First as per usual, the update on the house! It's snowing again.   We kind of dodged a bullet with the inspection.  The buyer came back and asked for a $10K allowance.  He wants the house, and knew he could ask for that, and he knew, that because we want to get the house sold in a timely manner, that we would likely go for it.   If it was a matter of getting the loan paid off, we would have had to fight it, but we are well over what we owe.  When the offer came in, Bryan said, "This is a gift from God!".  And I agree that if there is a God, it was!  In the mean time, I will chalk it up to extremely good luck.  In fact, we wanted to refinance a couple years ago, before the real estate pricing got way out of outrageousness, and we would not have been able to get any money out of the re-fi.  We could not find a bank that would do it.  So, if we had tried to do this a couple years ago, we would not have been able to afford it.        So we decided that for ease of getting th

First the update..... The inspection went really well, we think.  We stayed here for it, because Bryan wanted to be on hand to explain some of the updates he had done.  It was nothing like the home inspection we had 10 years ago when we moved here.  The guy that did ours tested every outlet, looked at every crack, and tested air and water, and everything else.  We were worried it would be like that this time, and that we would take a big hit for repairs the new owner would want us to complete...or pay for.  But it was basically a tour where Bryan and the new owner and the inspector walked around, and Bryan answered their questions.  They were only here, probably, no more than 45 minutes.  And they seemed to be OK with everything.  Of course it remains to be seen if they come up with any objections.  But it looks a lot more hopeful than it did before the event. Other than that, no new news.  So here's your blog post....   I mentioned forest fires in my blog post about traffic.   The

First the UPDATE: The appraiser will be here any minute.  The inspector is coming at 2:30pm today.  (Ok, so the appraiser is NOT coming today.  Oh brother)   We have a storage unit reserved in Tomah, Wisconsin.  It's kind of on the western edge of the state, but it at least gets our first load into driving range.   Bryan has picked his transfer possibilities for the grocery store.  Our first choices are Eagle River, Antigo, and Wausau.  I guess he can change them around still if he wants.  Nothing is set in stone yet.     We have found a couple of homes to look at.   Our plan is to take our first load out to Wisconsin leaving Saturday 3/16, and coming back around 3/22.  And no worries.  We loaded the trailer, we should be able to unload the trailer.  We have dollies and carts to move things.     Anyway, as promised, a whole *nuther* thing about the traffic: Because of the mountains, there are only four East-West routes in Northern Colorado. Highway 14 over Cameron Pass is great, bu

First, the move updates: We got all the disclosure paperwork submitted last night.   As of this afternoon, our Bry has been working like crazy.  He has the drains replaced in the bathroom, the cover on the breaker box, a path shoveled to the garage, and the plates on the trailer.  After his Dr. Pepper break, he's going to work on the wiring on the little trailer (because on the last dump trip, the cord came undone and we lost the connector, so that needs fixed), then he's going to clean up the truck after working on the trailer brakes, and he thinks that will be a full day I of course have worked in the supporting role, just being here and working on homework and the blog.  Today is a good day for some background info in what this move is all about, so here goes: I get questions all the time.  Why on Earth do you want to move away from Colorado, and why to Wisconsin, or all places?  But it's turning out to be a WAY longer post than I anticipated.  So, to break it up a littl

 That Shea!  She likes to spring stuff on us with less than 24 hours advance.   She told me late yesterday that the home inspection would be today at 2:30pm.  Yikes.  Bryan just could not be here for it, and I wasn't sure I could answer all the guy's questions if he came.  Bryan had PT and could not get away early enough, even if he cancelled PT altogether.  Plus, that showing weekend last week curtailed his fixing schedule.  He wants to replace the bathroom drains and put a cover on a breaker box, and bust up the ice dams from the last couple snow storms.  That and he needed to move all the stuff off the crawl space door (I could have done that, but it was nice he did it) and get the back walk to the garage shoveled.   So I begged off.  Shea got it rescheduled to Monday at 2:30pm.   We got all the documents turned in except for one, the previous inspection.  Me and Bry are going to go over it before we send it to Shea.  I didn't have it in my email, but luckily, Bryan did.

Here I promised I'd post every day, and I have let you all down.  But it was my birthday yesterday, so can you please let me off the hook for that? Here's what's happened since Tuesday: We made a date for the carpets to be cleaned.  April 2.   I got some numbers to call for house cleaning.  Called one, no answer, mailbox full.  Called the other, Ian, and he will be sending us a proposal. Update:  got a proposal back and it's favorable to be done April 3 or April 5.  And we got a $100 discount because Shea recommended the guy.  So awesome!  We have the disclosure documents, which I've been going through today.  We will get them finalized tonight and sent off tomorrow.   I started moving stuff out of the bedrooms for the carpet cleaning.  Don't worry, I didn't carry all that stuff out here. I piled it all on a furniture dolly and rolled it out here.  I did more box scooting than lifting.  No harm no foul.   Here's all the boxes I moved.  They are now in th