We like this park because it's free and not too far from Houston. We will be here one more time before this excursion is over.
There is this meadow on the other side of the park and every morning, a big herd of deer are out there eating breakfast. They are usually gone by noon. We see them at other places in the park, just not as consistently as this meadow in the morning.
We also see these little guys flying around the oak trees.
This is our last day here in Columbus. We move to Lake Livingston next and start dealing with moving stuff. We still have a storage unit in Sacramento that we need to move up here. From now until November 1, we will be in the Houston area so we will make the most of it by moving the stuff from California to Houston.
I have already reserved a 16' trailer for October 10. Here is the plan. In October we have an RV spot for the whole month. We plan on leaving the fifth wheel in Houston and driving the rented trailer all the way to Cameron Park. We will stay with Suzanne and Tom while we load up the trailer with our stuff, then we turn around and drive all the way back.
Believe it or not, but it is cheaper to rent a trailer for 2 weeks in Houston, than it is rent a one way U-Haul trailer in California for 5 days. I don't even want to talk about renting a U-Haul truck one way or even using PODS. It would be cheaper to buy a trailer than it would to use a U-Haul truck or PODS.
We plan on driving 500 miles each day. That will take us to Fort Stockton to Tucson to Barstow to Cameron Park. 4 days of driving 8 hours. We will only spend one day loading the trailer, then turning around and making the same trip back to Texas.
House News:
We had our pre-drywall inspection last Monday. We also hired a home inspector to look at the place while they can see inside everything.
The walkthrough went fairly well. We did find some things we paid for that they didn't do. We paid for an electric plug above the fireplace for the TV that was missing. We also paid for an electric plug in the walk-in closet that was missed. We paid for 2 electrical plugs outside under the eaves for Christmas lights that they forgot to put in. They have a week to fix things and we will come back and check that everything has been done.
It wasn't missed, but we asked them to move the living room ceiling fan. They put it way too close to the wall. We need it moved 2 feet more out into the room.
The big problems came from the home inspector. He found some safety straps that bolt the frame to the slab that weren't attached yet. They had already put up the moisture barrier up so they will have to cut that and tape it back up. The inspector said we need to check that after they fix it to make sure they taped it up right. He is concerned because their taping quality was bad already. Tape was peeling off the moisture barrier and there were gaps. Gaps mean that the moisture barrier is not a barrier.
The big screw up was with the windows. They put up the siding before they put in the windows. This was bad because in some places, they put the window flashing on top of the siding. In other places, they cut off siding, put in the flashing and left a big gap between the siding and the windows. Basically, they need to take all the siding off, re-do the windows with the flashing and insulation done correctly, then put new siding back on. The builder said they will re-do it.
I took over 80 pictures of the inside of the house. If we are ever doing any work, then we will know where all the stuff inside the walls are. Most of the pictures look like this.
This is the kitchen wall with lots of plumbing and electric lines running around. Once I had all 80 pictures on the iPad, I had to label each one with where it is in the house so I won't forget which picture of studs goes where in the house.
Here is the back of the house where all the windows are.
Here is a picture of the property line. I drew a yellow line along the property line.
I put this picture in to show everyone some of the large trees we will have. In fact, we will have 11 large, mature trees. Some are pines, some liquid amber trees, and some I don't recognize. Besides the 11 big trees, we have this little grove of trees.
I don't know if all of those trees will make it. I will definitely have to take out the little tiny ones. I think we will keep 4 for now. Once they get bigger, I may need to do some more thinning.
Here is a picture of a gecko to close out the blog. It was running up the wall of the real estate office. It's a very green lizard.
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