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Finally, we have a chance to tell you why we’ve been in one place for so long. As many of you may know Lance and I have long dreamed of owning a spot of land where we could someday have a garden, chickens, and maybe even goats. A place where we would expand on our earlier attempts at water harvesting and composting, where we could collect and use the sun’s powerful rays. For years we thought this dream place of ours would need to be out in the boonies of some state other than Arizona, primarily because of sky high real estate prices.

Our travels in the RV these past few years helped us scratch a few potential locations off our list. For a variety of reasons we narrowed our list down to either southern New Mexico or southern Arizona. We knew we had far more ties to the latter but again, price made us lean towards the Land of Enchantment (and with a tag line like that who wouldn’t want to live there?).

But then the U.S. economy fell off the wall and broke into a zillion pieces. By September we, like so many others, were watching our retirement accounts dwindle. Since we usually wait until fall to max out our retirement accounts (it’s just the way our money comes in) we were sitting on a small pile of cash. A quick look around the economic landscape; faltering stock markets and lower real estate prices convinced us that it was the right time to start looking for our dream place.

By the time we reached the Tucson valley in November we had our list of requirements ready for our agent. We contacted the agent who handled both the buying and selling of our previous Tucson home; we figured we might as well stick with someone we trust. Poor guy—he had his work cut out for him—all we wanted was a small house on over an acre of horse property, close to town, and affordable. That’s all…

We knew we were aiming high but why not? Our criteria reminded us of our good friend Karen; her husband Rich jokes that she didn’t want much in a house—just a log cabin on a few acres in downtown St. Louis. We too, wanted all the rustic comforts of rural living and the amenities of a city.

It was not an easy search, obviously our preferences eliminated the majority of the properties right away. We had a few false starts, submitting two offers that didn’t go through, thankfully. Several months passed, Winter ended, and Spring warmed up but we kept searching, checking websites, and pestering our agent. One day near the beginning of March, after yet another false start, Lance offhandedly mentioned a property that was just outside our original search area. The MLS listing piqued our curiosity so we hopped in the car and cruised by the place.

We were sufficiently interested to schedule a viewing two days later. We met our agent at the house and the elderly woman who owned the place welcomed us in. Walking into the ranch house built of baked adobe brick was like entering a museum exhibit dedicated to the 1970s. Seriously, from the shag carpeting to the overly dark and ornate kitchen cabinets to the furniture and basic decor, not much had changed in the house in the last several decades.

And that caught my eye. The lady and her husband had purchased the house while it was still under construction in 1966 and they were content to leave well enough alone. They didn’t put the house through a remodeling blitz every decade like so many of the places we had seen. The structure was intact, in good shape and simple—just the way we like it!

Then we stepped out into the fenced backyard—wow—the place was set up for entertaining; a large covered porch, a huge built-in grill, patio seating areas and a pool; too cool! We were impressed with what we had seen and it was only a small portion of the 3.68 acres so far.

Leaving the backyard we wandered around the acreage to get a visual on the property lines. I think the most rundown part of the place is what most intrigued me: the tack room. The weather-beaten wooden structure had seen far better days, the roof was partially caved in and pack rats had stuffed every nook and cranny with their nests and various accoutrements. Our agent suggested it could be torn down but I knew it had a story…

Finishing our tour we re-entered the house: Charlotte was sitting in her chair, smoking a cigarette, drinking a bourbon and water. She was happy to answer our questions. Talking over the blaring TV her eyes lit up as she regaled us with tales from the good, old days: family weddings in the backyard, horseback rides up Wasson Peak, and of course, parties with friends. I could’ve settled into one of the chairs and listened to Charlotte until she ran out of stories (which would have been a very long time, I’m sure) but we had another property to view.

Not that it mattered, I think both of us were already sold. We stayed up late that night considering our options, examining all the aspects of the property, discussing the pros and cons, and compiling our list of questions and concerns. Two days later we made an offer.

Of course, it wasn’t easy. They countered, we countered, they countered and then we all took the weekend off to reflect on the situation. On the following Monday we found common ground and the purchase proceedings began. We were nervous while we had the house poked, prodded, and checked for the overall health of all its systems; what if there was something majorly wrong? Thankfully, other than a few wear and tear items the house passed with flying colors. Whew, one hurdle down, a million more to go.

The seller asked for extra time so that she could deal with 42 years of accumulated stuff. As much as we hated it, we had no choice but to wait and wait and wait. It took so long that we even felt compelled to drive by the house a couple times just to make sure it was the same as we remembered it! Since nothing would be final until we signed on the dotted line we were hesitant to tell anyone about it in case the deal fell through. The last few weeks before we signed I checked in daily with our agent to ensure the process was going smoothly.

Finally, on Friday, May 15th, after some last-minute paper chasing and stress we found ourselves seated at a shiny wooden desk with mounds of paper in front of us: signing time! The deed recorded that afternoon and then the house was officially ours. Yipppeee!

The next morning we drove up our driveway and parked in our carport and got right to work. The car was loaded with tools and cleaning supplies. Obviously, the carpet had to go, and the linoleum under that. We took out some of the kitchen cabinets, removed all the face plates, and vents. We patched the walls and prepped them for painting with a odor-sealing, stain-covering primer. We contacted various handymen and contractors for estimates on some projects we were interested in. We trimmed long neglected trees, we cut down non-native oleanders¹ and arborvitae. We thinned one section of our Jumping Cholla “forest” and we cleared an area for our RV site. Along the way we amassed two massive piles of debris so large that we were intimidated and called in experts to haul the mess away. It took the team two days and four dump trucks!

Near the end of May we finally moved our RV from the small RV park we’d been staying in for the previous six months to its new spot on the property. It didn’t take long to get it all hooked up and leveled. Though we hadn’t even considered this when we first purchased the RV it is very convenient to have a portable home while we are working on our future home. Especially since we need to remodel the kitchen…

Right about now there are probably several questions running through your mind—one of which probably goes a little something like this: Does this mean they are finally settling down and will quit vagabonding? And the short answer is: No. As excited as we are about our house and land we will continue traveling in our RV. We think of our newly acquired property as our long-term plan, our refuge where we will someday live, work, and play full time.

This summer’s trip will be truncated but we are still leaving for a jaunt to Ohio to spend time with family. Next year we figure we’ll spend about half of it in Tucson (the good half: Fall, Winter, and Spring) and the rest on the road exploring the countryside and visiting family and friends.

And now I must be off—there are house projects calling my name… I hope this helps explain our diminished web presence for the past few months, things should be a bit more normal around here soon.

Photos: View the photographs that go with this post: The Time Was Right….

Notes:

¹ Reasons I despise oleanders: they are difficult to keep looking nice, they shed like crazy, and they are poisonous. If you ate enough of the plant your heart would stop. Of course I don’t know anyone who would eat the bitter leaves but in a new book called Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities (Amazon) the author, Amy Stewart, tells of a woman who tried to kill her husband with the leaves (he survived that attempt but she later offed him with antifreeze). According to Stewart close to 70,000 people a year are poisoned by plants. That’s a much higher number than I would have guessed, so to be on the safe side the oleanders had to go. ↩

UPDATE: Thanks to an informed reader (see thepoisongarden’s comment below) we now have a better understanding of what the 70,000 number represents: they were calls to poison control centers concerning plants but less than 10% of the cases needed medical attention and there were no deaths. Good to know…