Settling into Our Next Home

Wait…this is the second post in one day? Yes, I’ve had this one in draft form for a few weeks also. 🙂

While we were having our last stay at the Pullman RV Park, our July 8 appointment to finalize the lease paperwork on the townhouse that we would begin renting was moved to July 6 on a moment’s notice. Knowing how to roll at the last minute, we quickly shifted gears. The bonus was being able to move things from the trailer before our Saturday, July 10 household move from storage to the townhouse. 

We’re grateful for our new-to-us home that we’re renting with 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms. There are no signs of mold, mildew, or water issues, which caused our move in May! Yay! The ground level has a bedroom and bathroom behind the garage. This is our office/guest room. In the hallway, there’s a washer and dryer behind two bi-fold doors. Upstairs is the master bedroom, master bathroom, and a half bath. As well, there is the kitchen, dining room, and living room in an open floor plan with a cathedral ceiling and two dormer windows. Off of the dining room there’s a small balcony that is perfect for two people. 

We have wonderful windows on the second floor, which is our primary living space. Much less traffic noise is experienced here. Since our move, we’ve seen nimble foxes scurrying on the nearby hill and heard quail with their comical calls. (Of course, they better heed the swiftness of the foxes). We have no yard, so we will be able to take trips without a need to arrange lawn care.

The two-car garage sits beneath the second floor and affords space that Steve has organized into bicycles, outdoor gear, trailer camping gear, tools, archive shelves, and project space. Our truck is too tall to fit, yet thankfully just squeezes its length onto the driveway.

From July 6-9, we cleaned the house and moved extraneous items from storage that we placed there after the movers moved the household to storage on May 8. We also moved from Tranquility the Trailer and cleared out the pickup bed. Next we cleaned and prepared the trailer for storage once again, and moved it back to RV storage on July 9. 

Move-in Day on July 10 was eventful…because, “Why not?” There were heat and air quality advisories . To make it more interesting, we locked ourselves out of the house 30 minutes before Steve was to meet the movers at storage across town. Thankfully, Palouse Locksmith was true to his word that he’d be here within 10 minutes. He even made two extra keys on the spot! Plus, we reached the mover’s team leader, who delayed leaving Moscow, Idaho a few minutes. Whew! It all worked out and Moscow Moving had us moved in three hours’ time. This was the same crew who moved us in May from the condo to the storage unit.

When we moved into the condo last year, we made do without a larger dining room table, bookcases, TV stand, and nightstands. Two weeks after we moved into the townhouse, we ordered all but the TV stand from the IKEA in Portland, Oregon. It was cheaper for the fuel and an overnight stay in a budget hotel than it would be to have the furniture shipped to Pullman. 

We left for Portland on July 21. We’ve not been to Portland since our full-time RVing travels took us there in November 2018. We took a route that would divert us from some of the smokier areas of Washington. The Columbia River Basin provided such a pretty drive as Interstate 84 paralleled the Columbia River. We timed our arrival at IKEA for 2pm. It worked pretty slick to have our order ready for pick-up. After we loaded, we decided to go into IKEA just in case they had TV stands and a bench seat/shoe rack. Thankfully those were in stock, so we added to the stack of furniture in the truck bed. (When we visited the IKEA in Denver back in June, many pieces of furniture were temporarily out of stock, likely due to the supply and demand during the pandemic as well as manufacturing and shipping disruptions.) Furniture loaded, we then enjoyed shopping at Target for bed linens and that grabbed an early dinner.

On our trip back to Pullman from Portland, we paused for an hour to take a short hike to the Bridal Veil Falls and the overlook of the Columbia River. To actually be on a trail was marvelous, yet the sound of the falls certainly served as a salve in the midst of our pace. The overlook would afford us a magnificent view of Sand Island in the Columbia River to the west of Bridal Veil Falls.

Once back to Pullman, we spent the better part of the next two days assembling furniture. With these added pieces, we felt like we could really unpack. There’s a good amount that has remained in boxes since July 2018 when we placed our Denver household in storage in order to begin our full-time RVing lifestyle.

It’s been a whirlwind summer with two moves! As we continue getting situated, we take advantage of the sidewalks on our hill for our walks. One of our favorite destinations is Military Hill Park, which gives us nice vistas towards Idaho and other parts of Pullman. We walk down our steep hill to the paved Grand Avenue Greenway trail that we walk to downtown Pullman to access Neill Public Library, coffee shops, and eateries. A bus stop is only three minutes uphill and we can connect to other routes at the Pullman Transit Transfer Station.

Staying in this home for a few years would be ideal. It would be nice to get more involved in the community once the Delta variant of the coronavirus becomes history.

“Living Life at the Speed of Sanity in the Palouse Region of Eastern Washington”

Diane & Steve