Closing Day

Today we make the final steps to purchase our new home. We are scheduled for a 2:30 this afternoon closing here in Corsicana and then the house will be ours. Hurricane Rita has forced us to delay our plans a bit because of the potential for heavy rains and the possibility of high winds. We were supposed to get a delivery of furniture on Saturday but we have canceled it until at least on Monday.

I-45 South is closed from Rice, TX, about 16 miles north of Corsicana, which created a bit of a problem for us getting to Corsicana yesterday. They don't expect any problems with water, although the local Walmart was completely sold out of water yesterday, but the possibility of losing power is quite high. We have decided to stay here in Corsicana through Sunday. If the weather is decent this afternoon we will take our new truck to the house and return to the RV park in Corsicana for the evening. If Rita continues moving east we will be on the western edge of the storm and shouldn't get hit too badly. The problem with that scenerio is that the New Orleans area will get hit again and that wouldn't be good.

As I mentioned above, we bought a new truck, new to us at least. It is a 2001 Ford 150 XLT with 62K miles. It seems to run great and drives like a dream. Tippy drove it to Corsicana yesterday and it reminded her of her old Lincoln. We felt we would need two vehicles and Tippy was pleased with the Jeep so we decided to get me a used truck as the second vehicle.

Our friend Dale will be driving some of our stuff to us and he will leave Henderson on Sunday morning and get here on Monday evening, hopefully after the bad weather is over. We will stay high and dry so don't worry about us and you be safe as well.

Vacant lot next door and lake

Trees and storage building

Storage Building

Back Yard

Front Door

Entry Way

The Wait

We are currently waiting for all of the stuff to get done so we can close the escrow on our new home. It appears that we will be able to close next Friday, September 23rd, so we are busy trying to get the things we will need to be comfortable. We found a nice furniture store here in Corsicana that sells Ashley furniture at terrific prices. They will deliver a truck full on Saturday. This isn't top of the line furniture but at the prices we can afford to change it, and update it, every few years if necessary. We have also ordered some modular computer furniture from Office Max and we are trying to select some new TV's as well.

It looks like I will join the pick-up truck gang. We need another vehicle and Tippy is happy to have the Jeep as her vehicle. Having a pick-up makes real good sense since we will have to haul a lot of stuff ourselves. We will look around while we are in Arlington next week and if we don't find anything there we will go to Tyler after we close on the house. David, Rachel, and Cole are coming over to dinner on Monday and we will shop on Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to Corsicana on Thursday.

I will post a couple of pictures I took yesterday when we dropped by the house. We were checking the mileage to stores and to Streetman where we pick up our mail. It is seven (7) miles to Streetman, town of 207, 29 miles to the Walmart in Mexia (Ma-Hi-Ah), a town of 6600 folks, and about 32 miles to the Walmart in Corsicana, 25,000 folks. Tyler will be about 60 miles and we will probably do most of our major shopping there.

Our friend Dale, from Henderson, has volunteered to drive our "stuff" to our new home. We will rent a U-haul truck for him to drive here and get him a plane ticket to get back home. This will be a really big help to us with everything else we are trying to do. It looks like he will try to get here around the 29th or 30th of September. More later, be safe.