Whirlwind week

The Babaloo pointed out that I haven't blogged lately. This is true. It's been a whirlwind week, for certain.
I'm never going to get completely caught up on the details, so let me try to summarize.

We did manage to find a washer and dryer pretty quickly. We looked online. We looked at sales ads in the paper. We pulled the addresses of several secondhand appliance shops in town and headed over the hill. All but one of the shops had gone out of business. The one remaining shop wanted almost as much for a used set as for new. I thanked the lady for her time and had resigned myself to hand-washing clothes for a while. We headed over to one more thrift shop to see what kind of furniture was available, and when we pulled up there were two stacking washer/dryer sets out front. Good eye, Babaloo!

So now I have this, which fit (somewhat) nicely beside my cube freezer in the laundry room, and I have been doing laundry rather happily since.

Thursday a week ago, we headed down to the DMV... er, MVD?... and switched over our titles on the car and truck and got our new driver licenses. We held off on registering the trailer here, since we were hoping to sell it before our 30-day grace period was up. Did you know that licenses here don't expire until you're 65?

After dinner, I started the dishwasher and the Babaloo and I pulled up a movie to stream. About fifteen minutes into it, I heard water running. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen to find water spilling out all over the floor. I shut it off, mopped up the water, and we decided it was too late in the day to call the landlord.
Friday, I had yet another job interview scheduled for the afternoon. The Babaloo was able to get in touch with the landlord as we were finishing our coffee, and he gave us the go-ahead to do the repair ourselves. About an hour later, with a bit of elbow grease (mostly the Babaloo's; I was the finder-of-things and flashlight-holder and pliers-gripper), we had it fixed.

This hose had slipped completely off.

When I got home from my interview, UPS had delivered another order, so one kid assembled her bookshelves while we put together our dressers.

It rained a lot over the weekend, so we kind of just hung out around the house.

Monday, the Babaloo and I crawled under the truck and replaced the mufflers. Then we headed over the other hill and picked up a grill, then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening putting it together. We didn't eat dinner until almost 8pm, but it was great.

Two-fer photo! You can see mufflers and the grill.

Tuesday, we crawled under the truck a couple more times until we had the mufflers positioned/attached the way we wanted them.

This past week I also applied for a whole slew of new jobs. And we started a project that I'll detail here later. And I finally had all the components I needed to hang curtains in all the bedrooms and to sew and install curtains over the skylights in the bathrooms; the cumulative effect is that the house is about ten degrees cooler.

Thursday afternoon, I got a call back from the company I'd seen a week prior. I start my new job tomorrow. Lots of folks have asked for details, but I prefer to compartmentalize my life, so I won't be posting much about it. It's a little over a half hour drive from here, over one of the mountains, with some really nice folks, and I think it'll give me a chance to use many of my skills from previous similar positions. And it's indoors. And it's air-conditioned.

Friday morning, I went clothes shopping, of course. New job, right? Most importantly, I needed office-appropriate shoes. Black, low heel, closed toe, and comfortable.

Gratuitous shoe pic for my sister.

When I got home, a fellow had driven over from Flagstaff to look at the trailer. In less than an hour, he and the Babaloo had properly notarized documents, the Babaloo had cash in hand, and the Prowler was gone. We didn't make money on the deal, but we didn't lose money, either. This means we basically had use of a trailer for a couple of months for free to move across the country. I call that a success. Sure, it would have been easier to rent a U-Haul but when you factor in loading time, driving time, and unloading time --the length of time for which was uncertain when we left NC-- we were looking at about $2000 out of pocket. The Babaloo is a Craigslisting genius, I tell you.

We had codes for free Redbox, so we spent the evening watching movies with the kids.

Saturday morning, we got up and headed over a hill to a neat little cafe'. Most importantly, they had doughnuts for one kid, bagels for the other, biscuits & gravy for the Babaloo, and a bagel with lox for me. It was beautiful and delicious and possibly the best dang lox bagel I've ever eaten. It didn't hurt that their website offered a coupon, so breakfast for all of us cost about ten bucks.

Then we went to the hardware store and the grocery store and finished up at the post office to pick up live worms before heading home. (The Babaloo has started a composting project.) After lunch, I mentioned to the Babaloo that the final thing we needed to replace was the TV in the bedroom. We hunted around on Craigslist and headed over the other hill to look at one a guy was selling. Once he powered it up, though, there was a huge streak across the top right corner. We considered it, but the Babaloo and I looked at each other and agreed that it was annoyingly noticeable, so we passed on it and headed to a nearby retailer instead.

Yes, I will be doing something about those cords.

And I finished unpacking/clearing all but one corner of our bedroom.

And we finally located and framed and hung our degrees and academic awards.

And I think that's it for now. I'm going to go call my momma. Have a great week!

Setting up Household

It's a blur at this point, but during our first few days here, we delved into our nest egg to set up a basic household. We'd kept all our kitchen tools (tossed a lot of pots and pans and almost all our dishes), kept our beds (except our box springs and body pillows), kept the kids' TV and the living room TV and all our computers (but donated the bedroom TV), kept the dining room table (but donated the chairs)... you get the idea. We had less than half a household when we arrived. The only things we had to sit on were camp chairs, which proved too low for dining at the table (insert image of us hunkered around the table at eye-level with the surface).

On Friday, we got up early while it was cool outside and finished unpacking the trailer. After showers, we headed down the highway* with the kids and picked up new body pillows, four ceramic bowls, ice cube trays, trash cans, etc. We also looked for fly strips but there were none to be had. (Flies had swarmed in while the landlord had painted and while we moved all our stuff indoors.) While we were running errands either Thursday or Friday, we stopped by the local internet company and grabbed a business card. When we got home, I called to arrange service but they couldn't meet until Monday at 2pm. We spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking. That night, we headed into town to Big Lots to pick up a set of dishes, a set of glasses, a sweeper, some taller folding chairs, a basic TV stand, and light bulbs.

Early Saturday, though after coffee, the inlaw and his dad (who actually owns the house) stopped by with a whole set of new deadbolts and doorknobs, all keyed alike. The inlaw brought a spare phone book for us! The dad also walked with us around the property and showed us the sprinkler system for the plants, the shut-off for the water main, etc. After they left, the Babaloo and I installed the new locks. Well, the Babaloo did. Mostly I just held the doors in place while he installed them, and handed him the hardware as needed.

I unpacked a little more and --surprise!-- found two packs of fly strips which I promptly hung. I think in two days, one strip alone caught 37 flies.

Later that day**, we headed back down the highway, still staying in the valley, and stopped by a used furniture shop. The owners, Gary and Janet, are really nice and welcomed us to the area. We snagged four nightstands: one for each of the kids and one for each of us. Now we had a place to store our socks and skivvies! It's nice not living exclusively out of a suitcase.

I only washed the living room curtains completely by hand before I had the Babaloo drill holes in one of our many five-gallon buckets so I could hand-wash a few small loads of clothing in the garden tub. One of many tutorials. The collapsing, wooden drying rack came in quite handy.

We also discovered reddish sugar-ants entering the kitchen window, and the younger kid ran into the living room mid-day to exclaim that they were coming through her baseboard and had gotten all over her computer. (The kids had taken plastic container lids and set up their computers sans internet to write and play solitaire or somesuch.) I got down on hands and knees and used a flashlight to find and squish every ant I could find, sprayed the windowsill and baseboard, and banned her from her room for the rest of the day until it could dry and air out.

At 3am Sunday morning, said kid crawled into our bed because ants had crawled into bed with her.

Sunday, the Craigslist man and his wife (who handles the paperwork for her father's properties) stopped by with the lease. By this point, my nerves were greatly settled. Heck, I'd met half the family.*** And I had a lease in hand.  We had a list of about ten items or questions that the Babaloo asked while I read over the agreement, the biggest problem being that the master bath toilet would not flush properly. The Babaloo also thought to ask whether we could have chickens and they very enthusiastically said that's something they support! After we signed, the wife said she'd need to make a copy of the lease to bring back to me, but I just popped it on the printer/scanner/copier and made one for myself, which she appreciated. Then they hauled butt because they had groceries in the car.

Monday morning, after coffee and a shower, the older kid and I headed into town to the Home Depot, where we found door mats, huge, outdoor trash bins, uber bug spray, a yard rake, and a small countertop bin for compost materials. While I was in Home Depot, I missed a local call on my cell and couldn't reach the person when I dialed back. We also stopped by the grocery store. As soon as I stepped into the produce section, the Babaloo called to ask where the power cord was for our router. The internet guy had shown up early, and the internet was already up and running because the previous tenant had never returned the dish. The kid and I looked in both stores for fly swatters, but there were none.

When I got back home around noon, the Babaloo and I hustled to bundle up the trash and make use of the outdoor bins right away. Most of it was packing materials, but the Craigslist man and his wife had not looked at our indoor collection very fondly when we'd seen them the day before. I immediately called the independent trash company in the valley and set up service. The Babaloo had found a larger thrift store in the town the other direction, and we called ahead to ask that they charge my card and let him pick up a couch he'd seen on Craigslist. They were highly agreeable and he hit the road.

About an hour later, the Craigslist man and the inlaw and the dad showed up with new miniblinds and tools to remove and snake the toilet. The inlaw thought I didn't hear him point out the outdoor trash bins to the Craigslist man, but I did. See? They were talking about it. I spent a good portion of their visit taking supplemental tools, ladders, and old rags to one guy or another. When the Babaloo got home with furniture, the dad said, "Your wife is quite handy."

The Babaloo offered to install the miniblinds and the two younger men helped him carry in the couch and recliner he'd found. The couch, itself, has a recliner at each end. It is not as comfy as our old couch was for stretching out to take a nap, but I do appreciate being able to put my feet up.

I think that's enough updating for today. I'll leave off with Monday and start the next post with our search for a washer and dryer on Tuesday.

SO much counter space! SO much storage space!

*I should mention that the inlaw who arrived with none of the right keys told us no one in the valley locks their doors. Arizona is a very gun-owner-friendly state, so I certainly don't intend to walk up to a strange house and let myself in.

**After I could lock my doors, because gun or no gun, I lock my doors.

***For those of you who need visualizations, this may help. Craigslist man is like a slightly younger, shorter, highly energetic, redheaded version of the Babaloo's stepdad. The wife is like a cross between Peg Bundy and Diva Plavalaguna from 'The Fifth Element', in that she's coiffed and frank and very tall with a beautiful voice. The inlaw is much like I'd expect my mom's friend Helen's son would be today, very friendly and chill and totally a west-coast dude with long sun-bleached hair and a ball cap. The dad is retired Navy and a cross between Cotton Hill and Abe Simpson. (Sorry; I never had the benefit of a grandfather, personally, and don't know a lot of older gentlemen so I may be stretching for comparisons, here.)

The Belated Post About Arriving Here

Okay... I'm almost caught up on things around here, so I'll take a quiet moment to backtrack and write about getting here.

Before we left Durham, the Babaloo and I had been watching Craigslist closely for something that fit our wants, needs, and budget. He had spoken on the phone with a man about a place that was available August 1st, and I'd noted a couple of leasing agencies in the area. We're in Mohave County, which is huge and real estate is affordable but not plentiful.

So, the end of our three-and-a-half day, 2300-mile trip across the country resulted in our pulling off of I-40 on August 1st at about noon and parking in front of a seedy motel so the Babaloo could try to call the man again to see if the property was still available/viewable. They agreed to meet twenty miles down the road at a gas station for which the kids and I were grateful as a bathroom break was long overdue so we could follow from a main road out to the place.

We saw it and agreed to take possession immediately. The man gave the Babaloo a set of keys and we agreed to meet back around 2pm with cash in hand for the deposit and rent. We left the truck and trailer, shuffled a few things out of the back of the car to make room for all four of us, and hightailed it back to town in search of a local bank. It's almost laughable that the purpose of a personal banker is to provide a highly customized banking experience in order to provide stellar service, but just setting up a local bank account in order to cash my own NC check was such a process. Don't get me wrong; everyone at the bank was very friendly and professional but they had their protocol to follow when all I really wanted them to do was call my credit union to verify funds, let me open an account, and cash my dang check. The rest of the services are gravy which could have been set up another day and not after three and a half days of rigorous travel.

Shortly before 3pm, we were back at the house. I used the key the man had given us and opened the front door.* The very first thing we unpacked was my printer/scanner/copier so we could make copies of our IDs for the man and the man could do the same for us because I'm not going to hand over a thousand plus bucks to a stranger and just trust that it's legit especially when he told the Babaloo he was leaving for Vegas that afternoon. 

The man understood and promptly handed over his driver license for us to run a copy and smiled and took our cash, wished us luck, and left. We got busy unpacking camp chairs and moving our mattresses indoors, and then locked up the place and headed back up the road to the grocery store. Milk was only $1.89 a gallon! The fruits and veggies are really cheap and really fresh!

We got back here with a hatchback full of groceries, bone-tired, dusty from travel, and ready to just relax for a bit.

The key didn't work in the front door. Or the back door. Or the french doors. And both the Babaloo and I walked all the way around the house, hoping at least one of the windows would be open, but none were that we could see. And it was slightly cooler than a hundred degrees outside. And we had cold items roasting in the car.

The Babaloo picked up the phone and called the man, who promised to send an inlaw to let us in. Of course, at this point, all my nerves are screaming that we've been had. The inlaw showed up pretty quickly and tried all of about twenty keys on a ring and none of them worked. The Babaloo suggested that we drill out one of the locks. So the inlaw helped us heave our dining room table up and over and out of the bed of the pickup truck so we could access the toolboxes underneath. Only, the Babaloo never charges his drills and none of the outdoor sockets worked because all the switches were turned off indoors. So I dug out my chintzy Black & Decker drill and he set to work. The inlaw headed home to locate his drill. The Babaloo and I took turns drilling away at the doorknob core.

During one of his turns, I was sitting in a camp chair being thankful for shade when one of the kids (both of whom had been amazingly patient all week) walked up and asked how to remove a window screen. I followed said kid around to the back patio and popped the screen out. The kid pushed the unlocked window open and asked for a boost. Thirty seconds later, we opened the front door to find a frustrated-relieved Babaloo kneeling on metal shavings.

After having read about our first afternoon/evening in town, perhaps now you can appreciate how tranquil the view is here at night. I know I sure did that first night.

More updates later!

*This is an unintentional non-truth, but I didn't know so at the time. I put the key in the lock and the knob turned.

Interview and errands

I had an interview today. I think it went well. We'll see.

The more important thing is that I found my way into the next town over, arrived in plenty of time to be seen early, found my way over to two different grocery stores and back home again without getting lost. We have a Smith's here, which is the equivalent of (and affiliated with) Kroger back east. We also have a Safeway, which I don't think I've seen since I was a kid. I only grabbed a few things (produce, Cheez-Its, etc.) at Smith's. I did better at Safeway, and saved over 50% with coupons and sales. The kids were thrilled that we have snacks and fresh fruit. The Babaloo commended me on finding pretty pork chops at a great price. I am horrible at picking meat.

The interview and errands ate up a big chunk of the middle of my day, and I didn't get home until 4:30, at which point it was basically time to start dinner.

Only one photo today: the view of the valley from my front yard at night. It's relaxing to sit outside after the sun goes down. The temperature drops significantly, the traffic settles down, and all the little lights a few miles away twinkle silently. *Contented sigh.*

So now I think I'm going to go soak in the ginormous tub in our bathroom, because I am beat.

Life in the desert

I'm behind on the promised update post. I know I'm behind. I don't have time to sit down and write all that because we ran errands yesterday in Nevada (by the way, probably not the best choice of days, given the regatta in which hundreds of folks, half of whom were drunk, hopped on inflatables and floated down the Colorado River) and I have a job interview tomorrow and am still playing catch-up on laundry.

I did take time to snap a few photos today for the folks who are concerned that I'm living in a barren wasteland. It is the desert, but there is plenty of life here. I wasn't fast enough to catch the bunnies, but I was fast enough for the quail in my neighbor's yard.

And we have palm trees.

And, at the back patio, there is what I think is an acacia. I could be wrong.

And there are trees of other sorts but not so many that they block the view of the many mountains surrounding us.

And the Babaloo saved pineapple plants.

And as long as I'm showing you the back patio, I might as well show you the front of the place.

And that's it for now, because I have banana bread in the oven and laundry I need to cycle.

The Trip

Sorry for the delay in updating, folks. We left NC last Monday and it's been a whirlwind since.

I'm taking time to update you on the trip today, and then I'll get caught up in the next post about arriving in AZ.

The trip is approximately 2,200 miles, or 33 hours, without stops for gasoline or bathroom breaks and without delays for construction or automobile malfunctions. The Babaloo thought we could make it a two-day trip. I planned on three. It took three and a half.

Monday morning, I tossed one last load of clothes in the dryer, guzzled my coffee, and we loaded the mattresses into the Prowler. Then I headed over to Time Warner to turn in our modem. While I was gone, the family carried the last items to load into the car so when I returned, everything was on the sidewalk, ready to go. We made use of the bathroom one last time, and then headed down to turn in our apartment and mailbox keys. The leasing office wasn't open yet, so there was a short delay while I drove around the complex looking for the morning maintenance man who advised me to drop them in the office drop-box, which I did. Then we hit the road before 10am.

It wasn't too long before we realized the truck wasn't going to get the 10mpg we had estimated, especially climbing the Appalachians. I think, during the entire trip, we fluctuated between 6mpg and 9mpg. As a result, I only fueled up every 2-3 times the Babaloo did.

Western NC

Tennessee is very pretty. It has more trees than North Carolina, and almost every vehicle I saw on the interstate was less than two years old.

Tennessee

We considered stopping at an independent campground in Dickson, TN, but when we arrived no one was around to answer the door or phone, so we agreed to push for West Memphis. We did rest for a bit nearby. We busted out the camp chairs and I drove a block away to grab dinner from Arby's. While the kids finished eating, I called ahead to the KOA in West Memphis to confirm they had room for us, and to get info about paying for a site after-hours. I also mentioned during this fuel-up that the Babaloo was throwing quite a few bits of tire at my windshield and asked whether he was just running over a lot of trash. He checked the tires on the truck and trailer, but it was pretty dark and he couldn't see any problems.

We pulled into the KOA around 11pm. It had nice bathrooms and plenty of space, and we were able to pick a pull-through site with water and electricity, and no trees overhead. When we woke in the morning, we pulled out the camp chairs and made coffee using our hot plate, kettle, and coffee press. I had somehow managed to forget about holding out shampoo for the trip. The bald guy in the site next to us happened to have a brand-new bottle of strawberry VO5 and refused to accept any sort of payment when he gave it to us. "I haven't needed shampoo since 1972!" He was headed the opposite direction, from CA, without a specific destination other than Graceland en route.

It was while we were sitting in our camp chairs, drinking our coffee, that the Babaloo was at the right level and angle to look over and notice that the inner passenger rear tire on the truck was shredded. This is why bits of tire kept hitting me every time we went up a hill. The Babaloo and I debated whether to change it ourselves using the spare, but the spare was packed nicely in the bed of the truck and we really wanted to hold it in reserve in case another tire went out 100 miles from nowhere. Plus, it was starting to rain. The lady at the KOA office gave us the number of a local RV repair shop. I was able to call and locate them, and give them detailed info on the size tire we needed replaced. We limped the rig up the service road a couple of miles, dropped the trailer, and left them the truck with the keys while we went to breakfast.

Fast, cheap, good, and friendly.

As a result, we didn't get on the road until almost noon. The details of the second day are kind of blurry at this point. I am thankful that most of it was overcast. We hit a bit of rain, but not much, and the sun wasn't shining in my eyes while I was driving in the afternoon.

Arkansas: fewer trees, more sky

We ate dinner at a Denny's on I-40 that had free WiFi, so I was able to bust out the Kindle and pull contact info for a KOA in Oklahoma, about 50 miles from the Texas border. I called and made a reservation for a pull-through site. We pulled in around 11pm, about two hours after my contact lenses had started to dry out. Also, construction on I-40 in Oklahoma City is insane; the interstate there is terrible and they have about ten miles of narrow shoulders with cement barricades followed by ten miles of the slow lane (our designated lane most of the trip) consisting of half-pavement, half-shoulder. Know how driving on the shoulder causes a car to thump-thump-thump? Ten miles of that. Behind a swaying trailer and transfer trucks blowing by in the left lane. At night, with awful night vision. I told the Babaloo I couldn't push that hard for a third day. 

The KOA manager had left a map and WiFi password at the night check-in with our site number, but had neglected to leave an access code for the electronic locks on the bathrooms. Thankfully, a nice lady with beautiful braids was in the restroom and opened the door. When I showed her our reservation sheet, she told us the code so we could get in on our own in the morning.

The second night in the Prowler was kind of rough. The air conditioner had blown directly on our kid in the upper bunk the first night, so the second night, three of us slept sideways on our queen mattress. This meant the Babaloo had to wake me up to let him out in the morning at 5am to use the bathroom. I reiterated that I was not up for pushing hard the third day, and that I'd really like to find a hotel where we could all stretch out and have a personal bathroom for a change.

Our coffee companion at the OK KOA

Also, driving monotony set in the third day. Oklahoma and Texas are very flat, and unless you're the lead dog, the view never changes. It was at our first fuel stop in Texas that I just had to sit for a moment and lean my head on the steering wheel, chomp some Rolaids, and wait for vertigo to pass.

So, even though it involved a bit of a climb again, I was happy when we made it to Sky City, NM. The weather up there was absolutely gorgeous.

The Babaloo kept trying to convince me that we'd gained hours by traveling westward. We had agreed to stop at 9pm the third day, which meant we actually checked into a Best Western at 8pm just east of Flagstaff. I guess it was fortuitous that the Babaloo wasn't interested in pushing the rig up into the mountains so late in the day. The hotel was lovely. The Babaloo drove the car to a nearby Taco Bell to grab dinner. I was frustrated that (like every Taco Bell ever) they forgot to give me a spork and the Babaloo thought I was blaming him when I was just tired and snippy and not faulting him in the least. After I ate and slept on a wide, flat surface and showered and moisturized and ate again (their complimentary breakfast was pretty comprehensive), I was a new woman.

State line!

Flagstaff is nice. I could live there. But it's rather expensive, I think. And the Babaloo doesn't do snow. I could totally live there, though.

The fourth day, the Babaloo's driving became more difficult to read. I couldn't tell when he wanted to change lanes (my job for the trip was to clear the passing lane for him to get over & back) and he frequently left his turn signal on for several miles. I'm sure I looked like a moron, jumping back and forth from lane to lane and almost missing entrance ramps because I was still clearing the left lane when he turned right. It didn't help that you cannot see road signs from behind a Prowler. I confess I yelled a few times in exasperation.

I was happy, though, when we started seeing mountains. We saw and traveled through several before we reached our destination late Thursday morning.

I'll post later about arriving in town and securing living arrangements. For now, I'll leave you with the view from my front yard at night.