Set for timed release, when we're on the homeward-bound plane....
Yeah, been away from home these past many days. Ahead of travel was the scramble to arrange transportation and lodging; this is the third time Joy and I have come to Tennessee, but this time we brought my father along, and we took the plane so as not to spend half the vacation in transit.
Thing is: late last July, and more so since then, Operation Bug Out has become contingent on persuading my father to come along with us; leaving him on his own, back in Palo Alto, seems like a really bad idea. Ergo, another scouting trip, bringing him along to experience the scenery and greenery and to see that it's not full of nasty dangerous hillbillies.
The weather hasn't been altogether cooperative, what with unusual amounts of rain and some decidedly un-spring-like cold spells, but overall it's not bad - and we got to experience well-drained soil, as we walked across grassy areas the morning after a storm and didn't get all muddy.
Here's something I hadn't noticed on the previous visits: even the little purse dogs here are friendly. Instead of yapping fiercely at intruders, they scamper over and demand petting.
Anyway! On the 2016 trip, we'd done some real-estate window-shopping via various agents, one of whom was Houston Raby (based in Harriman), whose attitude we liked. So, we got back in touch, and had two outings to look at things currently on the market.
First outing: the first couple of properties were really kind of too far afield, northward - though the first one had a wonderful monster garage, and the second was (apart from the long drive) great all around, featuring a charmingly quirky house that had been designed and built by the owners: he an engineer, she a chemist. Third one on the list was in a fine location, and looked good on the Internet, but the listing was pulled the day before our outing, so we didn't get to look at the interior. Fourth was also close to civilization, and looked good (if a bit small, but also not all that expensive), but the configuration was optimized for a young couple with children, not a middle-aged couple with an aging ancestor; it didn't really have complete living facilities on the ground floor. We decided to skip the fifth; while it appeared to be a glorious house, and included river frontage, it was out at the far end of a series of back roads, making the driving time excessive.
Second outing: the first property had lots of acreage, mostly cleared, with a couple of quarter-acre ponds (and regrettably swampy areas around them; we didn't actually make it all the way to the back pasture). The house was kind of old; while it had plenty of space, and the interior had been kept up, we weren't entirely sure how much effort (and money) would be involved in getting it truly move-in ready. The second had a really nice, newer house, with a decent amount of space and a good configuration, plus a clean unfinished basement, a good-sized insulated metal workshop building (would need a bit of rewiring for my purposes; I'll be needing maybe 30 Amps of 240V power for the big stuff), and a good (if rather horse-oriented) barn, all on a bit over 15 acres, mostly wooded, but with some lawn, some pasture, and (according the the USDA soil map) a 2-acre strip of prime farmland lurking among the trees toward the back. This, we liked! Also, it was already hooked up to high-speed, land-line Internet, a huge plus. The third one was prettier, overall, and had a nice creek running behind the house, but the house didn't have a basement, the workshop was rather small, and (maybe this had something to do with the lack of basement?) it was in a potential flood zone.
Now, at this point (actually, by the time we were finishing up at that second property of the day), it developed that we'd accomplished the prime objective, i.e., persuading my father to come along on the eventual move. In an unscheduled development, we all wanted to buy that one property. Like, now.
Um. Thing is, my original plan had called for selling my house in Sunnyvale first, then coming back here in summer to buy something. Cash in hand, like. I could, just about (and given a week or so), round up cash for a down payment on such a place, but, given how anemic my income has been the past year and more, I don't know as a bank would talk to me, despite a FICO score that's the envy of other major governments.
Maybe if my father and I pool our resources...? Let's call his financial advisor and see what our options are. That guy's got to be good for something, right? Try to remember how to spell his name, find his listing, call his office, leave a message, go get dinner (being three hours ahead, out here), and wait for a call back.
Ever read Memory? Remember the bit where Miles calls up the Vorkosigan family's financial advisor—Tsipsis?—to see if there's any money available for his use?
Yeah. "Oh, that's all? Sure, it's a great opportunity to re-align the investments in your retirement account. No problem!"
And so, assured of funding (and of staying out of the clutches of the banksters), we set up an appointment with Houston to make an offer on that place we all liked. He rounded up the rest of the documentation, and....
Huh. Turns out that (despite being over 15 acres and having a parcel number ending in .00) it's part of a subdivision. And that subdivision has a restrictive covenant that appears to have been cut-and-pasted by someone who wasn't paying much attention (but it's presumably still enforceable). And the rules for the Something Farms subdivision say: no farming. In particular, only two structures are allowed per parcel, and the barn isn't one of them (though the house, workshop, and barn all appear on the county records). And: no poultry nor livestock of any kind. Horses are OK, though. Horses, yes; chickens, no. Seems that a pet budgie would be out of bounds, too. Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense.
And so we ended up passing on that one. I really want to keep a few hens, and a couple of modest-sized goats would be a good match for the patch of pasture there. And I'd want to add a cookout shelter (or "pavilion" as they're apparently called) and probably a machine shed... but the existing barn is already in excess of what's allowed? Foo.
Oh, well. We're back to the former plan, except that now my father might be going halvesies or something on the summer purchase, which kind of raises the price ceiling. We'll see how things look when the time comes.
Also, we've been checking out parks and greenways, and visited a couple of nurseries. It's amazing how much great stuff a nursery can have on display when not paying through the nose for every square inch of space! (Looking at the on-line Burpee Seed Catalog for Zone 7a turns up an astonishing number of things that can be grown here, and that's without turning to specialty sources.)
Meanwhile, back to the Bay Area, to get busy decluttering both houses and making preparations to sell, presumably mine first and then his. And watching the Knoxville / Oak Ridge area listings come and go, and maybe getting alerts from Houston when interesting things come on the market.
Apart from that?
The Knoxville area seems to be experiencing rapid growth. Not as rapid as the Bay Area, but we've been meeting a lot of recent arrivals, and there's a bunch of construction going on. So buying just ahead of the growth might actually be a good investment, especially if the property lends itself to eventual subdivision (though that would be part of a 20-year plan, and we've seen how even Five-Year Plans turn out).
The rental car is last year's model of the Toyota Camry. It's kind of bulky and awkward to maneuver, as smallish passenger cars go. Also, the front seats put one in a rather odd posture (unless there's some adjustment we never figured out); I found that I couldn't take full breaths, which was not conducive to remaining awake and alert.
If you come to a place like this, and don't turn on network television, it's amazing how political acrimony just isn't there. Lots of campaign signs for county dogcatcher, etc., but nobody getting shouty about the Big Important Issues Of The Moment. Maybe it's something to do with having a religion separate from the State? Or knowing people who aren't necessarily of one's own party?
Most of the trip, we were staying at La Quinta Inn in Alcoa, just across from the airport. The staff were consistently helpful and efficient, in marked contrast to some of the places we stayed in 2016 (on that trip, we kept encountering hotel and restaurant staff who seemed to be chronic stoners).
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