Motorhome

If you think about a motorhome, you’ll depict a big RV cruising through the national parks. But that’s not the case. I made a little joke here, because we bought a motor AND a home!

Desert Island

Last week we bought our new home in Fresno. We saw a lot of houses, as we mentioned in our previous post, but two homes stood out. Right at the decision moment a third house came up on Zillow (the American Funda). It was more expensive. However, no construction work was needed. But we didn’t have a good feeling about it. Sometimes you can’t put the finger on it, but it was an “underbelly feeling” as we’d say in Dutch.
After all we decided to go for the house at Desert Island Drive. I really love the name of the street. It’s a single story home with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Spacious enough for the two of us with room for guests (if friends would like to come over). I love the entertainment room with a real bar to store nice wines and cheeses.
The backyard is very private and has a beautiful pool, which is really necessary because summers here are really hot.

Today we’re closing escrow by transferring the money and we will get our keys by the end of the day (hopefully). A contractor will start next week. An old couple lived there and although it’s really well-maintained, the interior is not to our liking. So we decided to paint the walls, add new flooring, replace the kitchen and bathrooms. That will take 4 to 6 weeks but that’s okay, because we rented our current home till the end of May anyway.

If you want to have a look in our new home, click here. There is even a 360 degrees tour you can do through the house. We’ll definitely update you with all the changes that will be done the coming weeks.

Motorbike

In order to get my motorcycle license, I had to overcome some challenges. First, I needed to pass my written test, which I did. Second, I needed to pass the practical exam, the so called “lollipop test”. Where you have to do some exercises on a pattern that looks like a lollipop on the DMV parking area. Because I didn’t own a motorbike at that moment and you’re not allowed to rent a motorbike for this test (insurance companies won’t cover for that), I had to take a 1-day advanced motorcyclist course. During this course the students are provided with Harley Davidsons from the school.
In order to proceed with the course, you first needed to pass the lollipop test within three exempts. And if you finally pass the complete course you get a waiver to get your M1 (motorcycle endorsement).
Sadly enough, one of my fellow students didn’t pass the lollipop test and was sent home. I stayed with another guy and we had a lot of fun that day. Luckily, we both passed our course!

After months of searching I finally found a really nice motorbike at the motor shop here in town. I bought a 2016 BMW S1000XR. It’s a real nice touring bike because you’re sitting more straight but it still has a lot of power to take some curves along the way 😉

Trip to Seattle

Speaking of nice curves, we planned a trip to Seattle to visit friends. As the Pacific Coastal Highway (Route 1) is rated as one of world’s most beautiful highways and therefore part of my motorcycle bucket list, I will travel up the coastline from California, through Oregon to Washington state. It will take three days to get there. I’m really looking forward to enjoy the windy roads, smell the ocean breeze and be thrilled by the rough rocky cliffs along the way.
My loving hubby will take the plane and watches me from above.

When I start my trip I will share a link on this site so you can follow me during this journey.