ON THE ROAD AGAIN

LBJ's Schoolhouse

Matt at outhouse at LBJ's original birthplace

LBJ's Air Force One (Jetstar)

Self-Explanatory

Texas Hill Country

Matt with our new Suburban, named Bubba or Big White Whale (BWW)

Well, it’s been nearly two weeks since we sold Monkey Business and we continue to be amazed at our luck in selling her so quickly.  We have fond memories of our time on her, but are glad she has a new owner. 

We have moved on . . . our new trusty Suburban has taken us well over 2,000 miles so far.  We left St. Simons Island, GA, on May 13th and got on I-10 on the way to Texas.  We made a concerted effort to cross the mighty Mississippi ahead of the flood waters heading for the Gulf.  We did not see any flooding, but the rivers were up to their banks.  As we entered Texas, it was interesting to see the first exit across the state line -- #881 -- that means it is 881 miles from there to El Paso -- showing how big a state Texas is -- and that’s just east to west.  From north to south it is even further. 

We plan to keep up our blog for those that are interested.  Instead of talking about our adventures on water, we will tell you about our adventures on land and our process to locate where we want to live.  We really plan to “do our homework” finding the right place.  Some of the things we are going to do is check out the churches, medical facilities, if there is a Walmart/SAM’s in town, go to the grocery stores to check on the prices, get the “feel” of the town and see if it has a local small airport.  We will also try to get all the information we can from Welcome Centers and Chambers of Commerce, as well as talking with local realtors.  We are also checking out the weather.  Since we are looking at these places in hot times, we know that if we like them now, the rest of the year should be enjoyable.  Despite the temperatures in the 90’s, the lower humidity makes it much more tolerable.  The cost of living is much lower here than what we are used to. 

We first drove to San Marcos, the gateway to the Hill Country, for the first night in Texas.  We decided it wasn’t for us. 

The next day we went to Fredericksburg.  It is a quaint town founded by Germans in the 1800’s.   We have heard so much about it so had to check it out.  It reminds us of Aiken, SC with a Texas twist -- lots of cute shops and restaurants all within a few blocks.  We stayed in an inn on Barons Creek, which was wonderful and at a convenient location.  We really liked the town -- there is still a huge German influence with many Germans still living there, German food and stores.  Fredericksburg is the birthplace of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and there is a National Museum of the Pacific War there.  The museum is located in the former hotel owned by Nimitz’s grandfather.  We met with a realtor who educated us about the area then took us for a tour.  We didn’t really see any neighborhoods that we were interested in at this time, but it is “on the list.”  One day we drove up to Enchanted Rock -- a billion year old pink marble dome rock of massive proportions.  There are some incredible views of the hill country from that location.  We stayed in Fredericksburg for 4 nights.  While there we drove over to Luckenbach, Texas to look for “Waylon and Willie and the boys." Didn’t find them.  (For you non-country music fans, that’s a song.) 

We then went to Boerne (pronounced Bernie) -- also a German town.  It is an even a very quaint town.  We liked it immediately.  We looked around on our own, then met with two realtors.  We found a community that is a town of its own (Fair Oaks Ranch).  It has absolutely beautiful homes well within our price range.  Some of its advantages is being relatively close to San Antonio -- a city that is one of the fasted growing in the U.S. with low unemployment, excellent health facilities and a fun place to live.

We then went north to Marble Falls -- didn’t like it at all, so left after one night and didn’t even look around.  Lake LBJ is there, but very industrial and you might get bored watching the power boat drag racing.

Our overall impression of the Texas Hill Country is favorable -- there are some beautiful views, lots of trees, rolling hills, etc. -- even though they are going through a severe drought -- imagine how much greener is could be.  We love all the friendly people.  We also saw fields with elk, antelope, llamas and, of course, horses and cows. 

We are now in Lubbock -- no, we aren’t looking for a place here.  We needed to come here to register our new vehicle, do some banking and visit cousins -- including Nora, a week old baby.  We got to experience a typical Texas wind/dust storm.  Winds were 30 mph with gusts to 50 and lots of dirt flying. 

We are off to Arizona to check out a few places.  We’ll keep you posted.  Hope this isn’t boring.

ONE OF THE TWO HAPPIEST DAYS

We have been off the blog for quite a few weeks as we took a “land break” for the month of April to relax and make plans for the future.  We enjoyed the month in a beautiful beach side villa thoughtfully rented to us by a good friend, Bev Mellon.  We visited all of our doctors and dentists and eye people and we both passed all of our exams and tests with flying colors, thank God.  We loved seeing our friends and joining our fellow members at St. Andrew by the Sea United Methodist Church.  We have been to quite a few different churches in our travels, but St. Andrews is by far the most welcoming and has wonderful people.

Before we headed north to Hilton Head Island from Florida, by auto, we had decided to shorten our boat adventure.  We felt that we had checked off the boat adventure on our Bucket List and figured that although the market for larger boats has improved, it could take as much as a year to sell Monkey Business.  We put her on the market and had some immediate results.  Initially we got a low offer, from a UK couple, that did not develop to an acceptable level and was rejected.  We  also had two other showings to people who were interested, but had to sell their current boat.  We then had a showing with a broker from Delray Beach who said he had the perfect client for the boat, but we did not hold out any immediate hope for that deal.  We were encouraged by the activity, but did not get our hopes up.

While we were visiting Hilton Head, the Delray Beach broker made an offer on Monkey Business on behalf of a Canadian buyer and the negotiations began.  We reached an agreement and the boat was surveyed and went through a sea trial in Brunswick, GA, in early May and was delivered and closed on May 13, 2011.  A little quicker sale than we anticipated, but we are very happy with the deal and the boat has a new, very experienced owner who will register her in Canada.

We know that anyone who has owned a boat knows about the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life -- the day you buy your boat and the day you sell your boat.  We agree with that premise.  When you are done with an experiment, like living on a boat full time, you want the boat to go away.  We sure enjoyed our seven months aboard and have seen many beautiful places, but the lifestyle is a bit “flaky” and not really to our liking.  We are looking forward to establishing ourselves in a community.  Now we just have to find out where we want to live. 

We also retired our 136,000 mile 2003 Lexus, after we realized that our upcoming travel involved quite a bit of stuff to haul around and it would overwhelm the space in our four door sedan.  We traded the old road warrior for a Chevy Suburban.  This thing is so big it has a family room in the back!  We are surprised at the smooth ride in such a big vehicle.  It actually gets about 20 MPG on the highway, which is not much lower than the big Lexus at 23 MPG.  Mileage around town is not very good, but we only have one car and it is fun to drive and intimidate people in the motorized roller skates some of them drive.  We also feel a little more patriotic driving an American truck/SUV that was actually built in Arlington, Texas.  It looks great with our Texas plates on it!

We are heading to Texas to spend some time in the Hill Country around Austin and NW of San Antonio.  Beautiful country and we want to get a feel for the area.  After that, we will go over to southern Colorado and down to Santa Fe.  We will also take a look at the Sedona area of northern Arizona as well as visit some friends in the Tucson area.  Another period of moving around, but it is a great time in our lives to “See The USA In Our Chevrolet.”

We know this is a lot of news for you to digest -- imagine what it is for us!  We haven’t mentioned this to anyone because we didn’t want to jinx the deal and to make sure that it actually closed, but now you know.   

We will continue the blog for the foreseeable future, as some of you may be interested in our whereabouts and our travel experiences.  Until then, thanks for checking in and we hope you enjoy reading about the controlled chaos of our lives.

Our best to all,

Matt & Judy