I wanted to give a brief update on things. I know posts have been limited, but I’ve been putting my time away from you all to good use.

Firstly, we bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We did it because our GC had hit 110,000 miles, yet was still worth about $20k (thanks to the recent jump in used car prices). We decided to take advantage of the hike and strike while we could. We feel we saved about 10% overall (our jeep jumped $8k in price over the past few months, while the new GC jumped about $3k from pre-pandemic prices).

However, the process wasn’t without a hitch. The first local Jeep dealership we stopped at tried to stick us with an extra $5000 market adjustment fee that wasn’t disclosed on their website. They claimed all the dealers were adding that fee.

That turned out to be a half-truth … some were doing it and some weren’t. Those folks were a little surprised at how quickly we walked away from their offer.

The next day I called Bud Clary Jeep in Moses Lake. I talked with a sales guy, Jeremy, and outlined what we had, what we saw online at their dealership (in particular the price), what we were willing to pay in cash, and that we weren’t willing to pay some kind of market adjustment fee (at least not a surprise one that wasn’t included with the online price). True to his word, there was no adjustment fee and we pretty much made the deal on the phone. Ann drove up and closed it. We are satisfied customers.

On Friday we got word through a neighbor that the local high school was giving away a parking lot full of furniture. So, we high tailed it down there and snapped up about 10 desks, three rolling cars, and a tower magazine rack (perfect for my 50 or so issues of Four Wheeler Magazine). About the only downside is that I’m having to scrape gum off some of the desks.

I finished up our garage-turned-workout gym. Having abandoned workouts during our move, I can now return to them, which should help me avoid the local ER, lol.

My progress in the shop has been less impressive. Still much work to be done.

As far as I know, the Epic Willys Adventure still plans to visit just before Labor Day Weekend. We are looking forward to hosting them for the evening.

We are gearing up for Ann’s surgery on the 29th (stomach surgery). She’ll be recovering most of August and likely won’t be fully recovered for several months.

My hope is that as the weather cools and the work around the place slows, that I’ll be able to return to more consistent updates. But, we’ll see….