Lots to report

Finally, we made it, we left Irving TX for the last time. We had everything ready to go, our 28 foot trailer was packed, the bug was hooked up to a tow bar, the bug was full of boxes, the wiring on the trailer and the bug (for the tail lights) were hooked up (and working properly). All we had to do was get in the vehicles and go, it was a some time after 1 pm and we heard a crash, I went outside to see what had happened, my husband's son had a car accident right outside, wow, we were minutes from leaving when this happened, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but fortunately everyone involved was OK, though both cars were totaled, the other person involved had to go to the hospital, but the officers and the fire personnel there told me she would be OK. Anyhoo, when we pulled out of the driveway, I looked at my watch and it said 4:30 pm.

The trip was fairly uneventful, after the first few miles, we realized that the trailer would hold up, the tires would hold up (on all the vehicles) and the load would hold up just fine. We had to stop to adjust the tarps once, that took about an hour, we couldn't just move one thing, it was like a big 3D puzzle, if you touched one thing, you had to move 3 other things, we finally got it straightened up and we were back on the road.

We arrived on my property at about 3:30 in the morning, the moon was all but full, we could see everything, including our breath, it was cold, COLD COLD! And the wind was blowing, I estimate around 15-20 MPH, gusting to 40 on occasion. Our cabin is not completed, it is, for the most part in the dry, meaning that our stuff inside doesn't get wet when it rains, but some of the walls are basically heavy builder's plastic and hog wire. We are sitting about 8 feet off the ground. I was really tired when we got in, once we got inside the cabin, I zonked out, even with all the rocking and rolling of the cabin, I told my husband that the cabin would fall whether I was awake or asleep, according to what our neighbor had told us, there had been heavier winds before and the cabin held up just fine, so I had confidence it would stay in one piece for one more night... fortunately I was right.

12-24-07

I found out the the wind gusts the first night were really close to 60-70 mph, and I believe it, but the cabin held up pretty well, nothing fell or blew off, even though it sounded and felt like something was about to give away a couple of times. Fortunately it has been calm each night since then, calm but cold. This morning it was 14 degrees F, that's COLD! Especially with no heat in the cabin.

Yesterday we completed our first big task, we installed the wood stove, it's a small one, can't put much more than twigs inside it, I'd say up to 3 maybe 4 inches in diameter, and maybe up to a foot and a half long. My brother in law made this wood stove, there are many talented people in my husband's family. This wood stove is really perfect for our little cabin, the only real drawback is since it's so small, you have to feed it sticks more often than we'd like to, my husband says he will probably install the big wood burning stove later on, but for now, the small one is working like a charm. We decided to celebrate by having our first movie night. Before I left Irving, I spent weeks downloading movies, tonight we decided to watch Eight Below, it's a great family movie, I recommend it, it was perfect, a few tears, a lot of laughs, we gave it 2 thumbs up.

We ate dinner at our neighbor's house, he has been such a great friend, we consider ourselves very lucky to have such a great neighbor and friend. He gave us a very nice Christmas card and gift, we really weren't expecting anything from him. I just don't know how we would have made it without him, though we would have made it, planned on making it just fine, but with his very generous hospitality, it's been so much smoother and nicer, they just don't get any better than he does!

We found out today that one of the people who is considered a cornerstone of this small community passed away, we only met him once, but knew the impact he had on this community, he will be greatly missed. Goodbye BugMan, I'm sorry we didn't get to know you better, but we know you are in a better place.