The move in on Friday went pretty smoothly. It was a long day, because the 18 wheeler couldn’t make it up the 2 mile driveway, but it could get to the beginning of our driveway right off CR 327. I have attached pictures of the UHaul van that they used for the shuttle. You can imagine that it took a long time. There were 3 guys unloading at the house, and one guy at the big rig, unpacking the rig and getting the boxes and furniture ready to reload onto the Uhaul. The garage is full of boxes and office furniture and workshop stuff. The media room (to be created) is full of boxes. I’m not sure where we will put everything, but we did get all the furniture placed. But the beds are up, so we are ready for company… come on up!
We left CO last Wednesday, with about an inch or more snow on the ground and cars. It had started snowing the night before, and snowed all night long. The attached picture is the snow on Tuesday afternoon, the “after” picture is still in Jay’s camera. It was fun to see. I don’t know if I’ll say that next May though. We drove straight through and it took about 12.5 hours, including our stops for lunch, DQ, and dinner. Julia had done a great job of looking after the dogs, house and Ted, not necessarily in that order.

Graduation for Ted is tomorrow night. Julia and Jay and I will be there cheering him on. Unfortunately, Matt and Wallace and Jen are too far away to be able to make it, but they will be there in spirit. Ted got to talk to Wallace today. We are all very proud of Ted and glad to participate in this special event.
Right now our plans are to rent a small trailer on Wed, load it up and leave it in the garage. Our goal is to have the house emptied by Thursday, the 31st. I will be at the pond house this weekend with the dogs. Jay will be in Austin with his friends to go to the Republic of Texas motorcycle rally. If anyone wants to come to Alba, I’ll be there chilling. Jay and I will each do our weekend things, he will join me in Alba on Sunday, service the boat and maybe take it out on the lake if the weather holds on Monday, then we’ll leave Alba Tuesday am early, pick up the trailer, and head out for Westcliffe with the dogs this time.

We showed the house to two families today, either of which could be serious purchasers. We will see. We would really like to sell it ourselves, but we have an interview with a second realtor tomorrow afternoon and will pick which one of the two to contract with to sell the house, if nothing happens by the end of May. We are continuing to put money into the house, right now we are changing the backsplash in the kitchen to slate tiles, and will have roof repairs made tomorrow. The downstairs carpeting was put in yesterday, except for the closets in the master bath. They ran out of carpet and Juan is getting some more. Fortunately, it is not a big space. Hopefully, we will not have to put more money into it, beyond the rest of the contractors fee.

My finger is healing. It is still very tender. I had the stitches taken out last Thursday. I am wearing a big bandaid, that helps to protect it and limit finger flexion somewhat. I have high hopes that it will be totally healed soon. The bandaid is much easier to type with than the bandage I had at first, but I definitely needed the protection at first.

I may not have internet access while at the pond house, so feel free to call me there if you want to chat.

I promised pictures of the empty house and here they are.

Jay and I ran errands on Tuesday and were packing to leave when I had a little accident. I slammed my car door on the index finger of my right hand. It bled a lot and Jay was worried that I had broken it, but I only needed 4 stitches, as it was cut on both sides of my first knuckle. Fortunately, Jim Kravetz, our doctor, was able to provide the “surgery”, so we did not have a long wait in an ER. We were on our way by 2:30 pm and needless to say, did not try to drive straight through. We arrived in Westcliffe around 1:30 pm on Thursday, and after unloading the car in a sleet shower, we went to town to check mail, open a bank account, and get some groceries. (no pictures of the above).

After dinner, we were trying to figure out where the furniture would go and were surprised by our first visitor. He stayed in the back yard, nibbling grass, grooming himself and having a rest here and there. The pictures were taken through the glass door and atrium wall, and the last one was from the upstairs bedroom balcony. We were pretty excited to have such a special guest visit with us on our first night in Colorado.

It’s tough typing when you can’t feel your index finger because of the big bandage, I hope I didn’t have too many typo’s. More details about Friday’s activities and the unloading soon.

Well, the house is almost empty. The Bekins packers came on Saturday and boxed up a lot of the house, but we still had a lot to do. Between packing the garage, office and bathroom, we managed to fit in Mother’s Day dinner at Red, Hot and Blue (bar b que). Everyone was there, except Wallace and Jen. Matt drove up from Austin to return the Suburban and pick up his car which had been left at the mechanics for repairs. Julia and Ted of course. Then home to more packing. Matt gave me a camera for my computer, or a web cam. When I get it figured out and set up, I’ll be able to send “live” pictures or maybe live chats… I don’t really know what it can do for us, but I wil find out. If you have a web cam with live chat capabilities, let me know so we can try it out.
I’ve attached some pre and post loading photos taken on Monday. Ideally, everything should have been packed, but we (or more accurately I) still had stuff to finish. Jay finished everything he was responsible for. The loading went smoothly, except when they dropped and dented the refrigerator. The movers were very happy to know that they did not have to go upstairs and that there were no couches to load.

The bad news is that it has been raining all week in Westcliffe and we have no idea what the road conditions will be when they are ready to unload. I’ll try to update with news about the unloading.