It has been a while since I posted here so I thought I’d post an update on where things currently stand on ‘the great adventure’ of moving to Portugal. It is getting very real! I spoke with my realtor a few days ago and my house will go on the market July 10th! The photographer will show up for pictures on July 6th and then who knows what will happen. The interest rates are still high but the housing inventory in Bozeman is very low so it will be a crap shoot as to what price the house sells for and how long it will take to sell.
My realtor gave me a whole checklist of things to do to get the house ready for the photographer. Some of the things are easy but some require a lot of work, i.e., staining the deck! I had hoped to get the deck done weeks ago but it rained so much throughout June that it was just impossible. I am busy working away to get things done. I will be VERY glad when this is all over and done with. I have very much enjoyed my acre of paradise here but have become less and less enamored with doing house projects as time goes on. Hopefully I will finish most of the heavy lifting today and then it is just spit polishing the interior, although I will have to get on my John Deere riding mower and attack the lawn once more before the picture man shows up.
We are hoping to stay in Bozeman until the end of August, but we will see what happens. We have discussed contingency plans if we must leave a week or two earlier than we planned. We have reservations to drive the Going To The Sun highway in Glacier National Park on August 13-14 so we want to do that. I also have a bicycle ride planned in the San Juan Islands in Washington State September 2 – 9. If we have to vacate the house before the end of August, we’ll do the Glacier trip and then immediately head for Barb’s house in Arizona (with me in my pickup). I’ll fly back up to Bozeman to get my Toyota, head for Washington to do the bicycle ride and then return to Bozeman to pick up my Harley and trailer it down to Phoenix. It will all work out one way or another.
As part of applying for the long-term visa for Portugal, you must submit an FBI background check. We decided to do a practice run just to see what came back and how to do it. The only place to get fingerprints here in Bozeman is at the sheriff’s office and they use the old ink and paper method. I found a place in Billings that uses an electronic method of taking fingerprints and sending them directly to the FBI along with the application for the background check, so we had a nice little day trip down to Billings to get that done. We had a nice visit with my sister and her husband in the process so that was fun. (Although we got caught in a bad rainstorm on the way home and that wasn’t fun!!). We have since received our background checks from the FBI and I’m happy to report that neither of us have an arrest record with the FBI!
In addition to all the regular excitement, Barb got to sample the local hospital the other day. She had gotten up at night to try to calm one of the dogs down because they were kind of freaking out due to someone shooting off fireworks (that time of year – yay!). She closed the doggie gate I had installed across the bedroom doorway so the dog wouldn’t run back into the bedroom and then later after she had sat with the dog on the sofa for a while, she was navigating back to the bedroom in the dark, forgot the doggie gate was closed and – thud and splat! She fell really hard. I took her to the ER early the next morning because she was in a lot of pain, and they took some x-rays which revealed at least one broken rib! Unfortunately, they can’t do much for broken ribs, so she is convalescing slowly but won’t be running any 10K’s any time soon. (Or riding on the back of my Harley!) Take home lesson – never try to navigate a strange house in the dark!!
The weather has finally gotten nice so hopefully we can enjoy our last few weeks in Montana. I will get the deck put back together today and we are looking forward to just sitting on the deck watching the world go by for the next few evenings. I’m sure once the house sells and we have a hard date when we must vacate the chaos will return, but for now, we’re hoping to enjoy what time we have left here in Big Sky country. Stay tuned!