At Home in Wisconsin (trying not to become a Packer fan)

Today, June 16, is the day that we have our first open house trying to sell Kelly’s place here in Houlton, WI. I haven’t written since we were in Louisiana back in the middle of April. Where to begin. Probably with trying to reconstruct our travels. I left off my last post in Louisiana at Indian Creek Recreation Area near Alexandria.

4/11/18 is a mystery. Neither Don or I can remember the campground other that it was 50 miles or so south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas

4/12/18 – Wal-Mart, North Little Rock, AR

4/13-15/18 – Downtown Riverside RV Park, North Little Rock, AR

4/16/18 – Pea Patch RV Park, Branson, MO

4/17-19/18 Guests at Lee and Max Ellmakers in Gravois Mills, MO at their beautiful home on Lake of the Ozarks.

4/20-21/18 -Parked camper at Lake Paradise Resort in Lone Jack, MO while we visited Don’s sister Eileen and her husband in Ottawa, KS

4/22/18 – Jester Park, Grimes, IA

4/23-25 Dakotah Meadows RV Park at Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, MN

4/26-5/2/18 Hatfield Park, New Richmond, WI

The camper back where we began

5/3/18 – We moved out of the motor home and into our daughter Kelly’s house in Houlton, WI where we have prepared the house to sell. We will remain here until Kelly sells and closes on the house.

Kelly's House

Now that we have the house ready to sell we will get the motor home cleaned up so we can put it on the market. Once we sell that we will be homeless until our mobile home is delivered at Palmdale in October.

So there you have it. But I’m not done yet. I have to write about our trip north and our summer so far. It’s definitely a summer of letting go and moving on to kind of an unclear future unlike when we started all of this with a clear plan. We were focused back in 2014. Not so much today.

We’ve just completed the second open house today. We had one 1 family who looked at the house and no one has called with questions. This in a market that has been described as “hot”, “a seller’s market” and the inventory of available real estate is low compared to the demand. But then today was a pretty nice day and around here when the weather is like this people just go to the lake. Maybe tomorrow when it is raining.

Kelly and J

Since we arrived here the first week of May we have done an amazing amount of work transforming the place into what it is today. The pictures on Zillow show that. We started the process with an invitation to all our relatives to come for a work weekend on May 9. Kelly was here for a week with Baby Jett and we laid out a list of what we wanted to accomplish.

More Kelly and Jett

The tenant's move out

Bob and Sam.... Sam came!

The garden gate

Elaine at work.

Cousins!

Jett Shopping for paint

Eating on the porch

Bob supervising

Dick

Stasha - painter

Andrew - painter

We had 15 family members here to help paint the inside of the house and Kelly provided a barbeque banquet for the family.


















Many stayed overnight and worked for 2 days. Once they were gone, niece Kelsey came several days to do the hard work and brother Dick came on weekends. We painted the exterior, cleaned and painted the front porch and back deck, pulled up the flooring in 3 rooms, had new flooring installed, cleaned and cleaned, and hauled stuff away, replaced some light fixtures, outlets and faucets and made sure that everything in the house is in good working order. So now we await a buyer.

Mother's Day gift

The week that Kelly was here was a treasure as we got to hang out with her and get to know Jett who is growing beautifully. On the weekend, Peggy and Edie were here so we had the pleasure of playing with both of our granddaughters together.

A new roof

Kelsey at work 

I tend to start writing about the present and then go backwards in time so now it’s time to write about some of the highlights of our trip north. When I left off my last post we were in Louisiana after some trying times. After Louisiana things got a lot easier. We stopped in Little Rock for a few days. Back when we started this trip in 2014, we spent some time in Little Rock and looked up some old friends we hadn’t seen in 30 years. It seemed appropriate that as we were winding down our full-timing life that we would touch base with them. So we contacted them and we enjoyed an evening out with them.

With John and Linda in Little Rock

We spent a night in Branson and then headed up to Lake of the Ozarks where we spend a couple of days with Lee and Max Ellmaker, our Palmdale friends.

I don't know what it means that
 I took pictures of Lee's shed but not of their beautiful house

Lee's shed

 While we were there we parked the motor-home by Lee’s shed and slept in their guest quarters above their garage, very nice accommodations at their beautiful home. We enjoyed some great meals and a tour of the dam. After we left there, we headed for the Kansas City area where we spent a couple of days with Don’s sister and her husband.

Lee and Max with Maloney

By then it was nearly the end of April and was finally warm enough for us to head north to Minnesota. We arrived in Minnesota on April 22 and spend some days at Dakotah Meadows RV Park and then came over to Wisconsin. We couldn’t move in here until May 3 so we parked the camper in New Richmond for a few days which is very handy as that is where we have our stuff in storage.