Preparations…

June 20, 2021

After 35 years of living in one place and all of the normal collection of life’s necessities before and during that time, one accumulates an awful lot of of “stuff”. One does not have to be a hoarder as everyday living requires things to help make it work. Over time, those “things” either wear out or are replaced by newer and better versions and very rarely are the old replaced versions thrown away unless of course they are broken. No, we think they may be useful someday and they are put to one side to accumulate dust in some forgotten corner.

Only when a major occurrence like a whole house cleaning or an event like selling and moving occurs, do these things surface resulting in a huge pile of forgotten stuff that needs to be disposed of in a responsible way. In my case, I have several of the same items that I couldn’t remember where I had stored the old ones and went out and replaced them. If the owner is not moving into another house but for instance into an RV, then the problems are really magnified. The matters become even more complicated if the owner, in this case me, is also a tool freak and over the years, collected very many hand tools used when employed in a full time occupation in the Construction Industry including when I had my own Construction Company and for more personal use for hobbies and the like. Of course, some of those hobbies required different tools that needed adding to my collection. Such is my case as I move forward in selling my house. I hired an Estate Sale person and handed everything over to him to do as he thinks fit with the house contents and he will make the decision on what he sells and what he throws out or gives away. As he is taking fifty percent of the proceeds, it is in his interest in making good decisions.

I, in the meantime, have been living in my RV for these past few months as the preparations for the Estate Sale moves forward. Unfortunately, the weather has not played it’s part and a lot of wet weather has interfered with the process of the actual sale and then to cap it off, the Estate Sale owner hurt his ankle which also slowed down the preparation work.

Part of the problem was deciding just what exactly I wanted to take with me into the RV. I fully expect to spend the rest of my days in this life style unless I am incapacitated by age and it is parked full time in some very nice campground. Consequently, I have very limited space in which to take or even have need of most of the “stuff” accumulated in the house. This has really come to light as I make preparations to move into the Class C RV that I have just purchased. It is in fact, a little smaller than the Eagle and in an RV, every square foot is a major gain or in my case, loss. So, as I get ready to pick up the new trailer, I am in the process of putting the contents of the Eagle into plastic containers which will eventually get transferred to the new RV which I have named Eagle Two. Things like clothes and the contents of the refrigerator and pantry we will transfer when we pick up the new vehicle. I say “we’ as my very good friend BJ has offered to make the trip with me and help with the transfer. The more hands the better for a task like this.

The rest, including the containers in the Eagle’s storage areas I have stacked at the campsite and covered with a tarp ready for my return the same day with the new RV. I had to get permission from the Henly RV park managers to do this as they are very fussy about things stacked around RV’s but I explained, it would only be for a couple of days at the most. Actually, it will be much longer than that because of the problems with the tow vehicle. It will be very interesting in that time figuring out where hopefully all of the contents of those plastic containers will fit or if I will start giving stuff away to other RV tenants. Even though I am selling the house, I could not quite give up my love of tools and have brought most of my small hand tools with me just in case I might need them in the future. They don’t take up a lot of space but they do add to the weight which is also another factor in an RV.

These past few days have been very interesting and also very frustrating as I get ready for the new RV (Eagle Two) at least for now. In my previous blog I discussed the fact that the truck is currently in the shop with a “check engine light” problem which turned out to be the need to replace the diesel pump and at the same time, they are repairing the broken mirror. These repairs should be complete on Monday and I will retrieve the truck, complete the unloading and stacking of the various boxes and contents of the RV and on Tuesday, drive to Georgetown to pick up our new home. The transition from driving the truck and towing a 33ft RV to driving a 28ft motor home will be very interesting. Towing the RV behind the truck via a 5th wheel hookup was very reminiscent of my time driving semi tractor trailer oil tankers hauling 6500 gallons of heating oil to schools and factories in the worst time of the year, the winter, in New York State.. I once seriously considered becoming a long haul trucker but eventually kept it to just wintertime. I gave up that CDL license when I moved to Texas forty four years ago. The new RV is just a large truck by comparison, smaller and simpler than the current hook up.

Several things have happened since I started this blog a couple of days ago. I had contacted my insurance company who I have been with for many years only for them to tell me that they would not insure the new RV. Whether that was because I had made a claim on the very first RV after having an argument with a tree or whatever as they only kept saying they were not insuring RV’s anymore. So, I looked around and ended up getting insurance through Progressive with no trouble at all. After this is over and the deals all signed I will think about transferring the only insurance I will have left with the original company, my new to me Jeep Cherokee, After cursing a lot out loud knowing that the dogs would not be offended and in fact just wagged their tales at the sound of my voice, I turned my attention to the local company that was repairing the F250 truck only to find out that the cost to replace the mirror was going to run as high as $2000.00. I had no choice as I need to sell that truck and told them to go ahead. Apparently, the parts have to come from Ford so goodness knows how long that might take. We did discuss them just replacing the mirror and cap which would save some money. The repairs to the engine have been completed. They will get back to me but it appears that it will be the end of the week before we go get the new RV and that is if we are lucky. Maybe I can claim some of the cost of the mirror on my insurance.

These holdups are very frustrating because the Eagle is in an untidy uproar as far as having stuff littered everywhere in boxes and containers. The refrigerator is getting empty again and I might have to make a grocery run before we trade. I was trying real hard to empty the freezer and have been eating as much of the frozen food as possible. I have collected everything up ready to move it to the new RV when we have completed the deal. I even loaded out the Jeep SUV in it’s storage area. Besides that, I have a huge pile of the same sort of plastic containers outside the Eagle and covered with a tarpaulin just in case it rains. I can guarantee that I have more “stuff” than I will have space to fit in although I do have the area where the overhead bunks are. They will never get used for sleeping at least while I own Eagle Two. I will probably have lots of plastic storage containers that I will not have a use for that currently contain packed up items. I will donate what I can and throw away what I can’t. I have even taken some of the “stuff” back to the house to be included in the Estate Sale after determining that it was surplus to my needs.

It is very interesting how the human brain works in terms of adjustment. I think back over my life and the major things that have interested me over the years. At the time, they were all consuming and I went about the business of learning and making things work for whatever that particular interest was. That generally lasted until the next big interest came along to consume my life and usually replacing the preceding one. The one constant in my many years was my involvement in football (soccer to you Americans) which was my major sport and interest when I was a young boy until I retired from playing at aged 72 and only then because I had knee replacement surgery. I continued coaching youth soccer and was heavily involved in the Administrative side of Adult soccer for at least a couple more years after that before giving up the game completely. As a youth, I had an interest in breeding exotic birds which I also did for a while in the USA until I finally gave that up and converted the very large aviary into a greenhouse. Then along came Ponds and Koi and all that went with them which lasted for thirty years before giving it up with the sale of the house and moving full time into an RV. After each change, I was no longer involved in any of my previous interests except for watching English Premier League soccer on TV, still my favorite pastime. My major interest since 2011 was to start writing a blog, first https://pondblog2011,com and now this, the current one.

Now, I plan on living out what is left of my life in my RV probably with a minimal amount of travelling. I will enjoy this luxury form of camping and getting to see this wonderful country making a few friends along the way and writing in my blog for all who care to read about my travels.

More to follow…

Check out my old blog at https://pondblog2011.com

Written 06/20/2021