Move to Tulsa

Wanting to move from Grand Lake to Tulsa we put our home up for sale by a broker from Tulsa who extensively used the internet to show his listings. The first people who came to see our home wanted to buy it and made an offer within twenty four hours. After a bit of negotiations we accepted the offer and began looking for a place in Tulsa to be our future home. We found a house that was not being lived in at the time and placed on offer to buy contingent upon the successful completion of the sale pending on our home. Our broker told us that our purchasers wanted possession on closing, and that the closing was in two weeks
We went to the owner of our property in Tulsa and asked if we could begin moving in our possessions before our closing on the Tulsa property, that closing was going to be later on the same day as we closed on the lake house. He said yes.
This gave us two weeks to move, I told Betty that I would make the move myself and save the five or six thousand that a mover would charge. I had an old Ford Passenger van with all but the front seats removed. That was some huge cargo area that had once been a passenger van. It was rated a full ton, and had truck tires. It was plenty capable of moving everything we had. One thing the buyers made a part of the contract was that they got our washer, dryer, and refrigerator which greatly simplified the move.
We took the first load that afternoon, furniture that would not be needed at the lake. After getting the stuff situated in our almost new home we went on a search for boxes, bought some from Wal Mart, and found a huge pile of empty liquor boxes stacked behind a Tulsa liquor store. Betty began packing boxes as soon as we got home, and I stacked then in the van. When the van was loaded the next morning I left for Tulsa and Betty stayed home and packed boxes. It soon became apparent that we needed more boxes. A friend who worked at Hobby Lobby said he could get us all the boxes we needed, and he did. We filled up the van with flattened cardboard boxes from which Hobby Lobby had received merchandise.
Every morning after breakfast I would begin loading boxes, furniture, and other of our possessions into the van, when it was full, usually early in the afternoon I would take off for Tulsa to what I hopefully thought would be our new home. There was no reason to think that either sale would fall through, but you never knew.
Betty would usually stay home and continue boxing up our stuff, a trip a day would require a lot of boxing. We were in such a hurry to get everything that we had boxed up whatever we had, no decisions were made as to what we could do without, and so we just moved everything. It cost about $45.00 a day in gas to make the round trip to Tulsa and back to the lake. Spending all that money on gas, and doing all the work ourselves it began to get tiresome to both of us; but then we would console each other that we were saving thousands of dollars. That worked for a while, but toward the end we both wished we had just paid someone to make the move for us.
The last day finally arrived, we were going to fill both cars and then go to my brothers house, he lived nearby, spend the night with him then get up bright eyed and go to the closing on the lake house; then drive to Tulsa and close on the house we were purchasing. A perfect plan, but as Robert Burns the Scottish poet wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley.” Ours went agley rather rapidly, Betty came down with a virus, she was really sick. I took her to my brother’s house, and went back to our house to get the rest of our stuff loaded. This time I loaded both cars, but could not get everything loaded, not enough room.
We had to get all of our stuff out of the house before the closing in the morning. The new owners were going to do a walk around inspection just before the closing, so everything had to be out. I drove the van to Tulsa and unloaded it in the dark, then headed back to finish. Getting back about twelve at night I loaded the last of our things in the van, then began going from room to room to make sure nothing was missed. When nothing was found I began cleaning the house from room to room. When that was over all the cleaning implements and tools were gathered up and loaded them into the car and van. It was morning. Driving over to my brother’s house I remember thinking that this move was almost over. Betty was feeling much better, so we drove over to our house to wait for the walk through inspection. She easily found what I had not cleaned up to her standards and began finishing that job for me.
The walk through inspection and closing went through without a hitch; we drove to Tulsa for our second closing of the day. It too went faultlessly. We drove to our new home and let ourselves in, furniture was placed haphazardly just as I left it, and boxes were piled up in every room. We had to have the kitchen redone and buy a new stove, microwave oven, refrigerator, sink, disposal, counter top, floor, and a washer and dryer. We had successfully moved out of one home, but are still in the process of moving into a new one a year later.