Thursday our son was with my parents, and Tony just had a bug to get out on the road. Me, I was looking forward to a day at home without my son, getting stuff done. By the title of the blog, you've probably figured out who won.
Our agent had sent us a list of homes that had been served with a trustee's sale notice and I went thru it to see if anything on it met our needs. There's a 10 acre parcel listed, but with a trustee sale, opening bids aren't released until the day before the sale. The county lists parcels with previous and current years valuations, so I use that as a guide. This 10 acre parcel was valued at $93,000 last year, and $1,000 this year! OK, now my curiosity is aroused enough to consider leaving home. It was a little hard to locate on the map because it's in an undeveloped area. We found the names of a couple of dirt roads and knew we could get to it. What we didn't know was the condition of the roads...
This is what we were faced with after driving over a couple of hills with washouts as deep as the one on the left of this photo. Did I tell you it was a narrow road? With a steep enough drop-off to make me quite nervous? Or that the ruts were situated such that we had to drive as close to that drop-off as we could without falling off? What about the fact that the road is rocky granite?
You might be asking why we stopped and got out.
That was just the beginning of the adventure though. Once we got onto the other road and wound our way around a couple more hills, we took two month's worth of rubber off the tires trying to climb back out. We could smell the burning rubber. I prayed. God answered! The granite on this road wasn't ground up and rocky. It was large rocks and small boulders. Driving from one to the next, hoping we wouldn't start slipping back down. We got over that hill, came back to where the other road joined this one and kept on going. Turns out this road has been taken care of, and it's the route I suggested we take in. I agreed with his route because it was shorter. Yikes!
We got out of there and continued on into the next series of towns to look at houses that Tony had researched. Keyed the addresses in to the GPS but "she" wanted us to go a different way than what Tony had written down. We went miles out of our way, drove by 2 houses he thought we might like (we didn't) and then tried to find two more. One was empty, so we got out to look around. Not bad. Not in the area I'd like to be, but it sat on a hill looking out over the valley. I decided not to be so firm in where I want to live and told Tony we could investigate this one more.
Darkness had now come upon us, but we tried to find the 4th house anyway. It didn't exist. Or the address in the instructions didn't. We gave up and decided to go eat. He said there were photos of the one we looked at online so I was eager to get home and see them. Know what the listing said? 2500 gallon water tank to store hauled water. You don't know Tony so you don't know how ironic that is. The reason we haven't left the area we're in is because water is a prime requirement of his for any property we buy. The town we live in has irrigation ditches, and most of AZ does NOT. I couldn't believe we were in the car for 6 hours to look at 4 houses and one parcel of land, with one of those houses not even having water!
I think I was a good sport about it though. I didn't rub it in too much, but I did remind him that I'm supposed to be the navigator. :-)
Hahaha!! Sounds like a funny/aggrivating time! You really need to teach Tony to do a little more research before you venture out. The rd you are talking about sounds like a rd that we followed the signs to get to Sedona. Off of the main highway the signs said and pointed to Sedona..not from the area we said "ok follow the signs" Off the highway and taking a right onto a kind of dirt rd. I said this can't be right. We looked at the map and the rd was on the map so we said since we didn't know the area and it is on the map we should be good. With the sun getting low in the sky and Mark still driving down this rutty dirt rd I was getting nervous until we reached a point where if you went a little to the right...you were falling off the side of the cliff!!! Then I was scared! I begged him to turn around and finally when he saw you needed a 4 wheeler or something to go further he backed up for I can't tell you how far so we wouldn't fall off the side. SO my advice for you....stay away from those rds not on the maps or if they are dirt and rutty!!!!!!! Seriously the rd you were on was worse then the one we were on but it was the same thing in ways and brough back some bad memories...thinking I was going to die on my honeymoon!!! Good news is by the time we did make it to Sedona...it was right at sunset...breathtaking!!!!
ReplyDeleteKarrie,
ReplyDeleteI can't picture what dirt road you would have been on to get to Sedona that's like that. Were you coming from Phx or Flagstaff?
I was hoping you had found something fantastic when I saw the title. Don't you love those pointless trips we take for our husbands? We went for a drive to look at trucks. Not that we can afford one anytime soon, but it was vitally important at that moment... to him.
ReplyDeleteIt was coming from flagstaff and it was a right off the exit then a slight turn left on a sharp bend in the rd....it is so not right to have a rd on the map that isnt a rd...lol!!
ReplyDeletehow cool! I am sure you didn't think that when you slid off that rock, though. Here we are so used to the bland, flat land that anything like the scenery in your photos really catches my eye.
ReplyDeleteBetter luck next time? I love looking at houses and land, and dreaming about them, even now that we have found our place.
I enjoyed looking at houses and land a year ago, but my patience is wearing thin! A lot of the changes we want to make to our diet and the way we live are on hold because this house just isn't big enough to handle it. Heck, it's not big enough to just handle US!
ReplyDeleteMy o my, your trip was a fun one. Maybe next trip consider taking the truck. Thanks for the fun trip with you, and hope next trip is easier on your auto than this one was. Have you got any lines on some more to look at yet?
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