Tag Archives: Retirement

And back to Texas

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We were at our son’s in Visalia for a bit. We did some dog sitting for them while they took a short trip. We were going to get back on the road shortly after their return but Roxie got Covid, or at least that is what the test said. She was pretty much down for about 2 weeks with it. I think I got it also during that time, but I didn’t test. I was affected for about 2 days.

When we did our cross-country with the Chen’s we went through the upper panhandle of Texas. We usually look at house prices whenever we go through a town. We are, after all, still looking for a place to ‘settle’ down in. One place we went through was Amarillo and the prices there are very affordable. So we headed there to look around a bit and to get a breather from California.

We high-tailed it back east again on I40, doing one-night stops along the way. Adelanto CA, Kingman AZ, Winslow AZ, Paraje NM, Santa Rosa NM before Amarillo, and we only had to disconnect once. We stayed at a favorite stop of ours in Winslow, Homolovi State Park. Then in Santa Rosa, we discovered Santa Rosa Lake State Park (a nice place off the beaten path and only $18 for water and electricity):

We spent a week in Amarillo to get the vibe of the town and to look around at what properties there are. Amarillo is an OK town, it has more run-down areas and some nice ones. We concluded that we are more interested in being outside of the major city but still close enough. We also want space for the trailer to park by our house and you can’t really get that frequently in the cities. There was one house that interested us and was going to be an open house that weekend. We went to it but no open house, we contacted the realtor and there was an offer on it already. Oh well, off to Lubbock.

Lubbock is less than 200 miles south of Amarillo and is a college town. I like it better than Amarillo but it is a bit more expensive. We didn’t find anything that was a good match but there were some possibilities. One thought was to wait until we sold the house in California before really looking in earnest. Actually, this was my thought, not so much Roxie’s. Ironically, the house in Amarillo that supposedly had an open house was back on the market but we moved on further south to Midland/Odessa.

As we headed south, it wasn’t quite so nice. The scenery changed to a less lush look also this is where the oil wells really started in spades. It kind of reminded us of Bakersfield/Oildale but without the mountains. A benefit is that they don’t have as big of issues with bad weather (read tornados).

We found some interesting properties and actually enlisted the help of a realtor this time. We found locales outside the main cities and found that there were possibilities here if we wanted to live here. We were looking at one property in our price range and the realtor found out that there was one that just fell through that she really wanted to show us.

It appears the owners, children of the parents that owned this property, accepted a contingent offer for $100K less than the asking price. However, the contingency had fallen through. We went to see it. This property was 5 acres and part of it was kind of an ‘oasis’ in the area. The previous owners used it as a venue for weddings, photographs, etc. It, sadly, had fallen into disrepair. The house was old and very unique. The property was huge with many outbuildings but lots of yard work. But we put in an offer on it, the same offer that had fallen through but ours was not contingent so that was a positive. We had to wait now.

We had to wait a few days to find out if we were going to be homeowners in Odessa but it was not to be. Someone came in and offered them full price for the property which was $100K more than ours. It was a disappointment to not get it and it was a crazy 3 weeks of looking in Texas so we decided to head back to CA for the holidays. We would be tourists for change on the way back.

We next headed to Carlsbad, NM, for one primary purpose, the caverns! We tried to do it about 2 years ago but the elevator down was not functioning and that would not work for us. The first day we tried something different and went to the Living Desert State Park. They had a nice little pathway to walk around and see various indigenous animals:

The next day was the Caverns visit. The cavern tour cost is only $1, not including park admission. You can enter the caverns either via the elevator or the natural entrance. The natural entrance is pretty strenuous so we opted for the elevator. Roxie had been here before but she was so young she stayed in daycare at the top of the caverns. I had been here before also and remember eating a box lunch down in the caverns. This was essentially our first visit. Here are some shots:

It was very moist and a bit cool in the caverns. There are numerous loops you can take to see all the sights. Most of it was wheelchair accessible but there are some inclines to navigate. It was definitely fun.

My parents came here before, I think it was in the early ’50s on a west coast trip they took. Here are some comparative photos:

Time to keep heading back west. Trying to get through New Mexico as soon as we could. It was much more restrictive on lockdowns, etc. Going to Arizona!

We stopped for a few days in Tucson to visit some friends there. It was good to see them. We also looked at Tucson as a place to find a home and of course did our laundry!

The next stop was somewhere I have wanted to go for a bit, the White Tank Mountains State Park west of the Phoenix basin. Since Thanksgiving was very close, I could only get 2 nights. We enjoyed the two nights. They have some nice hiking trails and good views of the lights of the city.

Thanksgiving would put us in Kingman AZ. We had a small turkey breast in the oven with the requisite sides. It was a nice little meal but odd to be just us two on Thanksgiving. We keep getting drawn back to the Kingman/Golden Valley/Bullhead City area in house hunting. It has a good central location, 400 miles to our son, a bit more to our daughter, 90 miles to Vegas (for shopping), the desert life doesn’t scare us (we will be gone in the summer). The local towns have enough shopping, the taxes are not too restrictive and the prices are pretty affordable. We also know at least one person in town, Doug. He and I went through some grade school, JR high, and some high school together:

We contacted a realtor about some houses that we wanted to see. There were a couple that were interesting and one had just fallen through (sounds familiar).

We put in an offer on the one that fell through and it was accepted. We are currently in escrow on this house (in Golden Valley) and it is going on right through the holidays! Stay tuned about the status and eventual move.

A few projects

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Since our trailer was a 50amp model it came with two Air Conditioners.  This meant no Fantastic Fan above the bed.  This also meant there was no direct source for airflow to us, like no ceiling fan (in household terms).  When it gets hot it is nice to have a fan blowing on you.  I found a Vornado fan at Target that would work and we put it on the floor, blowing up to the bed.  This was adequate, but I wanted more.  I wondered how I could mount the fan on the wall but didn’t want it adding weight to the wall as we were driving down the road.  I put a hook in the wall where we can hang the fan when needed:

We have been having some issues with our walls in the trailer sliding inward as we travel.  Some of the movement is close to 1 inch.

These walls were very cheaply made in Airstream and no require reinforcement, Airstream just stapled the corners together and covered them with trim.  The first wall is the hallway wall for the bathroom that attaches to the wall in the bedroom (behind the bathroom).  I took a 1×2 and mounted it vertically and screwed the walls together:

Inner structure

Hall wall with structure screws covered by trim

Bedroom wall with structure screws covered by trim

Another location of poor wall construction is next to the refrigerator.  There is a small 45-degree wall there but all Airstream did was put screws through a panel and into the next.  These panels are really thin and don’t have anywhere to bite:

I shored these walls up with some better anchor points and re-attached them with screws:

The part of the wall that is most concerning to me is the wall between the bedroom and bathroom.  The first picture shows the gap.  I put some brackets in the floor and secured the base of the wall (we will see if that works):

One problem we have been having is with our Dometic thermostat.  It consistently shows a different temperature (hotter) that just a few inches away.  I attributed this to having a large hole in the wall where the thermostat attaches to the wall.  Behind this wall is the side of the refrigerator and a lot of hot space during the summer temperatures.  We found a few bamboo flooring samples from a local home store and moved the thermostat up (so we could see it behind the TV) and to cover up that large hole.  Also filling in behind the new bracket with some foam has solved the issue.

Another upgrade was the TV in the bedroom.  The old setup was a 22″ that came from the factory:

This was the only place for one in the bedroom since there was a sliding door on the other wall to close off the bedroom.  I removed that door almost a year ago as we did not use it.  The gave us the option to put a 32″ TV on that wall:

A huge upgrade was accomplished in changing our sliding doors in the hallway wardrobe.  One of the selling points, for me, was the large wardrobe that this floor plan offered (twice the size of the 30′ Classic).  However, the doors would continually jump off the tracks.  Some on Airforums found the same problem and posed some solutions.  None of them worked very well.  Airstream themselves moved away from the sliding doors in the next two model years and created hinge-attached swinging doors but they were almost $1400 for the parts!

Enter Willard Amtower.  He saw a post about the doors and contacted me.  He had full plans for creating new sliding doors with appropriate hardware to not jump the track.  I did it.  I did not use as nice wood that Uncle Bill did but it sure works great!  Heavy mirrors, heavy hardware and tracks to keep it in place.  We have done about 1600 miles on the new setup with no issues.  Here are some pics:

I was able to find a good handle match also (original and additional):

Uncle Bill also showed me one more trick.  Our water pump can be turned on/off in two locations, the kitchen and the bathroom.  This requires a 3-way switch so you really cannot tell if the pump is operational by switch location.  I was replacing the water pump because the backflow valve was faulty and I wanted a more efficient one.  Bill showed me that he simply added an LED indicator that was tied to the water pump.  When the pump was energized the LED was on:

I like it but I used an LED for a truck trailer side marker so it might be a bit bright.

So far, I am very happy with all these modifications.  Am I done?  I will never be done.