Last time I wrote, we had just arrived home in Door County. Then Jamey’s server went down, and so did my blog. Jamey got it back up (sort of) just in time for me to tell you that we have left Door County for the last time as residents. I’m warning you, this is an extra long blog to catch up on, so read it when you sit down to have your coffee, or whenever you have a spare hour during your day!
You may recall that in May, Mark and I found a house that we decided to buy in Price, Utah, but first, we had to sell our house in Wisconsin. I hope never to have to go through all the trouble we’ve been through this summer. We got a realtor for our house in Door County named Steve Van Egeren from Shorewest Realtors, who definitely knows his business, but he pushed us hard. When he first came to look at our place, it was a mess, and he wasn’t sure about our ability to sell our house before buying the house in Utah. He told us what we had to do, and he gave us deadlines by which we had to do them. By June 19th, we had everything in good enough order that he felt OK about listing our house online in preparation for an open house on the 21st.
Before pictures:
My sewing room
After pictures:
The open house was successful, and by Monday, the 23rd of June, we had three offers. That’s where Steve really shone. He acted like an auctioneer between the three, and by that evening, we had $32,500 more than our asking price, plus a free month after closing to stay at our house and pack up for our move!
While we worked on packing up, we were also dealing with Veterans United, our lender on the other house, and Loren Unsworth of Remax. We were supposed to sign the closing papers on our house in Wisconsin on the 24th, and then we were supposed to be able to sign the closing papers on the house in Utah on the 28th. About two weeks before we were to sign on our Wisconsin house, Mark and I had a major plumbing issue, so we called in a plumber to try to figure out what was going on. He came and ran a camera through our pipes. This is what he found:
It cost a pretty penny, but we had someone come out and cut the roots and then insert a plastic tube like PVC that is pretty much a permanent fix. Earlier in the summer, we had to replace a toilet where the tank had cracked from top to bottom over the winter, we had to have a pine tree removed that had broken in a storm and was threatening to fall on the house, and we had to replace our clothes drier which finally gave up the ghost and was supposed to be left for the buyers. If I hadn’t gotten the rest of my inheritance from the sale of Dad’s house, the deal would have been off. Thank God for the timing on that!
Finally, we signed the closing papers on our Wisconsin house on July 23rd and the buyers signed on the 24th, and then on the 25th, Mark was supposed to leave with the largest U-Haul truck we could rent. He had his motorcycle in the truck with a bunch of our big furniture, a bunch of his tools, and most of my sewing room as well as some boxes. That didn’t empty our house. I guess we didn’t pare down enough! We were trying to sell some of our stuff and donate some of it, but the thrift stores weren’t taking furniture and we didn’t get many inquiries when we posted on Facebook Marketplace. We were also going to have to get rid of our old RV that we couldn’t get started several years ago which is why we got our newer RV. Mark put that on Marketplace for free and a guy immediately said he wanted it and he was going to bring his mechanic up from Green Bay and see if they could get it running. They came up for weeks and we finally had to offer to go halvsies with them on a truck that would tow it down to Green Bay for them. We had a car that had been sitting in our back yard for a while that we donated to Wheels for Wishes, along with a non-working Honda motorcycle that had been sitting in our garage. We tried having a yard sale, but the newspaper got our address wrong in the ad so almost no one showed up. It was enough to drive us nuts trying to figure out how to get rid of our stuff. We even rented a 13′ dumpster and filled it to the brim with stuff, but that didn’t clear everything out. It’s amazing how much a couple like us can accumulate in eight years!
So anyway, we had gotten word from the lender for our new house that they wanted the closing disclosure from the sale of our house and we sent them what we had when we got home from our signing on the 23rd, but they said that wasn’t what they wanted, so after the buyers signed the papers, we asked the title company to send them the closing disclosure with both sets of signatures on it. I was supposed to get some papers to sign for the other house before Mark left with the U-Haul on the 25th, but we were notified that the signing in Utah had been put back to the 30th because the lender hadn’t gotten the closing documents from our house sale yet. Mark left on the 26th and we figured everything would be all worked out by the time he got there.
Mark got to Utah with a truck full of stuff to unload and he was told that he couldn’t even put it in the garage until the lender released the funds. Mind you, when we sold our house, we immediately put a $150,000 down payment on the house. It was frustrating. Mark spent a couple of days cleaning up all the dog poop and garbage the seller had left out in her yard. The date for signing kept getting pushed back every day as they were waiting for Veterans United to release the loan for the house, but they kept saying they hadn’t gotten the closing disclosures from our title company yet. Finally, Mark got so exasperated because he was having to pay rent for every day he had the U-Haul and he needed to get back to Wisconsin to start the second phase of the move, that he went around the house and found an open window. He found the garage door opener and some people came and helped him unload the truck into the garage. Then he took some stuff we won’t need for a while to a storage unit and he took the motorcycle back to the house and slept on the couch in the garage. The next day, I was at work when I started getting a flurry of texts and phone calls from everyone. The seller’s realtor had caught Mark there and our realtor, Loren, was threatening to have him arrested for trespassing. Mark put in a call to our realtor, Steve, here and asked what was holding up the closing disclosures from the title company. I got a call from Steve saying that the title company had already sent the papers three times and then again that afternoon, and they were so mad at Veterans United that they said they weren’t going to send them again. Finally, Veterans United said, “Oh yeah, we just got the papers and we would be happy to release the funds.” Everyone at the title company bent over backwards to get the house registered in our name before the end of the business day (it was Friday) and Mark finally got the keys to the house. Then he rode his motorcycle back home as fast as he could.
We had a week to load another U-Haul truck with stuff. By this time, we had moved out to our RV so that we could empty the house and clean it. During that week, I got a visit from a couple of my groupies, a mother and daughter who had come to my tours of the Noble House every year for the last several years, and they asked Mark and me to have dinner with them after my last tour with them. We regaled them with our stories of the preceding week and they told us what was happening in their lives. These women had been strangers before they took their first tour with me, and they liked me so much that they came back specifically for my tours every year after!
The rest of that week, we ordered a 6’x6′ dumpster and proceeded to fill that and it became apparent that we were going to have to have that one dumped and brought back again. On August 10th, Mark left with the second U-Haul, and this time he was pulling our trailer behind with his motorcycle on it to stay at the house. We couldn’t figure out how to get his Suburban to Utah, so he donated that to Wheels for Wishes, and when he got to Utah and dropped everything off, he bought another Suburban that we’re hoping has air conditioning because his old one didn’t. While he had been there the first time, he said that the seller had left the house filthy, so we called a cleaning service called Maid 4 You, and they came and had a look at the house while Mark was there. We also had a guy come in and see about the possibility of having air conditioning installed because the cleaners said it was so hot inside that they were beginning to feel sick. The air conditioner guy took a look at the furnace and said that it was 25 years old and would need to be upgraded to hook up the air conditioning, so we are paying for that as well. Thank you, Dad, for leaving me an inheritance!
Mark flew home on the 14th, and we’ve spent the last week getting everything ready for the new owners. We filled up another 6’x6′ dumpster, and I finally thought to donate the stuff we couldn’t get rid of to the Liberty Grove Historical Society where I’ve been doing my fundraisers for the Alzheimer’s Association. By the way, I also donated some of the fundraiser items that I had made with Door County places on them. I might try doing fundraisers in Utah next summer if they have any markets or fairs, but I don’t think anyone there is going to be interested in anything with pictures from Door County.
Tuesday, the 19th, was my last day of working at the Noble House. I’ve done seven seasons with them. I had given a little thought to retiring from there last year and moving sooner, but this year was the 150th birthday of the house and we have been celebrating all summer with a brand new exhibit of Victorian Holidays and Celebrations that I just had to be a docent for one more time! Tuesday was a busy day, and at the end of my shift, Mark came to pick me up. I turned in all the costumes I was given to wear there and kept the things I had brought to it, except for my Civil War era dress that I had made which is too tall for me these days, and my wedding petticote, which I donated because Laurie said it would be nice to have a petticote for some of the dresses that a tall young docent who is new was going to be wearing. Laurie Buske, my boss, said it’s not going to be the same without me at the Noble House. She gave me a vest with the Noble House embroidered on it, and we hugged. She’s been a good boss and a friend.
The Gibraltar Historical Association often has concerts out on the park lawn Tuesday afternoons, so when I was finished closing up the house and leaving my key for Laurie to give to the next docent, Mark and I sat in the park for a while and enjoyed some good old fashioned Rock and Roll!
The last few days we were at the house, we got everything cleaned up at the house.
In the last couple of weeks, we have spent an evening with Rukiye, Kader and Zak came up last Saturday from Milwaukee, and on Thursday, we had lunch with Merih and his wife, Bibs. It was sad saying goodbye to all our Turkish kids in Wisconsin, but we’ll see them again, I’m sure. The two couples have said they’ll come out to see us in Utah or Tucson, and we said that if they have babies, we’ll come back to see them.
The very first night we entered Door County as Workampers 10 years ago, we went to a restaurant called The Waterfront, right on the water in Sister Bay. Mark and I both had the thought that we’d like to do that on our last night in Door County, too.
Yesterday morning, Friday the 22nd, we had a few things to finish up. The garbage company came to pick up our last dumpster, and a woman from the Liberty Grove Historical Society came to pick up the last few things we were donating to their Vintage Market sale that raises funds for their work. We spent the morning getting the RV battoned up for travel. Our realtor, Steve, came one last time to look around and make sure everything was ready for the new owners and to pick up our house keys. When he was gone, Mark pulled the RV out and was hooking our tow dolly up to it to pull my car behind us. While he was down on the ground hooking all that up, our neighbor at the end of the street came to say goodbye to us.
When we first came down the road to move into our house eight years ago, the neighbors across the street came to greet us and welcome us to the neighborhood. I’m so glad that someone was there to see us off! Sharon said that the neighborhood isn’t going to be the same without us. She used to have two dogs that had to be put down this winter. Our neighbors across the street had to have their German Shepherd put down recently, and now Tucson is going to be gone. Sharon was lamenting both the loss of us as neighbors and the loss of one more dog on the street. It was sad saying goodbye.
However, we couldn’t leave Door County without making a few stops. Our first stop was at Seaquist Orchard Farm Market where I worked one summer.
Then we ran several errands in Sturgeon Bay before leaving Door County for good. We said goodbye to each town we passed through and each favorite place we passed on our way out of Door County, and then it was behind us. We didn’t get out of the county until about 4:00 in the afternoon, so we were late hitting the road. We only made it as far as Madison, WI.
We got an earlier start today, so we have now left Wisconsin behind and spent most of the day driving through Iowa. We just reached our campground for the night — Camp A Way in Lincoln, NE — a place we really enjoyed on our way home last spring. I’ll save any pictures from today until tomorrow since this has turned into an epic. I’m glad to be able to blog again after so long and hope I won’t have to write one this long ever again. I’ve missed you all, and as soon as Jamey gets the email notices figured out, I’ll truly be back in business with our future adventures!