After the "Near Miss," We Scored a Hit!

The search for a new home had been spanning four months, (see the previous two entries) and now we were taking a break that nearly was disastrous, but fortunately averted.

The arrival in Ellensburg was several hours later than planned, after attempting to find a welder who could make some repairs to the RV hitch, but it just couldn't get done.

Kitchen is updated and easy to use.

Everyone was pretty glad to see us, realizing after hearing the story of the angelic guy who stopped us, how close we had come to a different scenario for the day.

After the party, we returned to the Vantage campsite (almost the same one we were at five months prior) and started reviewing properties in the local area, more as entertainment than anything else. One popped up as being a "For Sale By Owner" in Moses Lake. Only an hour from Vantage, Wayne suggested we just go for a drive and see the area the next day. We made plans with his son-in-law, Wayne Smith, to meet up in Ephrata, also near by.

Living room as seen from the kitchen. master bedroom is
seen to right down the hall.

So on Friday morning, Oct. 5, we drove to the property and the owners were outside working on the yard. We asked if we could walk around and they invited us inside, showed us everything, and we were surprised both at the size and the cleanliness of everything. After looking, we said we had some other places to visit and we drove off to view them. But after less than an hour, we were back, wanting to talk to the owners again about accepting an offer.

Master bedroom has an east-facing window.

Second bath, updated, too.

To shorten the story, here we are just a week later with a signed offer all the way around, the home inspection is tomorrow, we have preliminary loan approval and everyone is hoping for a closing mid-November.

One of the three bedrooms ...

Plenty of yard for Wayne's gardening...

Property is just under an acre of good soil.

An added bonus is a back shed for art or storage.

It started to rain so the house doesn't look its best here, but
its got three bedrooms, two baths and two bays of garage.

Back side of the house; porches both front and back.

We are pretty excited to have found a place that meets all our wants and needs, and all the children are relieved to know their dad will be living closer. We spent several days exploring Moses Lake, finding stores, getting the well tested, and enjoying some of the restaurants here. We will have square dance connections and know where we can ballroom dance once a week.

Moving to this area also means that our long-distance RV trips can get started more effectively without having to drive three hours off the Olympic Peninsula. Moses Lake is an hour and a half from Spokane, also from Yakima, an hour from Wenatchee and Ellensburg, and about three hours from Seattle.

While we will miss our friends in Sequim, Gardiner, Port Angeles, Quilcene, Forks and other places on the Peninsula, we can still visit them and they are more than welcome to come and visit us. We are just off I-90 and we have guest rooms!