A Place in the Mountains

It's like a dream come true -- especially for my SO. We just spent two idyllic weeks in our new place. No internet, which is why there have been no new posts here. As much trouble, and as stressful as it was to get the place, it all seems worth it now.

I got up there the day before closing. The trip was fairly painless. The cat did well in the motel rooms, although he was freaked out the first night and stayed mainly under the bed. The second night was better, and by the time he stayed in his third motel room on our way home this week, he was an old hand at it. He's getting the hang of traveling with us, and taking him everywhere with us is less and less trouble. The dog, of course, is a breeze. She's traveled more than me, probably.

Anyway, the closing did not go as smoothly as hoped. There was a form HUD required, and then had to approve, which they did not do on the date of closing. The seller let us have possession of the house anyway, so we moved in on Friday. A lot of the things that were supposed to have been left in the house had been cleaned out by a home helper of the old woman who sold us the place -- two ladders, a leaf blower, a shelving unit, and a wheelbarrow being the main items. The lady's real estate agent caught the thief and her relatives taking the wooden deck furniture and managed to stop that from leaving, but the rest of it was gone for good. My SO was really angry about the ladders and leaf blower, but nothing could be done short of the seller filing criminal charges which she was unwilling to do. We were given compensation in the form of a check so we could replace the lost items, and we did so a few days later.

On Monday, while we were in town opening an account at a local bank, my cell rang. It was our real estate agent telling us that HUD required more escrow money before they would finally close the deal on the house. So, since we were at the bank, I got yet another cashier's check (we both hemorrhaged money while we were there) and we raced to the title company. Once that was done, and another paper signed, the house was finally ours. We could relax and enjoy it, which we did with a bottle of champagne and pot pies from the restaurant down the road. We were a little delirious with happiness.

Anyway, it's just gorgeous up there. I was able to get the satellite working for the TV but we only get the cable channels, so it really was a little like being separated from the world without news or weather. If we wanted a weather report we just walked out on the deck to see what the temperature was at the moment. Cold at night, and beautiful sunshine during the day. It got down in the 20s several times while we were there. We listened to the World Series on the radio. Felt like the old days doing that. You have to actually use your imagination to visualize the games.

We're at 7500 feet there, and I do have a bit of trouble with shortness of breath. I took the dog on daily walks and was proud that I could make it up the mountain. Of course, she dragged me, looking back, wondering why I was so slow. Sometimes I wanted to yell MUSH MUSH at her. She was so exuberant about our walks and I could almost feel the pounds melting off of me. By the end of two weeks, my jeans were loose. I took one pair off without unzipping, which pleased me. Wish there was a place around home as conducive to evening walks.

The morning we left, snow had dusted the mountains around us. There are two really high mountains that surround our valley: Elk Mountain at 11,627 and Hermit's Peak at 10,259. We can see Elk Mountain from the kitchen window. Through the trees it usually looks dark blue or purple. That morning it was ashy white. The air had the feel of impending snow, and since we've been back in Texas, we've learned that it has snowed throughout the valley now. I hate that we missed it. First snow, November 9th. Everybody we talked to told us it has been warmer than normal this year.

Last night we sat outside and both of us are already missing the new place. We love it here, too, of course, but it cannot compare in beautiful surroundings to our mountain house. What would be the perfect setup would be to have this house up there. Impossible, of course. It's like being in love with two men who are polar opposites.

Now, I just have to get ready for the holidays. My my, they sure did come around again quick.

Onward ....

Dreaming of a Cabin in the Mountains

The home search continues. We have appointments next week with two real estate agents to look at some of these places we've found online, plus anything they might think would interest us. We've widened our search into three counties now. Might not be copacetic to use two different agents, but what the hell. We're impatient and want to throw out the widest net possible. One of the agents is the one who had the listing we made the offer on -- the one the seller backed out on. I have contacted the seller myself and know that they are still thinking about relisting, but in the meantime, we might just find something we like as well or better. Fingers crossed.

We have had an interesting week getting to Colorado. The cat has traveled exceptionally well this time, and both animals are getting along together in tight confines quite well, too. I wish this travel trailer was larger, but then we would need a bigger towing vehicle, yada yada, and that all seems like money we don't need to spend right now when we're looking to buy a summer house. I have an idea we won't be using the travel trailer all that much once we find our dream place anyway.

Both of us are up here just basically enduring the Market, willing it to be over quickly so we can get to New Mexico and start house searching. Every night after we're back from the show, we peruse through listings on the internet, marking down ones that seem interesting. We are still a bit apart on what we're each looking for in a place. My SO's taste is much simpler than mine is, and he is just generally more patient. He would prefer to buy a less expensive place with potential, and fix it the way we want it, which probably makes more sense. Me, I have a tendency to hold everything up to the house we made the offer on, and so far, nothing in our price range comes anywhere close to that house. I knew it was a fabulous deal at the time. Which is why I rushed to jump on it the way I did. And I guess I am still holding my breath a little for the possibility of the owners relisting it soon.

The RV Park we are in here is exceptional. We have a lighted mountain right behind us. The dog and I have climbed over the top of that mountain twice. The first time, I kept stopping, looking back at the fantastic view, and also catching my breath. The dog, of course, pulled me onward. She is such a little adventurer. Today we made the trek again, and both of us were worn out afterwards. She is snoring under the table as I write this -- snoring loudly. Sounds like bellows!

We both really do enjoy having these animals around us. I'm so happy to have found a kindred spirit in that regard. They give us lots of laughs, are both clowns, but loyal. The cat likes the fact that he gets to sleep with us when we're on these trips. The dog is joyful at having new sites, sounds, and smells. We have little cottontails living in this park, dozens of them, and she is just focused on finding them when we go on our walks. They're pretty fearless, being used to all the dogs these RVers have, and that is something I have come to realize -- RV travelers like taking their pets. In fact, it could be, like with us, one of the reasons they have taken to traveling via RVs. Anyway, the bunnies just sit quietly and watch all the dogs pass by, like they know the dogs are leashed and can't chase them far.

I'll try to post more while we're on this trip. It's hard to work it all in. I'm still trying to give the novel at least two hours a day, also helping my SO at the Market, tending to the animals, suppers, and keeping the trailer clean. My days on this trip just fly by.

Onward ....

Temporarily Dissatisfied-- Oh, It's This Heat!

Just ended another hot, hot weekend down at the Coast. It's become drudgery for me to even go down there. I don't know if it was those two weeks in the mountains or what, but suddenly I'm just longing for a cooler place to live in the summer. We've had such fun down at the Coast before -- what has caused all this dissatisfaction? It's not just me who is feeling this either. My SO is also longing for a mountain place, although I think we have different ideas about what we want there. His standards are lower than mine are at the moment, and I really do believe I need to lower mine as well. It's always been hard for me to settle for less.

And yet, I still really love our place here. It was such a relief to come home as it always is. Both animals also love it so much here. They were both visibly delighted when we walked in the door. I'm tempted to initiate conversation with my SO about selling the Coast place but I don't know what the reception to that will be. It was his before he met me, and I know he put a lot of time and effort into making it into what it is, but he also doesn't seem to get as much joy from it as before. It's been a year now since he had the boat out of the storage building.

However, that said, I wonder if this dissatisfaction we're both feeling isn't a temporary state, caused by heat stress, or whatever. Or wanderlust, maybe. We both have that. Once the temperatures come back to bearable, won't we just be happy here again and forget about going into debt on a new place? We have enough trouble trying to maintain this place and the Coast place as it is. Why add another "place" into the mix? Our so-called troubles could be so much worse. We have great life. Especially when you compare to things other people are dealing with.

Our good friends, the ones who joined us for the trip to New Mexico, have real trials, life-altering ones, that they're dealing with, and I have to always keep in mind how much worse things could be, and also how quickly basic situations can change. His health is deteriorating rapidly. I talked to her on the phone over the weekend, and the reason we haven't heard from them in a while is because he sank into such a deep depression she got worried and took him to the hospital. Apparently, he was feeling suicidal. They did some brain mapping, the results of which won't be in until tomorrow, and tweaked his anti-depressant meds little. She felt like he was doing better, but the stress she's under is taking its toll. I could hear it in her voice, and later that was confirmed by a mutual friend who ran into her at Subway, and reported that she looked frazzled and out of sorts. We're all worried about them, and have to keep their situation always in mind when we become dissatisfied with our own lives.

We're going to see my son and his partner this coming weekend. It's sneaked up on me a little too quickly. I have so many things to do before we leave, or before I can start getting excited. As always, I would be much more excited if we didn't have to FLY to get there. Just hate dealing with airlines nowadays. Hard to believe there was a time when I actually loved to fly, found it exciting and sophisticated. Simpler times, those.

Have to go with Daddy to the doctor this morning, and guess I should get my morning started.

Onward ....

Outrunning a Blizzard

Spent the night in Roswell, New Mexico. It was here that in 1947 an alien spacecraft supposedly landed and the corpses of aliens were strewn over a nearby field. The town has capitalized on the legend. There are alien-related things all over the place, including on the WalMart. Downtown is a UFO museum, which we arrived too late to tour. There are several alien bars and alien zones, whatever that means. A drawing of an alien even gives the weather report in the newspaper. All pretty campy and funny.

There are blizzard warnings out for most of New Mexico over the next 24 hours. We’re heading for Texas. Probably San Angelo tonight, would be my guess. San Angelo is an oasis in the desert, and I like it there. They have a couple of good places to eat there. We stayed in San Angelo last year on an RV trip, and I called an old writer friend of mine, Elmer Kelton, who lived there. I was hoping we might be able to see him and his wife Ann, but they were busy. What I didn’t know at the time was that he was gravely ill, and not long afterward went into the hospital. He died a short time later. I felt the loss immediately, remembered our short phone conversation, and was glad we had at least had that. He was someone I admired. So it will be odd to go through that town and know that he’s no longer there.

Before we left home, I bought a battery charger for my laptop so I could use it in the car. The thing plugs into the cigarette lighter and then my laptop cord plugs into it. Makes a very high-pitched whine, and I’m not sure it should do that. But it does allow me access to my laptop beyond the internal battery life, which is down to about an hour now. My SO likes books on CD and he listens to those while I do whatever I want on the computer. I don’t know why it is, but I have a hard time with comprehension when I listen to those audio books. I used to like them, but no longer seem to be able to focus my mind on the story. Could also be that he and I have different taste in books. He likes thrillers and mysteries, and I’m not much of a fiction reader at all anymore. So I can do my thing, even watch a DVD if I want with my headphones, while he listens to his books. We don’t do either of these things, though, until we’re well into a car trip, after we’ve pretty much exhausted conversation. Both of us need our “own” time, and this is one of the ways we get it.

I’m really missing my kitty. I’m sure he’s missing me as well. I’ve talked to the cat-sitter a couple of times, and she says he seems content. I seriously doubt that. Sometimes wish I had a kitty-cam so I could see what he does when he’s alone. I wonder if he wanders through the house yowling like he does for the first few days after we have returned from one of these extended trips. It’s like he’s calling out to see if I’m there. I always answer him. I need my snuggle buddy and was thinking of that this morning as I laid awake in our motel room at 4:30 am. I’ll make time for a nap with kitty once I’m back in my place.

Onward ....

On the Road in New Mexico

Leaving Raton, NM on a cloudy, cold morning. The thermometer in the car says 28 degrees, but it feels colder than that because it’s more humid than we’re used to now than we’ve spent a week in Colorado. But this is a pretty town with some interesting history, and I hope we can come back this summer, maybe around July 4th when they have a big balloon festival with the mountains in the background.

We stopped here on our way to Denver, and in fact, stayed in the same hotel. They remembered us because of our dog. Not everybody comes with a big black dog with pointed ears. There wasn’t much of a place to walk her, but more than the other places we saw when we came through this town the first time. A frozen creek ran behind and below the hotel parking lot, but there was really no grass to speak of. She didn’t care. She finds something to interest her everywhere she goes. Great dog. She really is.

Last night, we asked the hotel clerk where to eat and he gave us a good suggestion. The restaurant used to be a candy factory and they had vintage photos on the walls. The chandeliers were made of old taffy paddles. Pretty unique. I had grilled Rocky Mountain brook trout and my SO was hungry for pasta. Both of us were full as ticks when we left, and then had a lazy evening at the hotel. He watched TV and I started a new book I’d brought to read. That was at about 6:30. By 9:30 I had finished it. Wonderful true story, and it inspired me, made me tear up a little at the end. I had the desire to jump up and start working on something. Been thinking about my WWII novel -- the endless novel -- an awful lot on this trip.

Before I went to bed I opened my email. Lo and behold, an email came from the filmmaker in response to my long and detailed criticism of her script. She was very positive about my objections to the changes and explained why she had made some of them, but was generous in offering to make new changes that would incorporate my suggestions. The only thing she was not able to accommodate me about was the location changes. That’s due to the fact that they’ll be filming in Alberta, and the mountains there are going to be very hard to disguise. So I get that and even have a few ideas myself about how to make that work better than it does in the present version.

So I’m feeling better about the whole deal and am prepared to sign a new contract with her. I have already expressed that I want this one to have a definite time limit. We’ve been at this for almost ten years now, and enough is enough. I still want to try to write a screenplay myself, think I could be good at it, although there’s nothing that says a screenplay, just because it's written, will make it onto the screen. I understand how hard it to get something produced. But it still would be fun to try to write one all the way through to the end, and I’m thinking could be a good writing exercise if nothing else. I will go ahead and buy that Final Draft software after we get home.

We’re on our way to Cimarron, New Mexico as I write this. The SO has a customer there, and an appointment to see them at 9:30 this morning, so we had to dash out of the hotel. If I get home with all I brought it will be a miracle.

Onward ....