I forgot . . .

Terry was reading my last post and mentioned I had forgotten something. Yes I did. How can I forget having spent a bundle of money? Phaeton Place has been riding on old tires. . . from 2012. We try to change tires every 7 years and this was year 7. They had 70,000 miles on them approximately. Still going strong and not much weather checking, but any more time on them would be out of our comfort zone. And one of the front tires had a patch in it, but it held well. We worked with FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) on their "tire buy" program and got about $71 off per tire. That was a considerable savings when you look at the cost of each tire. This is the first time we put six new tires on. When we first got her we had a tire/wheel issue which resulted in replacing two tires and one wheel early on. So after that, we only bought four tires and rotated those newer tires. This time we put all new ones on. That is the first time, however, and we bought the coach 14 years ago, so that's decent wear out of the tires. After the tires were installed and balanced, we drove over to Bud's Automotive and had the rig's alignment fine tuned. Want those new tires to wear evenly from the get go.

We also put all new tires on the Flex earlier this summer, so we are good to go. Next year we will replace the tires on the little motorhome and the Miata. The Miata is still running the original tires and they are nine years old. No problems with them, but don't want to set out any long distance with those. They have almost 30,000 miles on them.

Today is Friday and next Tuesday is the closing on the last house in Goshen. This house is a duplex, but the one side is twice the size of the other side. This was where Terry's parents lived starting in 1981. His Dad died in 1996 and his Mom continued to live there till she went into the nursing home in 2001. She died in 2004 and we have been working with it since then. If it was a house we could live in, we probably would have kept it. However, with Terry's heart condition, he cannot be in cold weather as he passes out. So keeping a house you can only live in for 5 months out of the year is just not smart and his doctors are not up here in northern Indiana anyway. So it was time. The same family that purchased our other four duplexes have purchased this one and that has made it easier. They told us to leave anything we wanted. Most everything will be gone, but Terry did leave parts for various repairs on the duplexes that he had stockpiled in the basement.

We made two trips to our storage garage in Nappanee this week and we have one more to go. Probably Saturday. After I finish the cleaning, I want to mop the floors, so then I will have some utensils to store. We are taking another load to MinnieMee today. She stays in climate controlled storage, so anything we want out of the cold goes in her. The Miata goes into the storage garage along with the cargo trailer which is already there.

We don't have any idea where it all goes from here. We are hoping to find something in Florida, close enough to Brandon but not too close. LOL While Florida isn't my first pick, it is near family and when you start getting to be "as old as dirt" you want to be close to family. Plus Florida we can live in year round and they have doctors there. Right now I would just like to find an RV lot that has a storage building on it, but so far we haven't found anything. When we go down in October, we are going to spend some time looking around and maybe find something then.

Our doctors appointments this fall are scattered over the next three weeks, so that will be a new adventure for us. We normally get them all in one week, but not this year. Once those are done, early in October, we are heading for Charlottesville to see Jocelyn and family, then Florida. . . then??? We still have our place in Texas and will end up there at some point, but no set date for that yet.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Wow!

It's been awhile. . . what can I say.

We arrived back in northern Indiana to cooler temperatures for just about a week, then it turned hot, hot, hot. But we did manage to get a stint in at Shipshewana. Amish country is my favorite place to be. Everyone is so laid back, a much slower pace is found and the countryside is quiet. We arrived on a Sunday and left on Wednesday. I like to visit the shops in town and I found some beautiful quilts. I took pictures for my friends who are in to quilting.

Back at Elkhart Campground, there was a rally going on. There were so many rigs for the rally that we waited an extra week to get a spot. We could have gotten in earlier, but I wanted a 50 Amp spot since the weather was turning hot again. Can't seem to escape it.

We have been working on various projects, mainly getting stuff loaded back into the motorhome from the many repairs we were plagued with this summer. We also took our captain's chairs out and took them over to Shipshewana to have them recovered. That was about half the cost of buying new and we were assured the frames were still good, just bad foam. We got them back yesterday and are very pleased with them. I did go with a bit darker color that will look nicer a lot longer, I think.

We have been working at selling another duplex and we closed on it September 14. Whew. Four of the five have been sold. The only thing left is the condo and we are starting to work on it next year. Getting stuff cleared out of it, repainted inside, some new windows. . . and then who knows? We know we don't want to live in it. Terry absolutely cannot tolerate cold weather and since he has done so well healthwise in the last ten years, we know it's because he isn't exposed to cold temperatures. So we plan to keep it that way. With having sold all but one, we hope to be able to travel more in the summers.

Yesterday we had to go to Shipshewana and on the way back decided to find the "elusive" Eldridge Cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried. We had tried to find it when Jocelyn was here, but had to give up. We had been by it once years ago. It is on a county road, but one that dead ends and then actually starts up again. So you have to get on the right portion of that road which is only maybe a mile long. It is a quaint little cemetery that seems to be well kept. . .by whom I don't know. It doesn't appear to be used anymore. I took some pictures for the genealogy buffs in the family. The Schrock grave is my paternal great grandparents. I actually remember Carrie whom we called "Big Gramma." The one is not a relative, to my knowledge, but is the grave of a veteran of the Civil War.

Progress continues for our launch date of September 24. We start heading south and plan to visit each of the kids before finally landing in Texas.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Moving forward. . .

We hit a milestone the other day. We have been managing/owning five duplexes for the past ten years. We have worked hard to maintain nice apartments for our tenants and we have had good tenants for the most part. We have had many people approach us about buying our duplexes, but were never ready to sell. We decided this year that if the opportunity presented itself, we would sell one.  It would be one less duplex for us to care for and we could maybe cut down on our work in the summer when we come back to northern Indiana. We haven't traveled as much during the summer as we would like, so perhaps summers could now be spent differently. It seems with ten apartments, we always had one empty to renovate and rent during the summer.

We sold one last Friday. We are very happy with our buyers. They are landlords already and in the same neighborhood, neighbors in fact. Terry's parents had sold them a duplex years ago and they are ready to add to their business venture. When we went to the closing, the closer asked if the buyers or sellers wanted to go first. I looked at my friend/neighbor who is buying the property and said, "Can't we all go in together?" She said, "Well yes, I just didn't know if you wanted to." The best part is that they understand the rental business and I believe we leave our current tenant in good hands. In fact, these new owners have helped our manager with maintenance issues from time to time. After the closing we passed by the duplex and stopped and introduced our "former" tenant to the new landlord. All is well.

So now that we have that business behind us, we are going to take off for a few weeks. We feel we've earned a vacation. Hah! We did spent last week at Shipshewana. . . my favorite place up here. And we visited with Mom and Dad again yesterday. We are now ready to roll. . . don't know where, but we will roll.

Till next time. . .

Dale