Still not much going on yet.

The yard sale was awesome. We sold all of our big stuff right away. We were told that we were wayyyy under priced. That's OK. We got what we wanted out of it and it got it sold. We still have lots of littles left. We will be taking them to an auction somewhere.
Haven't gotten alot done in the trailer. We bought flooring to put down in the dining area but just haven't put it in yet.
We still have one wall to fix over here by my desk but can't fix it till we stop a leak.
We need to coat the top but can't do that until it is warm enough.
So for now we have covered the top with tarps so there will be no further damage. And are waiting for just one decent day of warm weather.
We turned the heater on for the first time and thank god it works just fine.
It sure is cold in here though. Never thought it would be like this. Hasn't even snowed yet. BRRRRRRRR
We did get a new truck though. YAYYYYY
It's a nice big 1 ton dually. If this won't pull it nothing will. Ha Ha
Sold our other one after we got it fixed.
We have had a couple of people look at the house. Still have to sell it before we take off.
I sure hope it's soon. We may just end up putting it on the market and letting a realtor sell it so we can go.
We are both getting very anxious and don't want to sit around much longer.

Good to Bad to Hopefully Better

WOW, Has it really been a month since I last wrote. Time goes by just way to quick.
We got home from Las Vegas and started right in on getting our yard sale together. I don't think anyone really realizes what all they own until they start going through it all. WE HAD NO IDEA. Of course we also have to think, we just closed down a large booth in an antique mall, have over 2,000 items from eBay, have half our inventory still left from a video store business that we owned 5 years ago and everything from 3 kids and 23 years of collecting. WOW. we sure do have alot. We have been working for a solid week now and have our 3 car garage and house packed full of stuff to get rid of. We will be having our yard sale the first weekend in October. I can't wait to see it all go.
We advertised our car the first week we were back and sold it to the first person that came to look at it. I cried. My husband bought it for me for my birthday 5 years ago.
Well, now that we have sold our other means of transportation our transmission has decided to go out on our truck. Can you believe that. Isn't that how things always happen though. So now we have to get it fixed before we can sell it to get a larger truck to pull our trailer. One of these days we are going to take that trailer and go traveling. I just hope it's soon.

Las Vegas - Vacation and Business Prospects

We are still having fun on vacation. Sure wish we had our trailer and were able to stay longer.
Now we are in Arizona relaxing for a few days. It's been great except for my internet card not working for a few days.
We found some great business prospects at the ASD show in Las Vegas.
We are very excited now to get home and finish the work on the trailer and to get everything sold off so we can start our new journey.

Side Trip to California - Vacation - Las Vegas

Well, We had to call a hault to working on the trailer. One of our kids needed to take a trip to California. So off we go. :0) We wanted to go anyway because my parents live in Arizona so we will be able to visit them and there is a merchandising trade show in Las Vegas. Might as well do it all since we will be out that way. We are stopped off at Arizona right now to spend the night at my parents and then we will head to Los Angeles to drop our daughter off. Then from there we will be going to Las Vegas for the trade show. The trip has gone great so far and the weather has been wonderful. Can't wait to go to Vegas. We haven't been there in several years. Won't be gambling too much. Ha Ha. Just a alot of site seeing. I will post some pictures when we get back. We are trying to find some different merchandise to carry when we start traveling in the trailer. Hope we will be able to find something really interesting. I will let ya know how it goes.

Trailer Repairs

WOW, This really is seeming to take a long time. Of course family things keep coming up so that doesn't make it any faster. And also my husband can't do a whole lot at one time because of his back. We have been out to California to pick up our daughter and then to Arizona from there to visit my parents for a few days. It was a nice trip. Wish we could have taken the trailer, but it is torn down at the moment. And then we have another daughter that seems to have a problem vehicle and we are constantly going to fix her truck at all hours of the day and night. I thought once they moved out we could take a breather and not have to worry about all this. WRONG. Oh well. That's what we are hear for. My husband has done most of the work on the trailer by himself so far. He has completely fixed one corner of the slide out so far. He has done a really good job. It's been a real learning experience. When he gets done we will have to replace the carpet on the slide out. Actually I have been thinking about putting in wood flooring. I think it would look nicer. And we will have to repaint the whole inside. He hade to replace most of the walls on the one side and probably will on the other. That's OK with me though. It will probably make it feel that much more like home. Here is one of the pictures of the rotted wood and floor. And the one wall had to be completaly torn out and redone.

Well, Just think. One down and two more bad spots to go. I don't think they are as bad though.

Well, We are getting ready this time to take off for Las Vegas for a week so we will continue on the trailer when we get back.

Oh No

Well, We didn't have a show this weekend so I decided to go out and work on the trailer. Trying to decorate it and make it feel homey. We are(were) hoping to go to a 3 day sale this next weekend. So I was also loading some things to get ready to take it for the first time. I was checking all storage and new that the benches for the table should be hollow so I could put extra things there. When I took the pads off I noticed the wood had been nailed down. So I enlisted my husbands help and we got the first one loose. Wow what extra storage room we are going to have. The space was huge. So we started on the next one. Had a little trouble with this one but it finally came free. And to our shock the carpet was all black in the corner and so was the wall. Oh my gosh, a leak. We pressed on the floor in the corner and it just completely gave way. The wall was the same way. We sure didn't expect this. This is on the slide out. YUCK. So we got to looking around and when we moved the couch it was the same way in the opposite corner. :( What are we going to do???
Well, The only thing we can do. We have to tear it all out and repair it. We aren't carpenters but boy are we gonna give it a shot. We got our tools and carefully tried to remove the remainders of the bench on the bad side. The back of the bench was so damaged we decided to just tear it out and we will probably put in a table and 4 chairs instead of replacing the bench. Once we got the first part of the wall torn out down to the metal of the outside we notice small holes all along the outside metal. We went outside and notice it on both sides of the slide out.
So now we have to figure out what is going on and if it's corrosion, how to stop it.
We will keep posting as we go and will also add pictures as I get them.

Our first Craft Show

We finally did our first craft show yesterday. We have always done flea markets on and off but forgot how much work it is. Everything went pretty smooth except our tables were too big so there wasn't much room to get into the booth. People didn't seem to like that so they didn't come in. We brought way to much but I guess I would rather have it that way than not enough.

We had great neighbors that shared allot of info.

We really began to worry that we had the wrong stuff or was priced too high because an hour in and we still hadn't sold anything. Finally a sale. Hopefully that would start a trend. Welllll, It really didn't. Sales were really few and far between.

Our neighbors finally shared with us that this was a real slow show and that they probably wouldn't be back. We talked to several other vendors and they said the same thing.

So, It wasn't just us. WHEW I'm glad to here that.

We didn't plan on doing another show for several weeks since we wanted to try and get the house ready for sale but several people told us of one that we needed to try this weekend. They said it should boost our spirits. That it's a better show.

We will think on it.

Home at last, Our BIG Decision

We made it here finally and once we got the trailer level we had absolutely no leaks. We have allot to learn. We didn't even level it right, but for now it will have to do. We've been going through checking things and learning lots as we go.
WE MADE THE BIG DECISION.
We decided to go ahead and sell the house. We called out a realtor and she informed us that we have 2 small leaks that need to be fixed before we would be able to list it at the price we want. Actually we need to just re roof a whole side of the house. We are going to buy the shingles and some relatives are going to come over and help.
In the mean time we have been working our butts off making things to sell at our first craft show on June 13. I hope we are all ready. It's just a one day show so we won't be taking the trailer this time.
We are hoping to have our first yard sale at the house the second weekend in July. wanted it the first weekend but that's the 4th so I don't think that will be good. That means we have lots and lots to do. We have to go through the whole house and pack everything that we are going to keep and price everything else. I am just going to open up the house and let them in.
It's going to be VERY HARD to watch people walk away with what has taken all our lives to accumulate but that is part of what we are deciding to do.
We will be putting our keepers in a climate controlled storage unit. We thought that would be best.

Trip Home

Well we are on our way. Usually I do all the driving but I thought that I would let Randy start out this time since neither of us had ever pulled a fifth wheel. And this thing is sooo big. We hit some bad weather but everything went great. We left at 4 pm and finally decided to stop for the night at 8:30. We stayed in a Wal Mart parking lot. We don't even know where we are.
We didn't have any water so we had to use Wal Mart for the restrooms also. Boy, Let me tell ya. That was a very looooong walk in the morning. We both had to go so bad. It stormed all night and it was very hot and muggy. We didn't know how to work the air so we didn't get much sleep at all. We sweated it out all night. We also didn't know anything about leveling and we left the slide out in so when it rained water was just gushing in through the slide out. We also had a leak at one of the windows.
Did we make a mistake here? It didn't look like it had leaked before but were we wrong????

May 14, We left out early since we couldn't sleep. Hit an awesome Lightning storm. I love harsh weather. I need to find a better camera so I can catch things like that. Mine is really slow. We had a good trip the rest of the way. No problems. when we got home we had to back all the way down our driveway but that was fine. Randy is very good at backing up. We had to do some trimming on one of our trees first but that was fine.
WE ARE FINALLY HOME

Trip to Alabama and picking up the trailer

May 12, So here we go. We leave at 6:30 in the morning and have an absolutely wonderful trip. No problems at all which is very unlike us. We did make a stop on the way at a travel trailer sales place because we needed a bolt for the fifth wheel. While we were there I asked Randy to just check and see if a worker would tell us that the hitch was in right. I am always the worry wart. I thank God that I am too. We pulled around to the service area and several guys came out to look at it and said we had it way to far back. We got measurements off the net for a long bed and ours was a short bed. OHHHH BOYYYY. These guys were the best though. They went and got us install instructions for our make of fifth wheel so we would know exactly what we were doing. I am really glad Randy came prepared for something like this. He had brought all his tools in case there was a problem. He figured we would move it when we got to where the trailer was.
We make it there at 5:30 in the evening and hope to just move the hitch, hook on and take it down the road to a local Wal Mart and spend the night. Well, They got the hitch moved and we got hooked up. Then comes the lights. We hooked them up but couldn't get them to work. Randy and the owner of the trailer must have worked on them for about 2 hours. The guy had to go to work in a couple of hours so we decided to call it a night and find a motel. We would figure it out in the morning.

May 13, We decided to have a local guy fix the wiring on the truck. he ended up having to rewire the whole thing. It only took him a little over an hour so I guess that wasn't too bad. We got back to the trailer and started backing up and lo and behold we got freakin stuck. It had rained for 2 weeks straight so the ground was awful and for some reaason when they parked this trailer they put it on a cement pad but left it hanging out to where the truck was in the dirt to hook up. And there was no taking it out forward, it had to be backed out and the cement pad was about 3 inches thick that you would have to get over. So here we are, stuck and not able to get our trailer. I new the first day of our trip was too good to be true. After much work we finally got the truck out and ended up waiting on the owner to get off work so he could push the trailer back far enough for us to get the truck on the cement pad.
finally got it all done, hooked up and ready to go. We do a walk around to make sure everything is fine and then check the lights AND WE HAVE NONE. Oh boy. Decided to just take it all down to the guy that did the wiring. Got down there and turned the switch on for him and everything was working. At this point you just have to laugh. This is how it always is for us.

Days Before Trip

Welllll, You know them things that you always plan on doing but never get done. This is where the work on our truck begins. There were things that we just kept putting off but now they had to be done so we could make the trip. My husband called his cousin who is a wonderful person and always helps him when he can. He came over and they got the breaks and shocks changed and did a little transmission work. And you know guys working on a vehicle. It takes more than one trip to the parts store to get the right pieces. I guess if we didn't live 25 miles away it wouldn't have been so bad. So this was an all day thing.
Then came installing the fifth wheel hitch. We didn't know a thing about it. Never had one. I looked at several sites and posts on the net and got the measurements of where it was supposed to go. So here goes another day of working on the vehicle. They finally got it done though.
So here we are ready to leave in the morning to get our new trailer.

Looking for a Trailer

OK, So lets go back about a month and a half. We decided that we were going to have to make a living on our own. We knew that anyone hiring either of us was a long shot. My husband with his bad back and I have severe problems with my feet. So we decided to be self employed. I have been selling on eBay for years now. It has definately helped when he was unemployed due to his surgeries. And we have owned several businesses so it's nothing new for us. We thought we would look for a travel trailer and stay local and hit the craft shows and flea markets.

We started our very interesting journey of looking for a travel trailer. We checked the papers, eBay and even Craigs list. We looked at so many with so many promises till we got there to see them. We have seen water leaks, torn up floors no furniture inside, no appliances, rotted walls falling down, nasty smelly, you nname it. We even had a guy tell us one just needed a little work and when we got there it had been completely gutted. UGH. We had another guy tell us that he owned a lot and had about 15 of them. We traveled several hours for that one and came up so very disappointed. We just knew we were going to find one that day. Ha Ha. I think the newest one he had was an 87 model. These were all so nasty and dirty and torn up. I would have been so embarassed to let someone inside. We finally left there and on the way home got a paper and found one in there. We called and got the address to go see it. The guy said it was in EXCELLENT condition. I just about croaked when we got there. It was just as bad as the others. My husband was trying not to be rude so he stayed and talked a bit. Come to find out he was one of the guys that owned some of the trailers at the lot we had just went to. Of all the dumb luck.

After much traveling we found one that we both really really liked that was only about 20 minutes from home but they wanted more than we had to spend. We made an offer but they just couldn't do it. We understood. You can only do so much.

We then found one on the internet and I contacted them. It was wonderful in the pictures. I found out though that it was too big for our 1/2 ton pick up. It was a huge fifth wheel. So we just sort of quit looking.

One day out of the blue the lady with the fifth wheel on eBay contacted us. They had sold it but the buyer back out. Couldn't get the money. Why would someone bid on something that they don't have the money for????? Beats me. I asked her again about the trailer weight and she said they had taken it down and had it checked and it weighed out about 2500 less than what they thought. Now our pickup should pull it. OH MY GOSH Do we really do this. If we do then there is no going back. Almost every penny we have is going to go into this. We talked for awhile and looked at it again and again and decided YES! Lets do it. There is no going back now. We have to press on. We had to go all the way to Alabama from Oklahoma to get it but at the price it was worth it. Our new journey is now beginning. Next post will be our preperations and all about our eventful trip.

Lets go to the beginning

Well, I'm not going to go to the very beginning because that would be a book in itself.
I'll just start back far enough to let you know how all this started. We have had very very hard times with few easy times so this is just another adventure. My husband had his fourth back surgery and that is what is starting all of this. He has finally been released to go back to work with a 30 pound weight restriction. Who is going to hire anyone with that hanging over them. Plus he is in so much pain all the time that he can't sit or stand for long periods of time. He has had a very small disability check coming in but now that he has been released it will stop.
We have always wanted to travel and have always been in sales so we are discussing going on the road and selling at craft shows. We would like to stick with just selling at Western events and Pow Wows but right now we will do craft shows also.
We have not decided yet to do this full time. We are going to give it a try while staying close to home and see how it goes. We don't have much time though before we don't have any money and we start losing everything.
I think our hardest thing is to give up our house. It took us 23 years to find our place(its perfect) and now we hate to give it up. We thought we would be here till the end. The bad thing is we are both not physically able to do the upkeep and take care of the yard(it's about 1 1/2 football fields). We are still talking about this.
Then it would come down to what do we keep and store and what do we get rid of?????
WOW, I thought this would be an easy decision. I should know better. Nothing in our lives has ever been easy.