Christmas Greetings from the Cartwrights - Part 3 - Miss Doozie and going fulltime

Part 1 is here: http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2015/12/christmas-greetings-from-cartwrights.html

Part 2 is here: http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2015/12/christmas-greetings-from-cartwrights_95.html

In looking, we ended up deciding to get a BlueBird Wanderlodge. It is built on a BlueBird bus chassis (the same folks who make school buses) and is very solid (and heavy!).

We bought the BlueBird in July.

Right after we purchased it, we took it to the Talley farm in Virginia and did a lot of work on it - including getting 6 new tires for the duals and tag axles. Just removing the tires and wheels, and moving them to a trailer to take them to the tire shop was a big piece of work - so Jimmy suggested that, in light of our previous motorhome being called "Miss Daisy", that this one should be called "Miss Doozie", because everything about it was big and heavy! The thing that Patti really likes about it is that we don't have weight problems; with Miss Daisy, we were always close to or over the weight limit on the back axle. With Miss Doozie, we don't think we'll ever have that kind of problem! She also has a comfortable ride.

Dwayne "helping out" on the farm in Virginia

So, in the time when we were getting Miss Daisy ready for sale, and buying Miss Doozie, we were also getting our house ready for sale. What a job that was! We had a friend from church who is a real estate agent, and he came by with another lady from church who worked for him and gave us input on what we needed to get out of the house for staging. Dwayne's garage workshop equipment was going to go to Virginia because we knew we were going to need to do work on the bus, and other furniture and decorative items were identified by various family members as pieces they wanted. Everything else we planned to get rid of at an estate sale. Items that were to go to Virginia were in one part of the garage and items for the estate sale in another area of the garage; the huge oversized 3-car garage was packed full! Jimmy came down to help with packing the moving truck of things going to Virginia and also drove the truck to Virginia.

Jimmy and our friend Grant starting the packing of the moving truck

The house went on the market in August. Our area has a pretty hot housing market, and we had an offer within about 10 days, which we accepted. However, that couple decided to back out of deal (there were some odd circumstances) and the house went back on the market. Though it was getting lots of showings, no more offers came in. We started praying earnestly about whether God might want us to do something else with the house, and through a series of events ("God-incidences" instead of coincidences), found a couple who would value living in our area and help us with expenses and care for the house while we were gone. That seemed like the thing that God would have us do with the house, so we arranged for the estate sale to occur near the end of October, and the new residents to move in early November.

We moved in to Miss Doozie fulltime on October 9 and headed out. We've met up with rallies with new and old friends - Coaches for Christ in Montgomery, TX, and a couple of BlueBird rallies in Georgia and North Carolina. We visited back at the Talley farm and got some more tasks completed. Jimmy has created a nice pad for us to use next to his shop.

From the kitchen door, Jimmy's shop, the Jeep in the foreground, and Miss Doozie around the right side of the shop on her "pad"

It is now just before Christmas, and we are at a RV service center in the DFW area getting some last items completed before, hopefully, heading west to Arizona for the winter. God willing, we hope to visit friends at Quartzsite, and then spend a bit of time in Yuma.

We don't have a lot of specific plans; DFW will continue to be our domicile, and we'll be back through the DFW area probably twice a year for doctor's appointments and just to keep up with things. We'll continue to visit the Talley farm -- but we're hoping the visits can become more "visits" and less "service calls"! We hope to visit the northeast during next summer. We would still like to visit family, friends, former co-workers in our travels. And we are praying that God will use us as we travel.

We hope you have enjoyed this update of our year. Patti tries to keep this blog / online diary updated every day or so with what we are doing; keep up with us, and let us know how you are doing also!

With Love -- Patti and Dwayne