Who said "The road home is never long"?
Maybe it's that the "road between two homes" can be long. But I'll make the story short: bought house in Tucson, Arizona (this happened some weeks ago but we haven't quite finished the "announcement"). Kathy flew from there to New Hampshire. I am plodding along, solo in our Red RAV4, alternately feeling sorry for myself (my driving days have been a combination of 600 and 450 mile days; a couple of each) and reveling in the Near Bachelor Solitude of it all.
I've made a couple of mandatory stops because you can only drive so far -- safely -- in a day. Tucson. Tucson Airport (drop Lovely Wife). Midland TX (GW Bush's hometown,
la ti da). Then an-ever wonderful visit with our friends in East Texas, then two nights in New Orleans.
As I write, I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee. Our trip planning software mislead us about the distance so today was another 600 mile day. Tomorrow won't be.
I should be back in New Hampshire on March 27th. The weather is already changing (80 in Tucson, 70 in E Texas and New Orleans... 45 in Knoxville.
Brrr.Labels: Arizona, driving, house, travel
Scott & Kathy's Retirement Rancho
We done it. I'd say "packed up and moved", but we sort of just moved without actually packing up. Let's recap the last 4 months: we left NH with a car (the RAV4) full of stuff and headed for early-winter in south Florida at Kathy's Dad's. Some of that stuff was just for a stop in Connecticut, others of it were for Florida, and just a few things were destined for our "wintering" plan in Arizona. That might be because weren't actually
planning to buy a home there ("here") just yet, we were going to hang out for the winter, check out the sights and the housing market, maybe narrow down, or
possibly even arrange to buy a house. But in about 3 weeks, we'd seen several dozen potential homes, made an offer and two additional counter-offers on one, got the money, and closed on our new home.
Jeez... Overachievers or what?
Our new home (and this replaces New Hampshire, leaving
British Columbia for the summers (which are intense in Arizona) and the rest of the world for our continuing
wanderlust. As we've mentioned before, we were looking for a home we wouldn't feel the necessity to leave for the winters (which we've never much cared for, in New England).
So, how did we manage to move into a new home without much more than the clothes on our backs? We bought it furnished -- completely furnished down to the wall hangings and silk plants. The furniture is all Danish-modern style, very
chic, nothing we'd ever actually buy for ourselves. I had some favorite kitchen items (my knife set, one good pan, a few other items I travel with) and we'd put a couple-hundred dollars into the sort of things you need for a new household, for the place we were renting. So we were equipped with cleaning stuff, a few towels -- it's amazing how little you can manage with, if you buy a furnished home and know in a couple of months you can have your
other favorites (the ones in your other house...).
So there you have it: spirited from frozen New England to sunny Arizona in less than a season.
Labels: Arizona, Tucson
Keys Christmas '07
At left, our new "pet". He moved into a nearby bush and is a frequent visitor. We named him "Iggy". Comes and goes -- pretty independent lizard.
We're still down in Florida. While the northeast (of the US -- where our primary residence is at the moment) is getting pummeled with snow, we've been having sunny but plenty-hot & humid days, punctuated with some impressive rainstorms. Impressive because they come up suddenly, it rains torrents, and generally they're gone as quickly as they came. Unfortunately, afterward the humidity goes from unpleasant to almost unbearable. It'd be tough for me (Scott) to live in this climate on a permanent basis. Either that or I'd need to win the lottery to pay the aircon bill.
Our lives
here aren't much different than any other place we call "home". We get up, have our coffee (Kathy gets hers delivered in bed), breakfast. Spend too much time with the computers (laptops, which occupy a not-insubstantial portion of the dining room table; fortunately with just me, Kathy and her Dad, we don't need the space). I prepare most of the meals for us which is both fun (generally) and of course I pretty much get to pick what we get to eat. Kathy and Jack (her Dad) go fishing on his boat, and generally "bring home the bacon". Oh, Kathy also monitors the canal off the back of the boat, sometimes she brings lobsters back. Try
that in New Hampshire in December.
We'll stay here in Florida into the first week of January, take a brief cruise (that's another story) then head off to Arizona for the winter.
Labels: Arizona, Florida, Florida Keys, Tucson
