Working at the House and Emissions Testing (Colorado Springs, CO)

We’re still on track to sell the house with a closing date of 1 June.  We finally heard back from the appraiser after the Memorial Day weekend – all OK with no conditions 🙂

The buyer was scheduled to do a final walk-thru on Wednesday, so I finished up a few things at the house on Tuesday.  One of the things I still needed to do was move our old birdhouse from the front yard since we want to keep it.  Dad helped me move it over to his house… he’ll set it up in his backyard for safekeeping.

Here we are hauling the top portion into his backyard:

IMG_8959

He’ll dig a hole and set up the post in concrete near these rocks.

IMG_8960

Here’s what it looked like in front of our house when we first set it up back in 2006-07.  We brought this from Germany with us in 2005.  Stilla’s brother Wolfgang made it for us.

IMG_0019
Stilla and grandson Kaan.

And here’s another old picture of it with our former dog Elvis posing in front… poor Elvis was attacked and killed by a coyote in our backyard in December of 2013 🙁

2006 06 10 (1)

Here’s the view of my Dad’s house (backyard) that the birdhouse will be looking at for the foreseeable future.

IMG_8961

After we moved the birdhouse, Dad helped me put a final coat of paint “restore” on the front porch.  The first coat was done before we put the house on the market back in January and portions of the rubberized-type paint had frozen before it dried and it wasn’t sticking too well.  I promised the buyer that I would touch it up before he took possession.

IMG_8968

IMG_8967

In the evening, we gathered back at the Elks Lodge for “Taco-Tuesday”.  Three tacos are only $5 and drinks are at very reasonable happy-hour prices.  We had quite a few folks join us; my Dad, stepmom Elaine, friends Biff and Linda, old Army buddy Daniel, and fellow Alpine Coach owner’s Tom and Johnna.

IMG_8970

Wednesday, I piddled around the house again in the morning hoping to catch the new owner during his final walk-thru/inspection.  I figured he’d appreciate me being there to answer any questions and maybe explain how to set up the auto-sprinkler system, etc.,  I got there at 8 AM but finally said the heck with it and left around 1:30 PM when he didn’t show.  I heard later in the evening that he did get there to do his final inspection.  All is well, except he couldn’t get the garage door remotes to work.  So, I’ll go back and program them for him.

Thursday, I had an appointment to get the emissions test done on the Urban Escape Vehicle.  It’s time to renew the registration and I haven’t had the opportunity yet to change domicile to South Dakota.  Unfortunately, the county that we’re currently registered in (El Paso county) requires testing on all diesel vehicles.  So $90 dollars later, I can now renew the registration for another year 🙁

IMG_8977

IMG_8979

After completing our emissions test and paying the state of Colorado for the privilege to drive on their fine pot-hole decimated roads for another year, we returned to the Elks Lodge.

We stopped at the dump station before returning to our parking spot because all the sites here require the use of a macerator.  The sewer pipes are above-ground (small diameter) PVC pipe.  It’s much less hassle to use the dump station than to hook up the macerator.

And once again, the afternoon rain storms rolled in:

IMG_8981

All 13 full hook-up (30-Amp) sites here have been filled since before Memorial Day.

IMG_8984

Here we are; backed into our site again (facing the pool).

IMG_8985

We plan on going over to the house today (Friday) to program the garage door remotes and I’ll pick up the Harley and bring it back to the Lodge.  It’s been nice to have it garaged with all the recent rain … but I guess that’s the price you have to pay for being homeless, aka houseless 🙂

We’re supposed to meet some folks for dinner here at the Lodge this evening, so we’re looking forward to that… stay tuned…