July 9, 2001

Arlene and I are trying to settle into life on Mirador in the Chula Vista Marina which is 10 miles south of San Diego. We arrived here about 8:30 Friday evening, July 6 after a 3 1/2 day drive from Tacoma. Chula Vista is on the Mexican border, 1225 miles south of Tacoma on Interstate 5.

The last three weeks have probably been the most stressful, traumatic, and trying weeks we have ever endured. The final weeks before we closed on the sale of our house were very disturbing due to an incompetent real estate agent, an escrow company that did not do its job, home buyers who could not make up their mind when they wanted to take possession, and just to top it off, a truck rental company that reneged on it's promise to provide a truck for us to drive to San Diego and charities that failed to pickup donations.

On June19 the folks buying our home asked us to postpone, due to a "family emergency", the July 2 closing on the sale until July 9. We only talked to the buyers one time about the matter. After the initial phone call we asked our real estate agent, who was the listing agent and the selling agent, to coordinate changing the closing date. After 36 hours and many phone calls; our agent said that the new buyers had to postpone closing to July 9 and begged us to agree to the change. Since Arlene had quit work on June 18, we were very reluctant to commit to making another week of mortgage, insurance, and utility payments. Finally, in mid-afternoon June 21 we agreed to postpone the closing until July 9.

An hour later we called the agent back to confirm that if we changed the closing date to July 9 and Arlene returned to work the date could not be changed back to any earlier date. Our agent swore to us that he had confirmed everything with the buyers. Arlene returned to work the evening of June 21. On June 23, the buyers informed us that they wanted to close on July 2 as originally planned. Subsequently, the agent negotiated a deal that we would all sign the papers on July 2 but make possession effective 9 PM July 9. The buyers refused to put any of the changes into writing. We agreed to make mortgage, insurance, and utility payments thru July 9.

On Wednesday June 27 the buyers informed us that they expected us out at 9 PM July 2 and they would take the necessary steps to ensure we were not in the house after July 2. By that date, we had changed all our schedules to fit a July 9 possession date. Arlene was scheduled to work thru July 4, the moving truck was scheduled for July 9, the carpet cleaners and house cleaners were scheduled for July 9, etc.

The buyers told us that our agent never had their approval or permission to commit to a July 9 possession date. They deny he ever discussed the matter with them. Our agent will not tell us if he talked to the buyers but now tells us that we changed the closing date on our own volition, knowing that the buyers might object.

We tried to sign the closing documents on Friday evening, June 29. During June we, the buyers, their real estate attorney, and our real estate attorney had worked out a letter of understanding, which was to be a legal addendum to the sales agreement, about a critical detail of the house sale. We all agreed to the letter of understanding on June 27, but the buyers refused to sign it, saying, "all legal documents will be signed in the escrow office at closing." When we arrived at the escrow office on Friday afternoon we found the buyers had hand written in a change to the letter of understanding. They left us a note saying we had to initial the change and accept it as is. If we did not sign the closing documents on Friday their bank would not be able to transfer the money on July 2nd and the deal would be dead since it would not close on July 2 as we agreed it would.

That change was almost the final blow that would cause us to cancel the sale. We informed the escrow company that we would not sign the documents, called our agent to tell him about the problem, and then left. Half an hour later the escrow company called us to say that the buyers had deleted their change to the letter of understanding but that we had to sign the documents within 20 minutes in order for the money and the title transfer to occur on Monday. It was at that point that we also noticed the real estate agent had "miscalculated" his commission.

Miraculously, the error gave him $500 more commission than the sales agreement specified. I had talked to escrow and the agent about this error 10 days earlier. The agent swore that he had notified the escrow office of the error and the correct amount. The escrow office swears they received no such information. A last minute FAX from the broker corrected the commission problem.

Many hard words followed over the weekend. On Sunday evening, July 1 the buyers again informed us that they would be at the door at 9 PM July 2 with legal authorities to take possession of their home. They did not plan to move into the house until late July. They just wanted us out.

At 8 PM July 2nd we locked the doors to our home of 19 years and left for a nearby motel.

Unfortunately, the house fiasco was just one of several we suffered.

We planned a yard sale for June 22&23 and placed an ad in the local newspaper to run Friday-Sunday. At 7:15 AM on Saturday June 16 we found people lined up at our front door waiting for the yard sale to begin. The paper had mistakenly run the ad on Friday, June 15. They printed a correction on Saturday but many people were at the door before the Saturday paper containing the correction was delivered.

We planned to donate much of our furniture, kitchen stuff, books, and clothes to several charities. During the last week, all three charities decided they didn't have enough help available to pickup the donations. Eventually I ended up delivering 25 boxes of books to a community college, four truck loads of stuff to St. Vincent dePaul, 40 bags of clothes to ARC. Then I had to make 10 runs to the dump to dispose of stuff that no one wanted. The truck I was driving was a 12' Ford Econoline CargoVan that held a prodigous amount of stuff.

We had reserved a different 12' Ford Econoline CargoVan to drive to San Diego because we wanted air conditioning, cruise control, a radio, and seats that adjusted. When we arrived at the rental location at 11 AM July 2, we were told there were no Econolines available. They offered us an Isuzu commercial truck, complete with diesel and a 15' bed and 8' high box. The darn thing was huge, had 108,500 miles on it, and was covered with dents, dings, and paint scrapes. We were told that the Isuzu was the only truck available for a one way trip to San Diego.

The problems we discovered with the truck, as we drove to San Diego, were irritating and uncomfortable. We had to cross the Siskiyou, Trinity, and Tehacapi Mountains. Each range has at least one 4,000' pass to climb. The engine temperature sensor was defective on the diesel. Once the water temp gauge reached 1/8" more that half way from Cold to Hot the 110db alarm horn in the cab would start blaring and not stop until the temperature returned below the 1/2 way point.

We didn't know anything about the alarm problem until we were climbing the first 6-mile, 6% grade at full throttle, making 38 mph up the hill. Our hearts stopped when the alarm first sounded. There were no red lights on the dash and all the gauges showed normal operating conditions. The noise was quite disconcerting as was the 99 degree outside temperature and the never ending parade of trucks grinding by at 20 mph.

We continued on until we found a truck pullout and stopped as far off the road as possible and called the rental truck support number. They told us about the faulty sensor and said to drive slow enough not to set off the alarm. Even at 30 mph and 1/2 throttle, the alarm would stay on as we climbed. We eventually determined that if the ambient air temperature was above 95 degrees the engine would not cool properly. When we were going downhill toward Red Bluff California, at 55 mph, into 30-mph headwinds, with an ambient temperature of 103 degrees the alarm would sound continuously. We had to slow to 50-mph downhill to keep the engine cool enough to shut off the alarm.

The problem with the engine is that the turbocharger intercooler air radiator is placed in front of the engine coolant radiator. When running the engine at full turbo boost all the hot air from the turbo intercooler is dumped directly into the air flowing over the water radiator for the engine coolant. Bad Design!

During the remainder of the trip we endured a total of three hours of the 110 db klaxon blaring in the cab of the truck. During the afternoon We couldn't drive 50 mph in the hot central valley without the alarm sounding. However, the additional alarm noise didn't make too much difference. We wore earplugs all the time the engine was running because the cab was mounted directly over the engine and the diesel made so much noise that we couldn't communicate without shouting.

Then there was the ride! Only the drivers seat was adjustable and both seats were mounted directly over the axle. We were literally bounced out of our seats on many bumps. We considered buying kidney belts just to protect our guts.

And; just to make the whole thing extra fun - we ran out of fuel at the top of an off-ramp in Stockton, California during evening rush hour with an outside temperature of 99 degrees. We were able to coast to a pull-off at the top of the ramp. We would have made it all the way to the diesel fuel pump at the station we were trying to reach at the bottom of the ramp if we could have coasted another 10 feet over a slight hump in the ramp.

When we picked up the truck we were told that it had a 33.5 gallon fuel tank and would get 9 -11 miles per gallon. Prior to Stockton, we had filled up three times, at 273, 278, and 274 miles. Each time we put in 26.5 to 27.5 gallons of #2 diesel. Each time we reached about 260 miles the low fuel warning light came on and the gauge was close to Empty. So, I figured the gauge was slightly off and we had about 6 gallons of fuel, or about 60 miles, to go when the light came on. I thought we had a range of about 290 miles with three gallons to spare.

WRONG! In Stockton, the warning light came on at 255 miles and the engine went dead at 265 miles. It turned out that the fuel tank only holds 29.4 gallons of diesel, not the 33.5 gallons the dealer told me. What I can't figure out is why we got only 9 mpg going downhill from Weed, CA to Stockton CA while we got 9.8 mpg going uphill from Grants Pass to Weed.

Thank goodness for my experience of priming diesel engines in boats. We were able to get the engine restarted within minutes of putting fuel in the truck. We were carrying Miradors six-gallon diesel jugs in the truck so it was a simple matter to walk to the bottom of the on ramp with a diesel jug, fill it, and then restart the truck. The only problem was that the rental truck support staff had the wrong manual for the engine when I called to ask where the priming lever was for the fuel pump. They told me it was on the passenger side front of the engine. I eventually found the priming pump mounted on the primary fuel filter mounted on the battery box, 3' behind the cab on the drivers side.

Here is a little known fact! If you tilt the cab up on a cab forward truck, let's say to check the oil at a fuel stop, and leave a open can of soda on the passenger seat, that can of soda will tip over and make a big mess! Just one of those trucker things we learned.

Our big project now is to stow everything on the boat and empty the truck. We didn't have time in Tacoma to sort thru a lot of stuff so we just threw it in the truck with the plan to sort it once in San Diego. Arlene is having to empty every locker, drawer, and cabinet and then reorganize the entire boat's storage plan. We figure it will take another three or four days to get everything stowed.

We are trying to unwind and relax now that all the house stuff and moving stuff is done. I hope that we'll be running on cruiser time within a week or so.

We'll probably stay in Chula Vista thru mid-August and then head north for a while.

There are some interesting liveaboard boats in Chula Vista: