Homeless - Part 1

So much has happened since the last time I blogged that I don't even know where to start.

So I'll start at the beginning.................

We have always liked many things about Atomic City.

The great price we got on our home and 1/2 acre lot.

The quiet and distance away from other towns.

The very close proximity to endless BLM land.

The ability to wander endlessly and alone in the place of "wide open spaces and very few faces".

The knowledge that the mountains and rivers were within easy driving distance.

The small herds of deer that claimed Atomic City as their own.
Gentle, curious and beautiful creatures that I cursed during the summers when they ate my hard earned landscaping, and that I relished the sight of during the silent winters as they wandered freely from one yard to the next.

Buttes to hike, interesting lava rock formations to investigate, rabbits that roamed close to my dog at their own peril, the beautiful sunsets, so many things...............

For the past couple of years LC and I have toyed with the idea of selling our home.

Most of the year we loved living there, but summers were endless, hot and dry and the mountains and rivers called to us.

During those months we regularly wrung our hands in indecision, toying with the idea of selling and moving closer to elevation and water.

We had invested so much in our house.

Some money, but more 'sweat equity" than anything else.
Working hard to move it from a structurally sound but very ugly house, into a structurally sound, nice and welcoming home.

Landscaping.  Tool sheds.  Paint.  Decks.  Fences.  Decorations. 

The nicer we made our home and the more comfortable we made it, and the more comfortable we became - and the older we got - the harder was the decision to sell...............

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Early in the year (while the weather was still cool and damp and while we were still wrapping our head around the decision we had made) we threw a For Sale By Owner sign out into the front yard and posted the house as a FSBO on a couple of local classified sites.

Predictably someone quickly jumped onto the house, promised he had financing, couldn't get the financing and then quickly disappeared.

After wasting a few weeks with this person LC and I realized we had no (zero) patience for another such encounter.

By mid summer we contacted a real estate agent who listed the property.

Although quite a few properties in Atomic City sell privately (usually for next to nothing and involving convoluted rent-to-own schemes) the properties listed formally with real estate agencies often stay on the market for a year or two (or even longer).

Once the house was listed both LC and I assumed that we would be living right where we were for quite a while. 

Certainly through this coming winter.

A month later we had a serious offer on the house.
Someone who knew the area and who had spent much time hunting out on BLM land in back of Atomic City.
It sounded like a perfect fit for him.

A week later we had agreed on a price and other terms.

Four weeks after that we signed on our house.

As of September 21 we were officially "homeless"...................

Words cannot adequately describe what the past couple of months have been like.

The shock at the quick sale.
The relief at the quick sale.

The questions about what we were going to do next (and where).

The questions about where to put all our stuff.

A full three bedroom house, two garage bays full of tools, a garage bay filled with my own business gear, a large tool shed - we had accumulated a whole lot of stuff in the four years we had lived in this quiet desert community that wasn't so quiet anymore. 

One by each hand wringing one, we faced and found solutions to big questions.

The first question was where were we going.  

Answer:  Cody WY.

Question:  Where would we spend the winter?

Answer:  Off-season rental cottage.

Question:  Where would we put our stuff?

Answer:  In storage.

Question:  What about the extra vehicle, the camper, the boat?

Answer:  Stored with a friend.

Question:  What would we sell and what would we keep?

Answer:  Sell a few things but there wasn't enough time to sell a whole lot. 

It sounds easy when you write it like that, but in truth there was plenty of pacing the floors, brainstorming, exploring options, discounting possible solutions, plenty of phone calls, messages left and messages returned, false leads, and money counting to arrive at those few basics...............

Secure in the knowledge that we had a place to hunker down for the winter and a place to store our belongings, LC and I spent the next few weeks doing almost nothing but packing.

Hundreds and hundreds of boxes.

Never ending boxes.

Never ending packing.

Day after day after day.

Or so it seemed.
And so it was................

We did manage to sell some big things, and one by one the house began to empty as people picked up their items and as we moved one box after another out to the garage.

A family that we barely knew called us one day to ask about the firewood we were selling.

After some discussion we learned that they had a horse trailer.

We bartered their help moving our gear into storage in return for fire wood, which worked out great for both families.  

We needed the help - and money was a big issue for this growing family (so they were ecstatic to trade manpower and trailer-power for wood).

The first "moving day" it was 85 degrees and sunny.

The second "moving day" a week later, it was 45 degrees and raining.

Between the two big horse-trailer-days and quite a few shuttle trips back and forth to Blackfoot, we got it done.

But I have to say..............even the morning of our last day (and everything had to be out of the house by 5pm) I looked around the house in dismay at everything we still had left.

We were going to be without our stuff for at least six months.  

The weather was going to transition in that time from fall to winter and back into spring.

We needed two seasons worth of clothes.  We needed camping gear because we couldn't get into the rental cottage until October 10.  We needed Korys' cage (which she always had as a sleeping option when she wanted it and we wanted to keep at least one familiar thing for her) and other dog-stuff.

We quickly crammed everything into the Tahoe and the short-bus school-bus we had recently traded for (oh - didn't I mention that??) and with two hours to spare, our house was empty.

We had made it..........................

We had started 2017 with two houses - one in Tennessee and one in Idaho.
9 months later we had no houses and we were officially homeless.
And that was OK........................