April’s Whinings

And the biggest news is we sold the swamp house! Hurrah! And we did it without a real estate agent in a housing market best described as in the toilet. hahahahahaha

What I did was, I posted all over the web offering either to sell or trade. Had a few trade offers but none in an area we thought would appreciate, although the Idaho property was very attractive. We finally accepted an offer to trade for a rental house in Thousand Oaks CA, just north of Malibu in Ventura County. It’s a lovely little house, it will be no problem to keep it rented. And when the market recovers, we can sell either the Vegas house or this one and live in the other.

And of course, pictures. It’s a small, older house in a very good neighborhood:

As mentioned back in October, we traded the Que for an Itasca Navion. Love it! Gets around 18 mph of diesel overall, and does much better on back roads than freeways. We went on a shakedown cruise to Niagara Falls, then continued on to Moody’s diner. We have driven it from VA to NV on I-70, then Fuzzy drove back to VA on I-40. We’ll be leaving VA for the last time sometime after Xmas and driving the TARDIS back to NV on I-10.

One of the best things about it is that it’s so small, at least for an RV, that we don’t need a towd. We can drag Daisy along behind on a dolly when going to the Dragon or other meets, but for general use we can just drive the TARDIS.

Reason we named it the TARDIS? Easy, it’s bigger on the inside than the outside.

Here’s a few pictures I took right after we returned from Maine:

Now about that hobby job.

I took what I thought would be a seasonal part time job at the local Sam’s Club, handing out samples in the demo department. Then it turned into a regular job with full time hours during the holiday season. Oh well, I didn’t really want that many hours but I like the idea of a regular hobby job. I like this one and now I don’t have to go look for another one next holiday season.

Here’s a few pictures from the trenches:

This is me, first time I wore holiday decor at work. I ran next door to WalMart on break to get the cute Santa hat.

This is a shot looking down the main grocery aisle. Just another warehouse store.

Two of my coworkers, Julie is in the demo department too and Mike is in maintenance. Lots of nice people work here.

Oops!

 Bill reminded me that I have a blog! I’ll get updates posted over the next few days, but hit the highlights now:

1. We’re at home in Vegas with the VA house still on the market.

2. I have a cool hobby job.

3. We sold the Que and bought a Navion, better for traveling and parking overnight at WalMarts.

When I checked the house yesterday, it was obvious someone had been inside. But talking to the neighbor was surprising! He said he thought we were throwing a bash over the weekend, lots of cars with multiple occupants coming and going. Good! This is the best time of year to look at the house, the spring leaves and flowers show the best side. Still no offers but it’s only a matter of time.

Not a bad campsite! We had electrical hookups in the shadow of Fontana Dam on a very nice large campsite.

Plenty of room for parking, we used the covered picnic table morning and night.

Mamarazzi’s car, Mr Bean, always wears some spectacular graphics. This is the third incarnation of Mr Bean.

We signed tshirts for some who couldn’t be there.

My GP and one of the MC40 MCS.

There were 15 GPs at the Dragon.

HRMINI, our local MINI club, had a cookout on Friday night. Sean bought a loin of beef, then cut it into steaks and grilled them for everyone. Yum!

Don’t you love the Dragon 2007 graphics?

After dinner, Sean’s birthday cake was brought out. He didn’t say a numerical value for this birthday, but he’s probably over 21. We had a great time, and Fuzzy and I are both going to miss the people from HRMINI.

To answer your question Russ, the price was 1% over invoice and the documentation fee was $100 vice $400. We were very happy with the deal.

We just returned from our shakedown camping trip, we went to MINIs on the Dragon and camped at the Fontana Dam. Very nice! The FJ towed the trailer very well, Fuzzy says they are well matched. I was snoozing along behind him in the GP, singing along with my Ipod. I’ll get my pictures online tomorrow and post some here.

But to be fair, it’s only been on the market for a little over a week.

We’re prepping to go to MINIs on the Dragon. We’re going to use the FJ to pull the camper, Fuzzy driving, and I’ll follow in the GP. We’ve gone every year except the one that I was off the coast of Somalia and Fuzzy was in the Persian Gulf, but that’s another story. First year, I think we had around sixty cars and thought it was big, this year they are up to eight hundred!

Whenever we go to Costco, seems we always leave with more than we thought. Neither of us can resist the six month supply of toilet paper and other good deals. Well, on Monday we went to the peninsula Costco and there was a big yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser sitting out front. Fuzzy had been looking at them online, he liked the more refined driving and safety items versus the Jeep we had. So, we contacted the Costco buying program and traded.

Here’s a picture from the Internet, I’ll post pictures of ours soon:

 

Even if we get an offer on the house today, we’re not going to close escrow by the end of April. So we’re planning on making one last trip for MINIs on the Dragon. Almost no chance of getting a reservation at this late date, so Fuzzy is going to drive the Jeep pulling the trailer, and I’ll drive the GP. We’ll stay at the Fontana Village campground.

 So lots of Dragon pictures in a few weeks! Here’s a few from last year, just to get in the mood: