The road home, as seen through the windshield of a Chevy Express van stuffed to the ceiling with excess property.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (MDM) — After getting the traditionally late start — O’Grady Standard Time is more than a few hours behind whatever you’re using — I rolled into Duke City at dark-thirty on Thursday with the last of our bits from Bibleburg and a killer backache.
And as of 4 p.m. yesterday, the former Chez Dog and its mortgage payment are in the hands of a 21-year-old student teacher. Now, if we can just get rid of the other two houses, I can finally achieve my dream of living in a van down by the river.
There will need to be a chiropractor’s van parked nearby, though, if I plan on lifting anything heavier than a cooler or a camp stove.
Tags: Albuquerque, Bibleburg, Chez Dog, El Rancho Pendejo
December 12, 2015 at 9:46 am |
I hope your back gets better. I’m sorry if this is hijacking your thread, but I was hoping you might do a posting on Eric DeVlaeminck’s passing last week since he was quite the cyclocross racer.
December 12, 2015 at 10:42 am |
Thanks, Doug. I was so focused on getting the place ready for its new owner that I basically ignored all news, and so missed Eric’s departure. I even avoided NPR, spending the week lifting and carrying to a soundtrack of classical music from KCME-FM.
December 12, 2015 at 10:46 am |
With all you’ve had going on and knowing your love of Cyclocross, I figured that it just got by you. I hope your back and the rest of you are feeling better !
December 12, 2015 at 10:39 am |
PO’G: Glad to hear you made it back to Duke City safely….if not quite totally healthy. Speedy recovery!!
December 12, 2015 at 10:44 am |
I’ll get there, JD. This is a hangover from the bad old days of delivering heavy appliances for Downings up Greeley way. The things college students will do for beer money. I should’ve stuck to selling weed.
December 12, 2015 at 11:30 am |
One less landlord hassle can’t be bad. We’re getting rid of stuff here at Casa CycleItalia since hauling pretty much anything over to Italy is expensive. We’ve been slowly taking things we want over there but can do without here for years. There’s still a lot to get rid of over here while still keeping enough toys to play with. Hope your back gets better soon so you can climb back on a bicycle. We’re off to sponge off the in-laws in Santa Barbara until early January. I’m keeping my weather fingers crossed!!!
December 12, 2015 at 1:19 pm |
One down, one to go, Larry. Our tenant Judy is a tough ol’ gal, though, and I expect she’ll be in The House Back East® for a while yet.
I got exactly two bike rides in this past week: one to Enterprise to pick up the van, and the other back home after returning the van. A grand total of seven miles. Ay, Chihuahua.
December 12, 2015 at 2:20 pm |
That’s one more ride than I did this week, though my one ride barely beat out your two for distance. David R’s going to ride slow with me while we’re out in SoCal, the question will be which one of us is in worse shape? I doubt I’ll be slogging up Gibraltar Road this year even though ToC is supposed to climb it in 2016?
December 12, 2015 at 11:42 am |
Welcome home! The closing must have been bittersweet. Cold and rainy/snowy down here, so just futzing around the kitchen getting lunch ready. Might sneak a ride in tomorrow if it gets to the advertised high of 51!
December 12, 2015 at 11:48 am |
PS: At 1147 AM it is snowing. I call bullshit on that. I want my Arizona tax money back.
December 12, 2015 at 1:22 pm |
Sheesh. Bullshit indeed. We had a pretty stout rain with a bit of sleet earlier, which encouraged me to stay indoors to unpack boxes and put stuff away. Now my back is killing me again. I will never be smart. I’d go for a freshly cloned body in a heartbeat if I could upgrade the brain along with another undersized item (harumph) or two.
December 12, 2015 at 2:18 pm |
Ah, the curse of the Irish. I didn’t get a harumph from that guy!
December 12, 2015 at 4:15 pm |
I’m impressed as hell that a 21-year-old student teacher can afford to buy a house. It took me till my mid 30s to do that, (granted there was a bit of country swapping prior).
House prices down here in Auckland are insane, my 1920’s wooden cottage would go for well over a million, I’m seriously thinking about selling up & moving south to take early retirement.
Did I mention that it’s summer down here in GodsZone?
December 12, 2015 at 6:17 pm |
21 year old student teacher? Wow. I’m surprised anyone that young and still student teaching could qualify for a mortgage. Unless the Mom and Pop Savings and Loan co-signed. That’s how my better half qualified for her first place but she was an instructor at a community college back then.
Bit of a lousy day up here. Halfway to Fanta Se this morning the Tacoma suddenly started veering all over the place as though it or I were breathing a 0.32. Pulled to the side of the road and couldn’t find anything obvious. So we made a U turn on NM 502 and headed back to bombtown. The truck, when turning around, made horrible grinding sounds and then started ticking as we limped back to our mechanic’s garage, where we dropped it off and caught a ride home from our neighbors. I’m hoping I just blew out a CV joint.
December 12, 2015 at 8:28 pm |
Hurben, Khal, there were three buyers in our little transaction. The youngest is the one who gets to live there. I shall say no more.
Khal, that sounds like fun, except for the not-fun part. Hope you get a cheap fix out of the deal. I never blew a CV joint in our Tacoma, but we swapped it for the Forester after less than 150,000 miles, which is nothing for a Toy. I recall doing some tranny work early on, but the details elude me. For sure we were beating the snot out of that truck on the indifferently maintained dirt roads of Crusty County. Fingers crossed.
December 13, 2015 at 8:37 pm |
That is a much nicer “van down by the river” than I was thinking of …