Continuous Travelers – Yes, But When?

“Yes, but when,” has been our favorite (overused) phrase during the last few weeks. When growing up, my mother often reminded me, “Patience is a virtue.” Mine, and Reg’s too, was recently put to the test. But let me backtrack…

To catch you up, Reg and I are entering our eighth month of living in our trailer. Since the end of March, we’ve been camped out in Virginia near the small-ish town of Staunton (pronounced Stanton). Overall, it’s been pretty great, but there are times we crave more space. Our goal is to find a new place to call home, hopefully one with his and hers bathroom sinks and a solid foundation without wheels.
We feel lucky to have found such a beautiful spot to stay (where the wildlife is friendly) as we search for a permanent address.

Nearly a month ago it seemed as though we had found our paradise. A brand new nearly finished house, one that had more than we needed, but everything that we wanted. The neighborhood felt like home. We quickly found a realtor. Luckily, she’s been excellent. We were told the house could be ready in two weeks. Our realtor looked at us with raised eyebrows.
Meanwhile, we forged ahead, checking out furniture stores and mentally arranging our fantasy furniture purchases. We should have known better.

We were given a closing date and scheduled an inspection several days before. Yay…very exciting…until we showed up to a home where not much had changed in three weeks. Needless to say, our inspector gave us a big thumbs down. So, we pushed everything a week ahead and all dutifully showed up again. Our realtor, her colleague, Reg and I wandered around with rolls of blue tape marking all the imperfections, and perceived needed fixes we could see. There was a lot of blue tape…everywhere.
Still, we were hopeful until…

A last look at the front porch had us all turning our heads askew. Out came the level only to show the porch roof was off by about two inches. Ugh! How did that happen and how could that be fixed?
This is where patience could have been a big help…or maybe not. We were done, feeling the lack of progress, unmet deadlines and hundreds and hundreds of square feet of dying sod might not be a good investment for such a chunk of our life savings.
So we threw patience out the damaged living room window we found, and backed out of our contract. Not very virtuous of us, but we’re sleeping better.

Will we ever have a home to live in? Yes, but when?