Most of you know we made our escape from CA. Bay area people discovered working remotely and started moving up to Tahoe, wait til the first big winter to see how that shakes out. When the crowds were in town for holidays Tahoe became unlivable, unfortunately with the increased full timers, that was becoming the norm. Crowded roads, stores, restaurants...
Much of our story has been on Facebook (now Meta or Zuckland or …), but for those of you not there this will be a recap. I don’t intend to publish a monthly newsletter, just a couple times a year.
Our decision was made very hastily back in April when a neighboring house went on the market for double what I thought it was worth. So we started packing, at that point weren’t really sure where we were going. At this time it made sense to look into 55+ communities, as lots of amenities and lots of people in the same age group. Reno had some small communities, but next closest was Henderson (not really interested in that area, too hot). Another is where family lives, a cousin in St George, brother in law in Dallas, neither were appealing. I also looked at AZ as we have friends there, as well as NM, but nothing really appealed to us. My mother has been living in Timber Pines in FL north of Tampa for nearly 30 years and we had been visiting annually. It is a 55+ gated community, highly rated and not as big as the Villages, but lots of activities. There is almost always something going on, the difficulty is really how to divide up your time.
We started packing and luckily the hangar was a perfect staging area for getting the house ready to sell and hold all the stuff we didn't get rid of. Many of you attended our garage sale, which cleared a lot of stuff out, but not nearly enough.
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Our house was on the market for 42 days and sold to ????? – we can’t tell you who, but all of our neighbors know, just ask them. Part of the deal was to sign an NDA on the buyers identity.
While on the market, our house seemed quite naked, like we were camping out there while everything else was out at the hangar. Speaking of the hangar, extra space was gained by selling the Mooney. No I’m not giving up on aviation. It was time to get an airplane that wasn’t nearly as old as I am. I bought a 2015 Tecnam P2010, basically an Italian version of a Cessna 172, but carbon fiber, and bigger engine. I still don’t have that plane yet as the FAA has taken a long time to grant import certification from Canada, that’s a long story in itself. But maybe it will actually get to FL in the next few weeks.
After the house sale it was time to move, first came the Hyundai. While the house was closing I stuffed 25 cases of wine into that car, and 2 bikes on the trailer hitch and made my way to FL. Nancy stayed behind to keep the closing on track and driving 5 of 6 days the wine and Hyundai made it to FL. The wine was dropped off at climate controlled storage a few miles up the road from Timber Pines.
One thing that welcomed me, was about 10 miles north of Timber Pines I entered bear country, though they are seldom seen here as lots of natural stuff to eat.
Renting while looking for a place might have been an option, though most don’t want pets and our cats never registered to vote, so we were looking for a villa to buy and live in while we were looking for a house. There are 3400 units in Timber Pines, though few can accommodate 2 cars and a golf cart, so we thought it might be a long wait to find that house. I also wanted a view of something. So a standalone villa on one of the ponds came on the market. The market here is also hot, but at 1/10 the price of anything in CA. I made an offer that was accepted, and we could get control in 3 weeks. It needed some TLC, especially the kitchen, but to my standards was acceptable while we looked for a house. At least Nancy didn’t cry when she finally saw it.
2133 Broadmoor Lane, Spring Hill
Not Lake Tahoe, but still pleasant, ducks, ibis, herons and fish.
So I flew back to Tahoe, to arrange packing and moving, shipping the Pontiac Solstice to FL, selling the Honda, and getting the cats there as well. I can now tell you how not to move a small load across country. As we left most furniture in Tahoe, our load was going to be merged with others, which is the traditional way movers operate. My suggestion is to use a Pods like company, hire packers and move it that way. Many traditional movers are now using that, too bad I didn’t use one of them. More on that later.
A big shout out to the Bremer’s who loaned us a car for the last couple days in Tahoe. At the time there were NO rental cars available anywhere around. Also a big thank you to the Evan’s who allowed us to stay in their cabin the last few days we were in CA (after closing / vacating Tahoe Vista)
Cats – how to move them, so they flew by air first class no less.
The cats made it fine, though we over sedated Mao and he couldn’t open his inner eyelid for a day and was pretty wobbly. Mango as it turned out, spit his pill out in the cat carrier somewhere along the way.
First few nights in FL were at my moms house, while we got Broadmoor ready to move into. Stopped by Target to pick up some plastic picnic plates, a trip to the local thrift store to get utensils. And cleaning, and cleaning, the Broadmoor house was quite dirty and we spent a couple weeks cleaning. But it still looked like a cave, stuffed with dark furniture, and cramped. First thing to tackle was a kitchen remodel, while not the original kitchen it needed updating. So in this small place our stuff from CA was finally delivered 5 weeks after the move, and most of that is in storage now.
Remember we thought we would be in Broadmoor 6 months to a year waiting for a house we liked. Well one Saturday a house came back on the market, a quick look at the specs, and we thought probably not what we were looking for, but might as well check it out. Walked in and gee, this is pretty nice, looked in the “garage” and room for 2 cars and golf cart with a side entrance. Light and airy, though art deco. A view out the back at a small water retention pond, and we decided to make an offer.
This house was originally the model back in 1993, so very much that kind of décor, and the garage was still setup as 2 offices. Never converted, wow strange.
Our realtor suggested a contractor to do the garage conversion and that is done now. So we are getting more settled. Though this place needs paint, new flooring and a new kitchen. All that in the works, hopefully won’t have both kitchen remodels going on at once.
So we’ve taken golf and pickelball lessons, and even going dancing about once a week. Lots to do here, water aerobics and balance classes fun and we will join up bocce sometime soon. Billiards, table tennis, wood shop, and ceramics classes await.
Well we might not be golfers yet, but maybe we look the part
