Very frustrated

Our 2nd bid on a house has fallen though. This time the owner's lender will not commit to when or how much the short sale will be. It most likely will go beyond the June 30th cutoff to get the $6500 tax credit. This house was neglected and needs a garage so it would be another $25+ grand to get it in shape. The septic needed a $1000 pump.... And on and on....
We have spent 3 days going thru hundreds of homes on the internet.
Our criteria: Not in a town, separation from neighbors (spell that reduced dog noise), taxes under $2k, 1500 min. s.f. house (that is 600+ less than this house), within 20 miles of shopping, medical, jobs (for sister in law, NOT ME!), 1+ acres, within 60 miles of our daughter, in semi-decent shape (there are a lot of bad ones out there), DW or modular homes are OK, a garage, shed or barn for the bikes/car, not 2 stories (getting too old and been there done that), 3 or more bedrooms, a least a few trees (there are a lot of barren lots), and a place to park the RV. (That is more than I thought, hummm?)
Now this house and the "For Sale By Owner" is getting good response. 1-4 calls a day, 1 visit a day and a couple of families that can afford this home. Keeping it maintained, clean and available is going to eventually sell it. Many want a low price, owner financing but don't have a decent down payment, want a cheap interest rate, and 30 years (we'll never live that long) pay off. Ya right.... We not the idiots like the feds did to the housing market!
Were hoping we don't have a place to live, if this house sells.... I good situation, it is much easier to buy than sell.....

Just waiting

Waiting on the lender on the Sherman property to approve the short sale so we can pay it off. Short sales are when the borrower asks for less than the property is worth, the lender has to make up the difference. The borrower has gotten into trouble not making the loan payments.
May know something by the end of next week.
Got someone to look at house in El Paso. We are meeting Sunday to see about financing. Lots to negoitate.
Sold the 98 1100 Yamaha Virago. It was a great around town bike, but not a road bike, it vibrated too much over 60 mph. I'm down to 4 bikes, poor me. Left the brown 1100 Suzuki at Tori's. When we take more bikes we will take a lot of small stuff to the new, to us, house in Sherman. Will have to make 2 trips for the 3 bikes.
Concerned over all the junk the previous owner's leaving on Sherman property. A 1950's trailer, a huge pile of pure junk that should have been taken to the dump, and much more around the shed and old trailer. House inside needs some painting, wall hole filling, a septic motor, and the skirting has many holes, all needs replacing.
The idiot did several projects and did not finish them. Like the wall between 2 bedrooms was removed and the carpeting was not replaced and the ceiling was not finished off. He is a typical contractor.
What is a Gazebo? What function does it do? Won't it be hot/cold without HVAC? Is the door big enough to fit a motorcycle or car though? Maybe if it had a bed in it.....? To me it's another money pit! This one is above ground, the one in El Paso is in ground.

1st Weekend

Listed the El Paso house starting last Thursday. Posted on Craigslist. Not 1 phone call. Over 800 homes for sale listed in Zillow just on the East Side of El Paso. Listed on Zillow also.
Zillow says housing prices are dropping even in El Paso. We were at $175k they say 167k now. Boo.
I've done many more fix-ups. The latest was staining the cabinets in the kitchen and both bathrooms. They look considerably better.
I've got the worst to do yet, I've put off for 2 years. Painting the garage. Painting the laundry room and installing new flooring.
The house in Sherman. We put a bid in for $50k, they countered with $65k. I think the septic will need work. I may recounter with $60k and they have to inspect the septic system. I don't want to go higher. The double-wide home does not have any book value. And it may need a lot of work.

We are going to do it!

We put a bid in on a double-wide prefab home with 1848 s.f. on 1.6 acres. There's room for another prefab on the 2nd lot for Mom and Helen. I've wanted a house with a view for many years. We can see out 15-25 miles. Dogs are more than 200 feet, rather than 10 feet away.
It has a large barn-garage 20 x 40 ft, 2 single doors. A started but much unfinished loft is above.
The neighborhood, could be better but the price is less than 1/3 of this house in El Paso. Garage has electric and water. Taxes should be 1/3 or less than El Paso.
The house is huge for a trailer/prefab. 2 living rooms (one will be a large dining area). One larger master bedroom, next to living area, with a 2 sinks, a shower, and a tub. 3 more bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The patio looks out onto the "view". Probably would get enclosed if there's a lot of bugs. That's where my rocking chair will be, for the 5 min. a day I'll sit in it.
Several trees and a fenced in yard for the dog we will NEVER have.
The RV can sit on the old garage cement pad next to the garage.
It is 12-15 miles into Sherman. It is a old farming community, with a nice square downtown. The best shopping is kiddie corner to us in the city with Wal-mart, Lowe's, Home Depot, Albertson's, on Rt 75 about 20-25 miles from the house.
Tori is 58 to 65 miles to the south on Rt. 75, depending on the route.
We visited the local " what's there to do?" visitors center. The gave us many booklets and described the happenings...
There is a lake 25 miles north at Denison on the OK-TX border. I would like a john boat. There are 4-6 TX state parks within 50 miles to go camping. Linda had a concern I would not use the RV as much because every day will be like camping out now there...
Since we are not cable or sat. people and TV reception is limited, this may be a problem.
We can get Verizon cell and wireless internet there. Probably won't get a phone land line, DSL surely in out of the question.
The heating-cooling is all electric, so our utility bill will get up. I'll try to insulate to save energy.
We will be 500 miles closer to Dort, Wes and Jim, sorry Carolyn/Bill.
We wanted to stay in Texas for better weather, I did not say good weather, than you snow freaks. Taxes and Dallas things to do were a consideration.
Many more pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/linda.french/ShermanHome#

Ram Cold Air Intake on my RV

4 PICTURES TOTAL
This was one of the easiest, cheapest ($10) and most effective mod I've made to my 33" Fleetwood Fiesta 32S yet. MPGs probably up .5-1 .0
Take off the original restrictive intake that reduces noise and limits air intake in a low pressure area. You probably won't hear any increased noise except at full throttle. I cut out part of the bottom of my air cleaner to increase hole size and to facilitate easier mounting.
Depending on your vehicle you may have to buy/bend elbows or flex dryer vent tubing. You want the scoop to be larger than the intake tube.
Scoop should be mounted into a direct frontal air stream. On rear engines put it along the outside edge, not in the rear/back
Make sure rain can drain down and out. I live in the desert so it rains little here. I do have a deflector I can install behind the grill X's you see in the pics in seconds.
Why it works?
1. It is in a high pressure area, was behind a shield in a low pressure area.
2. It was near the radiator, it now gets cooler air.
3. The engine has to suck less hard to get air. (pumping losses)
4. It helps even more in headwinds when more air in being pushed in
5. I always use guaze air filters (K&N-Accel-Fram). Mine was <$30 on Ebay, Cool Blue Accel.

It Just Keeps Getting Better

Went to Ft. Davis in the Davis Mtns last weekend. Left Thursday afternoon got there just at dusk. 200 miles, about 4.5 hours at 55 mph. The paved road in, is rough, narrow, hilly and twisty for about 25 miles. But so little traffic maybe 1-3 cars, I drive a lot down the middle some.
We put in some carpeting a friend gave us. It helped with road & drive train noise. But it really helped keep the RV warmer and our feet never got cold. It was warmer also than our last trip to Leasburg Dam. This time: Mid 30's at night, 60's during late afternoon.
Friday we went to McDonald Observatory to see a Lunar observation. It was very interesting, informative, and views through a 16" computer run telescope were spectacular. It was semi-cloudy and we could still see much detail.
Linda lost and found her keys to the bike, we have more spares now. The rough road caused the coffee pot to 1/2 fall down and we found many more rattles, now fixed.
We saw many javelinas and deer. Luckily not at night back from the Observatory.
There is a 75 mile loop around the west side of the Davis Mtns we've take many times. It is very scenic and remote. Just to the south is Alpine and Marfa I drove to on Saturday by myself. Also less than 100 miles, but very scenic. We checked out the local reality company photos, homes are moderately expensive. But there is no shopping or medical help, except for 30 miles down in Alpine. Reselling a home probably would take years.
The return trip home was very windy, 15-30 mph headwinds. We took it better than the last trip thru there, more experience, and used the mtns to shield some of the winds.
Got 9.2 mpg going both ways. Last time it was windy only got 6-7 mpg. I slowed down (25-35-45 at times), rather than fight it. We were the slowest thing on the Interstate. Most RV's were still going 70 into the wind (That would be upwards of 100 mph headwind). There is NO conservation in this country. We still got home by 1:00 pm, Why rush? We're retired!

Our first

We went just a short distance to Leasburg Dam State Park on Friday in the RV. It is just 20 miles north of Las Cruses in Radium Springs.
Thursday was cold rainy and snowy day here, so it was not warm on Friday either. We arrived between 4 & 5 pm so we did not get a spot with electric. My first concern was no water, I only carry enough to flush the toilet a few times while we are traveling. We found water and hooked up twice for more.
As soon as the sun went down it turned cold in the high 30's. Got down to 23 overnight.
We put 3 blankets on the bed and went to bed about 8-8:30. I had the 12v propane heater on but turned it down to 50 inside. Getting out of bed to use the bathroom was a quick process. The heater both nights came on every 10 minutes.
Sat. I invited the motorcycle group to have lunch with us. 2 that said they were coming didn't, but Mark, Susy, Chris, Cristina, Mom and Helen did. It warmed up into the mid 50's, Linda cooked a great feast, and I did hamburgers on the grill. Great time. Before dark they all left. It did not get as cold Sat. night so we only had 2 blankets and I kept it warmer in the RV.
We only used about 30% of the propane tank with lots of cooking on the propane stove/oven. I had the run the generator 3 times in 2 days to charge up the 2 6v batteries that runs the lights and appliances.
So did we really miss not having 120v house power? Not really. The TV, stereo, computer (recharging) and electric heaters would not work but we all could survive without them. It was roughing it for us, still had lights (12v) and heat. There were 2 tenters in the park I would not do nor have done in 30+ years.
We only used about 1.5 gallons gasoline using the generator for 2 hours to recharge the batteries. Even with that we still got 8 MPG.
My new ScanGauge monitoring 30 engine functions works great too. Still debugging extra readings. It helped me find a sweat spot for holding the throttle in a fixed position for maximum MPG and got 11 mpg on the way home, after the 8 mpg fill up. The $131 spent will have a payback.
I was able to go for a 2 hour bike ride on Sunday morning. I drove up to Caballo dam and found many empty spots, so we could have had power. But it was 45 miles more north and our company may not have showed up Sat.
Good experience. We can stay anywhere now. But came home with a list of things needed if we dry camp again, also known as boondocking.
The Venture in the pic starts up in cold weather and after sitting for weeks. Love it too. It gets dirty fast behind the RV on dusty roads and in the rain.