Our New Homebase Property – Video Tour

Currently at our homebase in Deming, New Mexico:

Sorry it’s been so long since we posted an update, but things have been a little crazy here.

Yes, we closed on the purchase of our homebase property on Monday, May 4. The closing happened earlier than originally scheduled since it was a cash transaction and the previous owner didn’t have a loan to pay off.

The following day, we started moving things into the new house from both the truck and the RV. We left the RV parked in our monthly spot at Dreamcatcher RV Park while we shuttled back and forth to the new property. Toward the end of the day, we brought the kitties over to the new house where we spent our first night out of the RV in over a year and a half.

Over the next few days, we continued to shuttle back and forth, moving a few things at a time. You might ask, why not just tow the rig to the new property and then just transfer things from the rig to the house. That’s a valid question, but there’s a reason we weren’t in a huge rush to move the rig.

To get the rig onto our new property, it needs to be backed into a 12-foot-wide gate in the chain-link fence. We had very, very limited experience backing up the rig since we purchased it in December, and had never tried backing it with anything near the precision that this maneuver would require.

So we waited until the following Sunday (Mothers Day) when there was very little traffic on the road. We hitched up the trailer to the truck, paid our electric bill to Dreamcatcher, and then towed the rig to an empty parking lot about a mile down the road. We set up our folding chairs and some orange traffic cones to simulate the 12-foot gate. And then for the next five hours, we took turns practicing backing the rig into that space, as well as learning how to be a good spotter when the other person was driving.

It was frustrating work–we were both exhausted by about 3:30 when we decided to just call it good and head home. When we got to our neighborhood it was starting to rain, so we just parked the rig on the street and went in the house to rest up and wait for the rain to end.

About an hour later the rain had stopped and we decided it was now-or-never time. Andy was the driver and I was the spotter for our first attempt to park the rig in our new driveway. On the first attempt, we tried approaching the driveway from the right so that Andy could see the gate from the driver’s side window. However, when he tried to get a good angle for the trailer, he saw that his truck was getting close to the neighbor’s mailbox across the street.

So he went around the block again and approached from the left, which meant he would be backing the trailer on his blind side. All I could do was give him directions over the phone to let him know which way to nudge the steering wheel. But he handled it like a champ, and soon Lizzy Too was safely parked in our driveway.

Lizzy Too safely parked in our driveway after the rain passed through

Since then we’ve continued getting things set up inside the house. I also spent most of one day giving Lizzy Too a thorough cleaning on the inside after we got the last of our things moved out.

We don’t have much furniture in the house since all the furniture stores have still been closed (they start reopening tomorrow at 25% capacity). We’ve ordered a few things online–a television, a TV stand, some zero-gravity lawn chairs that we’re currently using for living room seating. We got a microwave and a vacuum cleaner from Walmart. Fortunately we were able to get two beds and the small dinette from the previous owner as part of the purchase contract.

For the past week we’ve been meeting our neighbors, going for walks around the subdivision, and generally settling into our new homebase. We still have high hopes that we can get back out on the road before the summer ends, but in the meantime we’re making ourselves comfortable.

We’ve decided that we will go ahead and change our residency from Texas to New Mexico, but we can’t do that until the New Mexico MVD offices reopen. They’ve been closed since March, but are due to reopen tomorrow (Monday)–however, you have to make an appointment with them since they will be so far behind in taking care of their business. We need to get drivers licenses, get the truck and trailer inspected and tagged, get the titles transferred to NM, and get registered to vote. Hopefully we can get all that taken care of in the next few weeks, and then we can start the process of getting our address changed on all our accounts and contacts.

Still a lot to do.

Anyway, I put together a little video tour of the new place if you’re interested in seeing what we got for a homebase.  Enjoy!!

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Safe travels!!