Unloading day!

It's only a little after 9:00 in the morning and it's already an eventful day!

First, we talked to Kyle last night and he really wanted to come up and help us unload - thanks, Kyle! It will be good to see him too - haven't seen him since Christmas.  So we are supposed to pick him up from the bus stop at the casino at noon.

We never heard from the realtor last night so we were a little anxious about that.  But while we were at breakfast, he called.  He gave our proposal to the owner and she was receptive to our price and conditions.  She wants to meet us here at the hotel and go over paperwork.  So here we wait.

Evening update:

The apartment owner came to the hotel around 10:30. She's an older woman but very nice. Paperwork was slow and a little painful - we haven't had to fill out rental forms in eons! She was agreeable to all our conditions and price so that was key. Jim had to leave after an hour or so because the end wasn't in sight and he had to go pick up Kyle. While he was gone, we got the paperwork done and then left to get a key made. She dropped me back at the hotel.

Kyle and Jim were waiting in the lobby for me - it was so good to see him! We came back up to our room and had lunch...leftover pizza anyone?

First on the agenda was taking the truckload to the storage unit. Jim and Kyle worked really hard and we actually had everything organized into the unit in less than 2 hours! Our plans were to take some apartment things there, but we decided that there wasn't enough to warrant a trip there in the truck so we just put it separately in the storage unit. We can take it to the apartment with the next truckload.

Kyle unloading the truck

After that and a quick trip back to the hotel for a water break, we had to go look at the land again. It's just so beautiful. The weather has really cooperated too - beautiful sunshine. Still chilly and a stiff wind that makes it feel even colder but no rain.

We even made it to church tonight since it would be tough to make it in the morning. Unfortunately, not enough time to treat Kyle to a nice dinner so we had to make do with a quick trip to McDonald's before dropping Kyle off at the casino for the bus trip back to NYC.

Ironically enough, when we talked to Kyle our first night here, he was pretty sick with a bad head cold. That's why we really hated to have him make the trip up here. But practically the minute Jim got off the phone with him, he started coming down with a cold! The fact that he spent the last week working outside in the bitter cold on the truck probably contributed to that. So he's not feeling great but he forges on. We got some drugs so that helps.

We are giving Kyle the purple car - that way he can use it to travel back and forth while we're building. The problem is that it's so darn expensive to keep a car in NYC. He's still working that out but meanwhile we made arrangements to park the car at the apartment. So we got it all emptied out tonight - tomorrow on our way home we'll drop a key off with the realtor in case they have to move it for any reason and park it. I want to make sure the key works that we had made and I'll take some pics of the apartment.

I told Jim that just a week ago the truck was still in pieces! What a crazy week it's been and we feel so good with all we got accomplished.

 

Happy Birthday, Jim!

Today is Jim's birthday - how fun to celebrate it here!  Today will be a busy and exciting one - we're really saying life here in motion today.  Off to breakfast!

So our first stop today was to stop at Home Depot to get a lock and then to check out the storage units. Check out the snow piles in the parking lot - they had about a foot of snow a couple of weeks ago!



We looked at two storage places, although only one had a 10x20' available. We liked that one the best anyway so we signed on the dotted line for it!

Jim moving our first piece of equipment into the storage unit!

After that, we had to go see the lot ... How gorgeous is this? This is why we are going through all this. The sky is bluer here and the smell amazing!





Back to the hotel for lunch and then we tracked down the insurance agent that we had found on one of our previous trips. This was our first face-to-face meeting and we really liked him. Obviously this move and transition is going to involve lots of insurance issues and we feel really confident that we found the right person to help us.

Then we got a call from the realtor about seeing the apartment. It's kind of a reality check - no doubt it's going to be hard to move out of our gorgeous, comfortable house to move into an apartment like this. But we just have to keep focus on the end goal. This apartment has 3 bedrooms, living room, 1 bathroom and eat in kitchen. So the goal of having places to store things is what's important. The realtor also said he had a home he was fixing up to sell and let us go through that. It's got tons of space - probably 6 bedroom areas. But the apartment has free heat and the house doesn't. I called Tom and told him we liked it but we're concerned about the heat - hoping he would say he'd help with that. But no. He couldn't even give us an estimate of the bills - just said it would be expensive. It's heating oil and he had told us that his own home was costing close to $10,000 for heating before he converted to propane. Sure can't afford that! So we told him to talk to the owner about our conditions - move in in May but want to start moving in things now.

It's now close to 7:00 and we're getting ready to go eat.

End of day...you would think that finding a Hawaiian pizza - which is what Jim decided he wanted for his birthday dinner - would be easy. Ahh...not so much. We went to 4 places before we found Pope's Pizza it was well worth the wait - or we were just starving!!  And to top it off, beer in a plastic cup while we were waiting!

 

 

We're leaving!

This has been an unbeliveable few days...who would have thunk that less than a week ago, the truck had no engine and now here we are setting off for New York?  Jim has worked in gross weather and horribly long hours to get the truck in good shape.  Even yesterday, I was off buying compression hoses and he was working on the lighting harness.

Mike came over in the afternoon and we stuffed the truck!  We are also taking the little Honda - we will leave it there and also drive it around while we are there.  I'm so excited...off we go!!!

Just starting on the trip...this will be my view for lots of miles to come!

It's almost noon and we are in PA. The truck is doing great! Such a relief so far. Jim is able to do around 60 mph with the truck fully loaded. Truck also seems to be getting around 11 mpg which isn't bad - again we're fully loaded.

 



If you look closely, the truck is crossing the state line from PA to NY!

We got in about 8:00 and we're truly giddy to not only be back here but to know after all the craziness and ups and downs of this week with the truck, we got here safely and without incident.

We went to Applebee's for dinner to celebrate!!  Tomorrow will be a full day of seeing the land, finding a storage unit, and looking at apartments.

Some good news!

Jim decided to go and get new seals for the ends of the fuel hoselines.  He went back to Isuzu and bought 8 seals...for a cost of $7.00 - and it worked!!!  It's not leaking!  All those prayers helped...I just felt SO incredibly bad for Jim.  He worked for probably 30 hours over the last 2-1/2 days in good and bad weather and this just seemed like such a blow.  He's tweaking things now and hopefully we'll be able to take it for a test drive soon. 

Then we'll have to see how things go from there as far as our trek to NY!

Late evening update...

Little test drive around here went well so in the evening we decided to head to Bag's in Millersburg for a longer test drive.  The truck did great - it ran really well and Jim became a little more comfortable driving it and confident that it could make the trip.  Over nachos we strategized about the trip.  We decided to leave Thursday and come back Sunday - or maybe Monday, which would involve me getting a day off work.  Jim wants to get the rear light working tomorrow and we figure Wednesday will be a packing day.

What a relief about the truck - all of Jim's hard work sure paid off!

It's running!!!

After a very long day of being out in the drizzly, chilly day - the truck is running!! Jim still has to do some checking and tweaking but what a wait off his shoulders I know this milestone is.  Quite the time for celebrating!!

Or it was...until Jim discovered that the fuel line was leaking and diesel fuel was spewing.  Then it was down in the dumps time again.  Jim was looking things up and said that if he needed to buy a new one it could cost $2500.  Plus if we just get ours fixed, seeing as how the shop had the head for over 3 weeks...our trip this week is probably not happening.  Which sets everything else back.

The ups and downs are tough!

Finally we have truck parts!!

It's been a long wait for truck parts...nothing like poor Jim anticipating burning the midnight oil to get things done before we leave again.  It was getting very stressful - the weather hasn't been real cooperative and this will be an enormous job standing outside in the cold to put everything back together.  But the forecast showed nice weather for today and through part of Easter so we were desperate to get parts back so that Jim could get busy.

Our plan is to go back to New York over my spring break - which it is now officially spring break.  Originally, we were going to leave Monday and had hotel reservations through Friday.  However, the shop has had the head since Jim got it out and just today got finished with it so that Jim could pick it up.  So...plans are made to be changed so if all goes well, we will leave on Wednesday.  That will give us a couple days to check out the apartment, find a storage unit, unload all of the stuff on the truck...as well as talk to the well driller, electric company...  Okay, maybe that won't be enough time but we'll do the best we can with whatever time we have!

But anyway...Jim picked up the head before lunch today and is very happy with the job they did.  It looks like new!

All fixed and spiffied up!

I went to see my mom today since I had the day off - I knew we wouldn't have a chance to get down for Easter.  It was a nice day and it was so good to see her!

But while I was visiting, Jim started putting everything back together on the truck.  Here's the head back in the truck!  Lots more work to be done tomorrow!

Goodbye orange couch!

Today was our first official moving day.  Since Jim doesn't have the truck parts back and the weather is more frightful than spring-like despite what the calendar says, Jim decided to enlist the help of his friend, Mike, to move some of the bigger things out of the basement and into the garage.  A lot of them will go on this first truckload to New York, along with whatever big tools Jim wants to take that he will need to get started up there. 

So first thing to come up was our old TV that had been in the basement.  We aren't going to take it with us, but it is very heavy and difficult to get up the winding staircase so it was great to have Mike's help.  Jim bought some moving straps to help with the process and they seemed to work pretty well for this.

The next thing to come up was the orange couch.  Some background is probably required.  This couch has been in Jim's life longer than I have been!  It was in his house in Dayton - one of the last reminders of bachelor days!  An heirloom may not be the right word to describe it, but it has certainly become part of our family.  Jim and the boys held fast to keeping it throughout all the moves, even though its springs and cushions have certainly seen better days.  Nonetheless, it was sad to see it come to its demise.

First, Jim and Mike tried to bring it up the stairs intact.  But it's very long and wouldn't fit around the corners.  So back down it came.

 

The next step was to remove all the cushions, hoping that would give enough leeway to fit.

But no such luck, so down it came again.

 

This time, it required surgery.  First Jim cut the underneath...

 

and then had to take the saw to it!  Sparks were flying...

 

Then the whole thing was cut in half...

 

until the poor couch was in pieces.

 

At least it fit up the stairs this time!

 

All that remains of the poor orange couch...gone but definitely not forgotten!