Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Challenges Large and Small, Preparing for Our Latest Adventure

September 8-21, 2019
Tombstone, Arizona

Sunday is the start of football with mixed results. Bill's Cowboys have a great game while my Steelers play the worst game I can remember. By the end of the second week, I've lost my quarterback for the season :-( 


Tessa is my co-pilot for the trip to Tucson while Bill follows in the Jeep. She's so much help.
Camping World in Tucson has been really good to us and we have an appointment Monday morning for our slides. As promised we're out by the end of the day with everything working, including fixing our sticky door lock and handle. They're able to do a custom drawer for us as well which we'll come back for in a couple weeks. For now we leave without spending any money while they wait for parts and warranty company response. Yay!

Our excitement is short lived when in the morning we have no power to the bedroom outlets. Even with the generator on we start losing power throughout the rig, including to the refrigerator. Damn. 

Rather than mess around with electrical issues or waiting for a mobile tech we don't know, Bill calls and leaves a message at Camping World that we're on our way back. Once we arrive they take us right in (such a difference when it's not peak season). 

It's so much hotter in Tucson that we don't feel like doing much. Instead we spend another several hours waiting in the store. I contact the woman who was going to show us the other property in Tombstone to let her know we have an accepted offer. Hard to believe even as I say it.

Our appointment to open escrow is in the afternoon, and we aren't going to miss it. The shop is still looking for the issue but have managed to get power to the refrigerator and agree to keep it plugged in once the issue is resolved. We head back to Sierra Vista.

Everything goes smoothly with the title company, and by day's end we're under contract for our new home! Bill gets a text when we're leaving that the rig is fixed, plugged in for the night, ready whenever we want to pick it up the next day. Cautious yay.

Before we can pick up the motorhome we have to get brakes done on the Jeep, because problems rarely arise alone. More waiting. 

Back at Camping World we learn what the problem was, and I'm so grateful we didn't wait to get it fixed. Electrical issues are so complicated, and so potentially dangerous. Fried wires was the culprit this time, causing the cascading failure. Scary stuff.


Could have been really bad.
Donnie leaves Thursday morning with his brother-in-law to go bow-hunting. They could be gone three weeks. Anna is off to Phoenix with her mother and sisters to celebrate birthdays. We're on our own for a couple days. 


Momma Rose and Anna - the birthday girls out playing.
I'd like to say all is well with the rig, but we keep popping the breaker in the house when we plug in. Nothing is on but the refrigerator (we think), so we unplug and run the generator every few hours to charge the batteries. We sleep in our own bed with the AC cooling it down for the night. 

The owners are fine with us accessing the new property to take measurements and run some water on the trees. We figure out our approximate property lines, and are again surprised at how big the place is. Knowing we'll never have close neighbors is wonderful.


Northern exposure front porch for cool afternoons. The closest house is farther than it looks in this pic, across the street.

Beautiful Dragoon Mountains from our front porch. Property line is the pole in the distance.

Our backyard from the dirt alley. This side of the property is 300 feet long.

From our northern property line looking back at the house.

Wide open spaces to the west.
We get errands done, learning more about our new community. On a rainy Saturday we drive to Bisbee for lunch. Another day we're in Sierra Vista where Tessa gets groomed - and has an appointment with the same groomer for next month. Something we haven't done in years. She also meets her new veterinarian when she gets an ear infection. Her first time needing medical care other than shots and teeth cleaning, she does fine and really likes this doctor. They of course really love her too and assure us Tessa should stay and hang out with them for the day :-) Nope, she comes with us.


Our local Margaritas is beautiful with decent food.
All the required documents are submitted, appraiser scheduled, etc, etc, etc, house buying stuff happens.

Stripping the bed after we've been here about a week I find that one of the mattress pad heaters is on. Hmmm, could our popping breaker be that simple?

Bill plugs us in again and voila! Finally, something easy. Big yay!!


We have intermittent rain everyday for a week and incredible glowing clouds in the afternoons.

A unique natural display to the east.
A short drive to Sheepshead turns into a day trip over the mountains into Pierce and Gleeson. We absolutely love our corner of Arizona - so green and beautiful.


Sheepshead - hard to see, but it's the large rock on the right, sheep facing the left, long ear.

Long views into Mexico.

One of five does.

Green desert foothills.

The grass in Pierce is lush.

Handsome Longhorn

Majestic hawk.

Not what many think of when they think "desert".
Time feels like it's slowed down but we've already been here two weeks! Anna spoils us with fabulous home cooking, and we spend time being lazy slugs before all the "fun work" at the house begins.

We shop for essentials like a new bed and a big TV, and I decorate every room in my head numerous times. 

I also plan our Spring and Summer travels, returning north to places we've managed to miss over the last few years.

We're so grateful to our dear friends Donnie and Anna for finding us our cute little oasis in the desert, and for housing us while we wait to close and move in. Being just a mile from them is a big plus, and was certainly a factor in our choosing this location.

Change is good, new adventures are exciting, waiting is challenging, and we're much closer to having our place than we ever expected to be at this time.  

We're so blessed.



29 comments:

  1. I’m so happy for you and Bill!! The property looks gorgeous!! I hope one day I can come for a visit. Sending hugs and love.. confronts your new home.

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    1. It's a fun new adventure for sure. You must come see us!

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  2. Hope you electrical problems are over, always a scary problem! Love the wide open spaces of your new place and I can hear that you do too! We're coming through the area in mid-January (on our way to a short stop in Tucson) so perhaps we'll stop by and see you when you're settled! Congratulations!

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    1. Thankfully all is well now! We definitely want you three to come for a visit to our new desert patch. Hoping to have lots done by January.

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  3. Yeah, burnt wires are never good. We had those in Scoopy's bathroom and dry bar in the kitchen early on. I kept saying the plug is hot! We soon figured out why. I am so thrilled about your new property. The size is similar to Lot 5 (3.25 acres) and it does seem to go on forever. Are you there for the winter now?

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    1. Yes, we're here until the end of March with a few weeks in SoCal over the holidays for time with the kiddos.

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  4. Can’t wait to see your place! Glad those wires weren’t a bigger issue, Jodee.

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    1. Can't wait for you so see it! I'm so glad Bill insisted we get it to the shop right away.

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  5. Troubleshooting those electrical problems is often hard...happy you found the fix! Your property is amazing...love all the empty space! And having a home with space will be even more amazing! Sure hope we get over that way this winter to see you guys!

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    1. It took them hours to find the burnt wires and I'm so grateful they kept looking! I think a tiny house with a big property is going to be wonderful for us.

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  6. That's a big and beautiful piece of property you now own - and a house! Looking forward to your HGTV adventure of turning the house into your home (home base anyway).

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    1. It's going to be fun to make it our own, and nice to have the time to get them done without rushing~

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  7. Too bad Tessa can't comfortable...Haha! I think of you every time we watch football. Pittsburgh is certainly having problems. Hope things pick up for them. So very sorry to read about all your MH issues. Sure hope all is now solved. Those wires were scary! Congratulations on the house. Isn't it amazing how fast things can happen when they were meant to be. The house and property sound perfect. We are so excited for you and Bill. Can't wait to visit. We'll be in Tucson for January. Maybe we'll have to drive down. After all, I haven't had a Tessa fix for a long time. Oh, and we would love to see you and Bill:) Happy furniture shopping!

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    1. That girl can relax no matter where she is! She misses her Gramma Pamma fixes too! It will be wonderful to have you for a visit.

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  8. Seeing those charred wires!! I am so happy you guys are safe and alive. Glad you attended to it promptly. And wonderful congrats on the new house and all . But frankly I'm just very glad you are alive! Now, happy shopping and all the "new house" stuff.

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    1. I'm glad I didn't know at the time that the wires were fried! Made my heart skip when I saw them. Having fun making plans, trying to be patient:)

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  9. Sounds like the anticipation is building! Love the peacefulness and privacy of the new place.

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    1. Oh yes, I know how you guys felt waiting to get into your new desert place!!

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  10. What nice long views you'll soon have :-) I'm sure your grandsons will have a blast playing in the huge yard! I see plenty of Tonka trucks in your future :-))

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    1. Me too!! They will have lots of exploring and digging to do :-))

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  11. Glad it's all working out and soon you'll be homeowners once more. I can appreciate your cascading issues. Just got our welds and frame fixed and now we have binding slides, today we have a tech talking with Dave today to try and figure it out.

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    1. I hope all your challenges are over soon - scary to worry about the frame. Slides are the best and worst!!!

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  12. Wonderful news. I'm so excited for you. Love how you can't see your neighbors.

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    1. The remote location with reasonable proximity to services and cultural events is a huge plus for us.

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  13. Glad to hear "maybe" the electrical problems are fixed. But could that little heater have caused the frying. Scary for sure. How does your desert get so green?

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    1. All fixed. The heater didn't cause the fried wires but did keep tripping the breaker after the wires were fixed. So glad to have that behind us! At 4500' with monsoons during the summer this area stays green until the colder winter months. We still have wild flowers as well, it's sooooo pretty!

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  14. That looks like a lovely place to spend the winters! How lucky you were to find it so quickly.

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