I’m sitting in the Minneapolis airport, waiting for a connecting flight to Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas. I’m spending four days in Houston helping my customer (Kelsey-Seybold Clinics) Go-Live on Epic’s software. Hopefully it will be a boring week for everyone involved. Early Friday morning, I fly back to Madison.
I brought my camera with me, if I get a chance I’ll take some pictures and post them later.
UPDATE: I’m here now. Our plan touched down at 11:00pm and I got to the hotel at 12:30am. Our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed about an hour and a half, so we got in about an hour and a half late. Right now, I’m trying not to think about the fact that I only get four and a half hours of sleep before I get up to help with the Go-Live. I’m really praying that tomorrow goes well.
Christine and I decided it was high time that we saw more of Wisconsin than just Madison and Milwaukee. Fall is here and we wanted to experience the great outdoors before doing so became a test of endurance. We drove up to Devil’s Lake State Park hoping to see the leaves in full variegated color. Unfortunately, we were about 2 weeks too early for that. Fortunately, it didn’t matter. We had a great time anyway.
We left the house around 1:30pm and headed out.
First, we had to stop and fill up the tank.
Using directions given to me by a co-worker, we decided to take the scenic route. We drove north on Route 12, then headed north-west on Route 188. Along the way, we passed some corn fields and more corn fields. Wisconsin may be known as the Dairy State, but I see far more corn around here than I do dairy cows. A short drive around the area will show you why ethanol is such a big deal in this state.
We spent about an hour and a half waiting for the
Merrimac Ferry.
It was okay though — we got to enjoy ice-cream while we waited. The Merrimac Ferry crosses the Lake Wisconsin (Indian for “dark waters”) and is the only free ferry in Wisconsin. It can carry 15 cars at a time, but it’s not a long trip or an oppressive wait.
Once we got to Devil’s Lake State Park, we spent a fair amount of time driving around the park, looking for a good trail to hike. Finally, we decided on the Parfrey Glenn waterfall route. The last half of the walk was quite spectacular and there was indeed a waterfall.
After we walked the trail, it was time to head home. We had a great tiem and we really enjoyed the opportunity to enjoy God’s creation and each other’s company. We’re already thinking about a return trip, once the baby arrives and Christine can do more walking.
View all of the pictures from this trip.
On August 15, we sat down with our Realtor, our mortgage banker, and a title representative to sign a thick stack of paperwork. On August 17, they sat down with the representatives of the estate of Cleo Ringhand and signed another thick stack of paperwork. With that, Christine and I officially became home owners. Along with that, we gained a heft mortgage and property tax bill. Ah… the American dream. (We now have the privilege of contributing towards the $5,238 that the Oregon school district spends per student.)
Before we bought the house, we had a home inspector go through it. He confirmed what we already knew: the house was older (probably built in the 60’s or early 70’s), but was structurally sound. There were four big areas of concern: the furnace was around 20 years old and near the end of its usable life. (It started out as an oil burner before being converted to natural gas.) The air conditioner was about the same age and was also near the end of its usable life. The roof is 20+ years old and doesn’t have long to go. Finally, the electrical outlets in the house were all ungrounded, two prong outlets.
Aside from those big ticket items, everything else in the house is in good shape. There’s still a lot of work we can do — the decor just screams “Grandma house” — but it will serve perfectly well even if we don’t change anything else. Still, those big ticket items were going to be expensive. So we did what any good American would do — we got someone else to pay for it. When we wrote the purchasing contract, we stipulated that the seller would put enough money in escrow for us to pay for half of the needed upgrades. They agreed and did.
We moved in on Saturday, August 26th. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been over a month in our new home. On the other hand, we finally have most of our stuff unpacked and arranged so we must have been in the house for a while!
I posted some pictures that we took of the move-in. We’re still planning on shooting a video walk-through of our new property, we just haven’t had time to actually do it yet.
