Nearby is a Mickey D's. We drive to it and I go inside. The only stall in the men's room has... wait for it... Some drifter/bum/homeless guy in it. There is lots of clanking and banging and commotion, eventually he walks out and takes off... Leaving behind... A pair of pants?! What the heck? So I go in and change MY pants. I come out carrying the sticky pair and as I am leaving another guy walks in to the stall. HEY! are these your pants? Nope!
We are off and Nephew is driving. We were looking forward to seeing the completed Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge which was under construction the last time I went to Las Vegas. When we get to the bridge all high profile vehicle must use the inner most lanes. The bridge has very high walls on each side and so you cannot see anything from the middle lanes (bummer).
Because of the after Christmas rush to go home, when we got to US 93 traffic is ridiculous. I did some timing, counting, and calculating. Cars were going northbound at the average rate of 1 per second. Of course WE (being a big monstrous truck hauling a trailer) everyone hates us. There is lots of mad dash driving to get around us at every passing lane.
The remainder of the trip is boring. We get home at 15:33 on 12-26-2012. We show my dad everything and his reaction to the stuff in the U-haul and his truck is rather anti climatic. I think he was restraining himself since I was filming him.
We're not done yet. We have to clean the U-haul. The plan is to unload it today. The call goes out for all hands on deck. Nephew and I wash and scrub the dust off of the u-haul. We take the trailer (with truck still on it) to my Mother-in-laws house, drop it off and head to storage.
Back when we had the "coming to Jesus meeting" I designated people to get certain things done before we arrived. One was, my wife and my Dad would get a Storage unit (to waste more money). They got a 10x15. We head over there and my sister (nephews mom), Her husband, My brother, his girlfriend, My wife, are all going to go to storage and unload everything as fast as we can. We get the ball rolling but sister is running late. the wife had shown up and I raced down to give her a huge bear hug and some smooching. she tells us that the storage place locks the gates at 18:00 (now she tells me). So we have to scramble to get what we can in to storage, some of the other stuff will go back to my house until my Dad gets his apartment (if he gets an apartment).
Because of the breakdown and the snow-in I was graced with an extra day by U-haul, and so we turned in the truck (and trailer) the next day.
That's it! I am home! My house, My bed, My clean bathroom, my open kitchen, my air conditioning and heating, my DAD (staying at our home for now), and MY WIFE!
Over the next few weeks and months we get him moved in to his apartment. His memory improves a little bit, he no longer needs a cane, he can drive again, we get his car title and license moved to Phoenix, and I get to take him to all sorts of doctor appointments. I am happy about this because we could have lost him. He is VERY happy to be back. there is still the matter of selling the crown. I had to re-list it 2 or 3 more times before it sold.
He has an MRI done because of the memory problems and we find out that at some point in the last few months or years he has had at least one stroke (and other issues) and did not know it. He is fully able bodied but has short term memory problems. We think the stroke happened back in July of 2012 because of an email he sent us back then, where he describes great confusion and memory problems.
Some statistics and misc items of interest.
so if anyone wonders about what it would cost to move about 800 Cubic feet of stuff, and a pickup truck, here are some stats:
Gas To go from Seattle to Phoenix in a 26 foot U-haul (around 1500 miles) at 5 miles to the gallon, was about $805.00 dollars.
Charges for dumping 2800lbs of junk $175.13
U-haul boxes (about 100+), tape, bubble wrap, etc $226.03+ as some was paid in cash (u-haul boxes are designed to stack together)
The moving company for 3 hours help $270.00
Storage for the Fire Truck $497.10
5 day rental for a 26' u-haul and car hauling trailer $1922.69
I have no stats on other costs because they were paid from cash we found in books. (do not hide your cash in books).
Total that my Dad owed me $4,278.18
Actual cost for the move was probably around $6000 to $8000 with everything factored in. There was a lot of stuff paid for in cash.
My dad had about 514 freight cars, 189 locomotives, and 141 passenger cars, MTH, K-line, Williams, Atlas, Walter, and Lionel. This is not considered a large collection by the standards of some of his friends. Most of this has been sold.
We found piles of "New in Box" die-cast toy cars from various manufacturers (in no particular order): Hess, Dinky, Road Champs, Majorette, Ertl, Tonkin, ihc, roco, matchbox, hot wheels, nylint, corgi, Lleddo, Model Power, Majorette, Tomy, Winross, Tosco, Road Champs, Siku, Maisto, road Champs, and Mattel. The NIB stuff (after I spent several weeks cataloging it) totaled 488 items. This did not count the large stuff still in boxes that he has 2 of each. Dates range from early 1970's to 2012. Unfortunately he does not have anything that was super rare, or even rare. My Dad would buy them on sale whenever he went to a store, he would always buy at least 2 of each and would try to buy every variation of a particular model. Most of this stuff has been given away.
He had many things that were fire related, 2 SCBA's. One went to nephew and I have the other. With the SCBA nephew now has a complete fire fighters outfit. A Foam Nozzle for a fire truck that I sold on Ebay. Fire Extinguishers, Fire Axes, Hydrant wrenches, etc. Piles of fire hose that if we had known there was going to have been room, we might have taken with us as the brass ends are worth $. They went to the dump. I also have his fireman's helmet, and turnout coats/bunker gear.
2 old 35mm cameras that he had forgot about, one of which still had film in it, but no pictures taken. Piles and piles of previous years MTH and Lionel Catalogs which we tossed unless they were older than 1970. A couple of old mail order catalogs (from the late 50's early 60's) that are of interests for original prices for radios and such.
As to his Fire Apparatus Journal, what we did not know was that he always ordered 2 of that magazine and he was keeping a second unopened set (I do not know exactly why). He said that he HAD a complete set (HAD!). If you do not know, FAJ is a thinnish magazine that contains pretty much nothing but pictures of fire trucks (fire truck porn if you will).
Selling the crown was somewhat of a trial as I noted earlier in the story. In the first auction it got 1 bid of $1000 which did not meet the reserve. I needed $2000 for moving expenses. I re-listed it several times at a starting bid of $2000. No one would bid on it. I must have re-listed it about 5 or 6 times. Each time some message would pop up that I never read (foreshadowing).
I got lots of messages through ebay telling me how much people would like to own it, but they had no room, had no money, had no way to get it, etc. One guy kept hounding me to sell it to him for his original bid of $1000. I politely told him "no dice".
The last time it was up for auction after a few questions from someone I got a bid. The final day of the auction came and I am sitting watching it... About 3 minutes before the auction ended... My auction disappears! Remember I had listed this thing about 6 times and each time it ended no problem. Shortly afterwards I get a message from ebay that my auction was deleted because... I had not removed the lights and emblems from the truck. What? Since when do I need to do that? WELL! since 9-11 ebay was in contact with overly panicky people from fire department that were worried that someone might try to use an (by today's standards) ancient fire truck in some kind of elaborate ruse to do something nefarious. Forgetting that such things can be easily acquired and re-installed. There was nothing in place to prevent someone from removing them and editing the pictures to disguise the fact that the emblems might still be in place. NO they did not want the liability or something. It does not matter that other emergency equipment was up for auction with all emblems and lights intact. It seems that the message I never read was in regard to removing lights and emblems. Something I could not do unless I went back up to Seattle or had one of his friends do. I now believe that the guy who wanted it for $1000 very likely reported the auction.
Well they aren't going to deter me. I fire off a message to the winning bidder and tell him he can have it for the $2000 he bid for it. he is fine with that. I offer to use an escrow service and he declines. he wants to pay cash on delivery.
I had the title already signed and I had added my friend in Seattle's name on to the lease so that he could close it out. I sent the title, and keys to him and he arranged a time to meet. The guy lives in Cowiche, WA (somewhere close to Yakima). He wanted the truck to return it home. It served originally in Yakima. He is an independent trucker and had his own flatbed semi trailer.
I informed him that he had to take ownership of everything in the unit. There was some extra stuff that we put in there:
several fire extinguishers.
2 extra mirrors.
1 spare switch panel.
some misc other stuff.
and this.
it is a remote controlled ladder pipe nozzle. Probably worth big bucks but I had no interest in trying to sell or ship it. it weighed close to 100lbs.
My friend cleaned up the unit and turned in the keys. I got a $180 refund on the unit. I had my friend keep $200 from the cash for his troubles and he deposited the rest in to my account.
As I stated earlier. My dad did not take as good care of it as he claimed. he did not change the oil in 10 years. It holds 5 gallons of motor oil. We only received one call regarding it after he took delivery. They were having trouble starting it. although I recommended my dad not tell them. He wanted to make sure they knew it needed an oil change.
Some of the things my dad had done to it when he had it:
Replaced the dual ignitions with high performance dual electronic ignitions.
Replaced and repacked the pump bearings.
Some kind of transmission work.
Rebuilt the carburetor.
Had jump seats made for it.
built a new hose bed.
stocked it with hose.
lots of other stuff.
unfortunately he had dented a fender and scratched one side of the truck trying to get it in or out of storage. If it were not for the damage, I would have put a higher starting bid on it.
It is good that it went back home. I hope the guy restores it and someone enjoys it for many years to come.
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