10 May 2025 Fun in Meridian

 We drove over to the smalltown of Meridian, which is about halfway to Waco. We met our friends John and Cheryl there for lunch at the Cactus Café.  After lunch we went out to the Red Caboose winery where we did a wine tasting and sat around and talked until 5pm. The wines were good and all estate grown. Interestingly, they were unfiltered. A first for us.  They also have a RV park of the property, but the trees are hanging too low to get our big rig in. It was great to catch up with John and Cheryl and we all agreed this was so easy to arrange that we would need to do it again in the near future. 

18 April – 9 May 2025 Beautiful Spring

 All the trees have leafed out, the grass is growing and we are still waiting on our HOA. They finally got the check from the title company (Sent back on 18 March!) and recognize us as the new owners of lot 80, plot 19 of Cougar Mountain Estates. We sent the check for the review/approval of our house plans back on 24 April but they still haven’t gotten it. They must only check the PO Box once a month! Meantime we have met with three builders to get estimates. We drove around to see houses under construction by all three. Along the way, we stopped at the Revolver Brewery in Granbury for the first time. After sampling their beers, we know we will be back! We got two responses from the builders on Friday (9 May) and both gave David new grey hairs! The third decided not to propose. The two we received are considerably higher than they first lead us to believe. We told them what we are shooting for and asked them to provide us ideas on how we could cut the price down. #1 was move the house closer to the street. So we bought a 300ft long tape ruler and went out to the property on the 9^th and made our best estimate of where the rear patio would be based on the plot. We then walked toward the street until we decided we could go no further without losing too much of our desired view off the back patio. Then measured that estimated location to the street. We could move the house 55ft closer to the street which would reduce the concrete costs for the driveway and landscaping costs for sod and irrigation in the front yard. We also decided to reduce the width of the driveway from 20 ft to 15ft. We notified both builders of our changes. We went up to the pet groomer to pick up Keira and found ourselves right by the house designer’s office, so we stopped by and asked her to update the plot since the builder will need updated SQFT calculations and we will need the updated plot for the HOA review. Hopefully that will get us closer to our budget. 

Keg Riding

17 April 2025 House Design Complete

 Today we wrapped up the house design with our architect, Home Designs by Marcy. Marcy was great to work with and really helped resolve some design change issues. One of the big changes was we pushed the house back on the property to open up the view from the back porch. That of course made the driveway longer which will impact the cost due to the extra concrete. We may have to compromise and shorten the drive to bring the costs down. We will have to see. We have 8 copies of the plans. This coming week we have appointments with three builders to get estimates. They may also request some tweaks to the house design. We have started trying to work with the HOA to get our plans reviewed by the HOA Architecture Committee (HAC) which must approve our plans before we can break ground. But as of today, they still have not gotten the check for the HOA transfer and title transfer papers from the Title Company. The HAC will not look at our plans until the transfer is complete and they get a $650 check from us. Then they need 3 weeks to “review” the plans and submit any change requests. Arrrggg. We had hoped to break ground the beginning of May but it looks like that won’t happen until mid-May. Once they start, we are estimating 5-6 months to complete. So hopefully before Thanksgiving. Meantime, Leslie is getting bored sitting in one place so she has started to apply for jobs in the area. She interviewed for a position at our favorite winery, Lost Oak Winery, which went well. She just needs something to keep her active that is fun as well.

9 April 2025 Texas Land Barrons Again

 We closed on the property in Cougar Mountain Estates today. Most money either of us has every spent in one day! We had pushed up the closing date by a week, which the title company did not take into account when they generated the financials. So when we showed up with the Casher’s Check to close, we did not have the correct sum since they had to adjust the HOA fees and Taxes for the earlier closing. Luckily, Leslie had her check book with and we were able to write a personal check for the additional amount and close out the deal. We are the proud owners of 2.15 acres of Texas land!

18 March – 9 April 2025 Break through on our house hunt!

 When we met with a house builder we liked to get a feel for a house we liked, they mentioned a new development off Old Granbury Road south west of Cresson that they had heard about. The next day we checked out a house in Bear Creek Hills that had a lot of potential and on the way back went and investigated the Cougar Mountain subdivision. As we drove through, we saw most of the properties were already sold but a few were available through real-estate companies. The subdivision was formerly a part of the True Grit ranch and all the streets were named after characters in the movie True Grit. Since John Wayne is Davids favorite actor, it seemed serendipitous that we found several properties that we liked. We had our agent, Laurie, gather information on both areas. The property in Bear Creek Hills did not have a view, but it did have a perfect shop building, big enough to hold the Wanderer and give us plenty of room for David’s wood working. The house had solar install and a nice pool. But the house was 25 years old and was in need of $100K of renovations to the kitchen and bathrooms. We had Donny and Diane come over and tour the house to give us a second opinion. We decided to make an offer but it was well below what they were asking because of the renovations that would be required. We also picked out a property in Cougar Mountain we liked that had a wonderful view out over they Brazos Valley and made an offer on it. After some back and forth with both owners, we decided the house in Bear Creek Hills was not going to be able to come down to a price we were willing to pay. So we signed a contract to buy the lot in Cougar Mountain (Lot 80). We were able to negotiate a good price for the 2.15 acres. We had the property surveyed to make sure we knew where the lot lines were and found out the lot was further west than we thought and there was a dirt road running through the middle of it. After much angst, we were able to verify there was no easement and that it was just an old ranch road. So, we are going forth with the buy of the land this week. We will need to drill a well which should be about $20K to reach the first water layer called the Paluxy Aquifer. We have started working with Home Designs by Marcy based on a model home design of hers we saw that we really liked. We will get the house plans defined, then shop it around to several custom home builders to see what kind of price we can get. 

Sunset from the new property

8 March 2025 We Almost Learned to Fly

 

We were woken up at 5Am this morning when the whole trailer shuddered and then began bucking wildly in extremely high winds. We have experienced high winds before but nothing like this. For the first time we were worried we might actually flip and were holding on to the sides of the bed for dear life. Poor Keira flew up into our bed for reassurance. Then we got hit by extremely heavy rain and dime size hail that made it impossible to talk over the noise from the roof. We had received no warning this storm was coming, nothing from our weather apps on our phones or from the National Weather Service. We later learned a man had died a few miles north of us near Cresson when his trailer flipped and rolled multiple times. After the sun came up, we went out to inspect the damage. The trailers on either side of us suffered significant damage (Broken sky lights, tail lights, etc). One lady claims she heard the sound of a train believing it was a tornado. We found a few shallow dents in the hood and side of the truck but nothing broken on the Behemoth or Wanderer. A few days later, David got up on the roof and found the cooling fins on both air conditioners had taken a beating and would need work to open them back up for air flow. The rear air conditioner took the brunt of it. The front air conditioner seems to have been sheltered a bit by the TV satellite antenna. The antenna case for the Cellphone amplifier was broken, but we don’t use the system anyways. Otherwise, no damage to our vents, solar panels or sky light. Some of the RVs in the campground suffer over $8,000 damage. David later got on the roof and spent a day straightening the cooling fins and performed the yearly maintenance work on the air conditioners. Overall, we were lucky and the good Lord was watching over us. 

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.

Damaged Antenna

Damaged Cooling Fins on Rear Air Conditioner.with cover off

Fins on rear air conditioner after hours of straightening.

18-21 February 2025 Deep Freeze 2025

 We had four very cold days for Texas. We prepared ahead of time by filling up the fresh water tank and topping off the Propane Tanks on Friday. On Tuesday morning before the rain moved in, we disconnected the water line and put the hoses up. Then dumped the grey and black tanks. The low Wednesday morning was 12F with snow flurries and wind chills below zero. David had to go into the plant Wednesday and Thursday for work. We were initially concerned Wednesday morning that there might be ice on the roads, but fortunately it stopped raining before temperatures dropped below freezing Tuesday and the north winds dried up the roads. Between the electric fire place on the propane heat, we stayed warm and cozy. Thursday morning the temperature dipped down to 8F. When David got up in the morning, he found that no hot water was coming out of the faucets in the bathroom, but cold water was running. When he went downstairs, no water was coming out of the faucet at all and the trailer was chilly. A quick check showed only one furnace was running and the stove burners would barely lite.  After taking Keirra for a quick walk (no she did not want to be out in the cold either), David checked the propane tank and found it was frozen up. The lower half of the tank was covered in ice and the pressure gauge showed a very low level even though the tank was half full. When the temperature of propane tanks is low and the level of liquid propane in the tank is below a half, the propane does not flash into gas as easily, this results in a pressure drop in the tank and can ice up the gas valves. With the pressure low, only one furnace could run. David swapped us over to the backup propane tank and reset the furnaces. We also suspect that the low temperatures in the basement had resulted in the water in the valve tree freezing up and cutting off water. We had learned about these issues from a fellow New Horizon owner that winters over in Missoula Montana. He had told us how his propane tanks had iced up and his valve tree froze. He had to buy special electric tank warmers to keep his propane warm in the below zero weather in Montana. With both our furnaces now running, the trailer quickly warmed up but it took a couple of hours for the water lines to unfreeze and water flow freely. Fortunately, there are no water leaks. Later that night, while trying to close the front door, the lock was very stiff from the cold, David was pulling hard on the door lock handle and it broke off! There was just enough handle left in one corner that we were able to get the door to close and latch. David replaced the lock and handle over the weekend with a better version. We were very happy for the warmer weather to come back for the weekend! Meanwhile, we continue our search for our next home. 

Broken Lock Handle