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.