Kat’s TravelBlog

Wow, it’s been quite some time since I’ve updated this blog — over a month, in fact, ever since we got back to Saint Joseph. Do I need to say that we’ve been pretty busy?

The majority of that busy-ness has been, and continues to be, getting the house ready to put on the market. We’re nearly ready to call in a Realtor, as soon as a few more chores are accomplished. Phil, with help from Nick, has been getting lots of stuff done, inside and out. The front porch was one of the first things they tackled, and it looks great! They rebuilt the steps and wrought-iron railings, and painted the deck and stairs and railing, then cleaned up accumulated cobwebs under the overhang, and Nick installed a new light fixture to replace the old, rusted out original. Yesterday they got started on replacing the quarter-round trim around the baseboards in the living room and dining room that were inexplicably missing when we bought the house. Those baseboards will have to be painted, since it looks like whoever worked on it before just ripped the molding off, taking chunks of paint with it. I suspect that happened when they refinished the hardwood floors. Why they did such a beautiful job on the wood floors, yet left the trim in such horrible shape, is beyond me. But there are a lot of contradictory things in this house. No matter. We’re taking care of them, and more. Whoever gets this place next will have quite a prize.

In spite of the gruesomely hot, muggy weather, Phil and Nick got the yard into reasonably good shape, too, including trimming some trees in the back that were taking over the place. The only thing left to do out there now is some work on the front concrete walkway, which has deteriorated over the years.

Inside, Phil finally finished restructuring the shelf and hanging rod in his office closet, and only needs to finish spackling and painting in there. Then they are going to tackle the outside doors that need repair and painting. He got a storm door for the side entrance that leads to the basement, and will take the existing door off and rebuild it, to make it more secure as well as looking better. The front door looks like it has never been painted since the house was built, about a hundred years ago, and it needs a new lock and such as well as some of that battleship grey paint. Maybe it ought to be a different color, but grey is pretty safe, and he already has the paint left over from the porch. If the new owners want something brighter, they can pick the color.

Aside from those structural repairs/upgrades, the main tasks remaining are cleaning and straightening. The carpets need shampooing, the tile floors need polishing, and the rest of the stuff needs normal housekeeping attention. I’ve been slacking off on that end, still nursing my broken ankle, but it’s getting done little by little.

Speaking of that ankle, today I started another round of physical therapy, this time for the ankle (of course). I went to a different therapist this time, after a couple of medical people recommended Spine & Sport, and I must say I was impressed by the initial workup. Fred, the owner and senior therapist, did the evaluation. His explanation of what he thought was at the root of my muscular-skeletal woes made a lot of sense, and even better, he has ideas about how to get started on correcting the issues at hand (or foot, as the case may be). Tomorrow I’ll start aquatic therapy, and after that starts to create some improvement, he’ll move me to exercises on dry land. I’m hoping we’ll get a lot accomplished before we leave here to go back to Texas this Fall.

So, I’d better get back to work if we’re going to get out of here! Till next time…

We are finally on the way back to Missouri, only two months later than originally intended. This entire year has been a study in flexibility and unintended consequences. But one broken ankle and one land acquisition later, we are headed home. Or at least, we’re heading for our Missouri house, to get it ready to be put on the market. Central Texas already feels more like home than St. Joe ever did, at least for me. Maybe that’s because I’ve lived there before, and it is my native state, but Phil also has expressed that he feels like it’s a homecoming.

Regardless of the psychology, we are looking forward to getting started on building a house that will suit our needs and wants better than the one we now own, but we do need to take it slowly. For one thing, we want to make very sure of the design. For another, we probably cannot afford another mortgage payment on top of the existing house and the motorhome, but we would rather sell the house than the RV, of course.

Now that we have the land, we really don’t have to wait to live in Texas. We can park our RV there as easily as anywhere else, and with the resort membership that came with the lot, much cheaper than almost anywhere else. Plus, once we have a driveway and start construction, we can even park on our own land, although until there is a structure of some kind we won’t be able to have power or water hooked up, so we would have to dry camp, and drive in to a filling and dump station at least a couple of times a week. But for “free” parking, that’s not too much of a hardship. We’re paying for the land anyway; might as well use it.

All those considerations are still a few months in the future at the very least, though. Right now, we need to take care of stuff and visit family back in the Midwest. We have already done some of that, having dinner with my uncle last evening in Oklahoma City. If Phil’s cousins in SW Missouri are around, we may see them tonight, but this weekend we will certainly spend with Phil’s nephew and neice in the Kansas City area, and will probably see other relatives there, too. Brian and his cousin Treva who lives a block away have a big party every 4th of July, and their parents & one or more uncles and aunts frequently show up for it. So it will be a real family holiday before we even get back to St. Joe.

Wow, I just realized my last post was written just before the flash flood that innundated the Guadalupe River basin below the dam, as the rain was coming down! It was pretty awful, although not as many people were lost here as there were the following week in Arkansas. One man drowned, but that’s one too many, and there were lots of close calls. I guess watching the weather was a pretty smart thing to do, even though our current campsite is above the 100-year flood level. We will have to remember that as we prepare to make this our home.

And speaking of home, the closing date on our land has finally been scheduled for this Friday. We have a car trunk full of hand tools to do some preliminary clearing before we leave for St. Joseph. I don’t know how much of that we will really get done this trip, but we will have them ready next time we come down. As of now, we plan to leave here on June 27th, and must get back to St. Joe before July 6th, since I have a doctor’s appointment for the final checkup on my broken ankle.

Before we leave Texas, though, I’ll be attending an organizational meeting for a new search and rescue team for Canyon Lake. I saw a story about it in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, and emailed the organizer to volunteer to create a website for them. I figure it’s one way to meet people and become part of our new community.

And speaking of websites, last post mentioned a possible new blog about our house building. I’ve decided not to do that, but will cover the subject (actually, multiple subjects) in my Kat’s Arts blog. Architecture, landscaping and interior design are arts, after all, right? Some of the topics I’ll be covering include xeriscaping, sustainable building & living, and all the ideas and frustrations and joys involved in creating a new home. Please do drop by, and leave comments!

I don’t know if it’s a rainy night in Georgia (well, actually, afternoon), but it sure is here in Texas. From the looks of the weather map we might as well get used to it today. There is a flash flood watch for this general area, even though it isn’t raining hard here. The Texas Hill Country is considered the most flash flood-prone area in North America according to the US Weather Service, so I do keep an eye on weather alerts even though where we are at the moment is not a particularly dangerous place from that perspective.

But flash floods aren’t really what I sat down to write about. Instead, I’ve been thinking about starting another blog to keep track of the process of planning and building our new house. Our lot is near a hilltop on an almost level area, with a new, very large-capacity drainage ditch through the subdivision, so I’m not particularly worried about flooding there, but to go anywhere of course we have to come down off that hill, so keeping our eyes open is a good idea.

So, what am I doing besides watching Weather Bug? In spite of the fact that I’m pretty slack about keeping my blogs up to date, I’m thinking of starting yet another one. The new one will be about the process and tools used to design and build our house, starting with the land search, developing the idea for the house, creating the site plan, then actually designing the house and finding a builder, and so on. I expect the blog to cover not just what we do, but how we do it, including searching for and using applications on various platforms, from the iPhone and iPad to the computer.

I have a few hours worth of work to do before launching the new blog, so there isn’t a link to it here yet, but as soon as it is ready I’ll write about it here. Wish me luck, and come visit when there’s something to see!

A lot has been happening. Today, after spending a week at an RV park between Sattler and Canyon Lake (both unincorporated communities on the east and south sides of the lake respectively), we moved to a different RV park on the north side, closer to the land we’re buying, and with better phone and WiFi reception. That’s a luxury of staying in a place near where we want to stay — we could drive around and try out the telecommunications signals before deciding which park has the best. Yes, I used both the iPhone and iPad for that purpose, since their antennae seem to be different, and the fact that the iPad works well in one spot does not necessarily mean the iPhone will have good reception, too.

Anyway, let me try to summarize what has been going on.

We decided to buy that lot, even though when the surveyor came out he discovered we were actually looking at the wrong lot. But that’s ok. When we looked at what turns out to be Lot 74 instead of 73, I had looked over at the lot to the south and wished we could get that one instead, since it had a really beautiful sand post oak tree on it. Well, guess what? That is our lot!

Click the photo for a larger image.

Closing is rapidly approaching, and our loan officer promised today to expedite it so we might be able to close as early as the middle of next week. So, we decided to go ahead and get reservations here for a month, which gives us the cheapest rate. We don’t have to stay just because we’ve paid for the site, since anything over about two weeks is like staying for free comparing the monthly against the weekly rate. This way we won’t have to rush to get things done to establish Texas as our home of record, which will save us a bundle on taxes next year and thereafter. Texas, of course, does not have a personal income tax, and property taxes here are less than in St. Joseph, too, especially for the RV. Missouri really soaks RV owners when it comes to personal property tax. We need to investigate what is required to become “real” Texans, besides just owning land here. There’s things like getting Texas drivers licenses, registering the car & RV here, and maybe renting a post office box, or at least letting the local post mistress know we’re here and giving her a forwarding address when we leave. Then we can start changing mailing addresses on the few items we still get by snail mail. When all that is done, I think it will pretty much cover us in terms of official residency. These things will take a little time beyond closing date, so it’s just as well that we plan to stick around.

Meanwhile, we’ve been meeting some of our new neighbors, at least people in the general Canyon Lake area. A couple who were next to us in the first RV park up here at the lake are also building a house, and invited us to come check it out and meet their builder. Then when we went to a local burger place for lunch one day, and were talking about building plans, the guy at the next table piped up that he and his wife are also building, and after talking for awhile discovered he’s also retired military, and he invited us to come see their house. As Phil keeps saying, people around here sure are friendly!

So, besides dealing with the land purchase and exploring the neighborhood, and of course taking care of my broken ankle (which is doing fine, thanks), there has been a little more excitement. I finally broke down and agreed to sell my old original website. That will become final tomorrow, although it may take a few more days to completely transfer the domain to the new owners, US Digital Media. They plan to continue using it as a non-commercial public information site (non-commercial in the sense that no direct selling will occur on the site, most likely, although obviously they are a for-profit company and will make no secret of their ownership and development of the site.) I will most likely be writing more articles for it for a couple of years at least (it’s part of our deal), and I will be able to keep my email address there, which will save me a lot of grief since I’ve used it as my login ID and contact info on countless other websites to such an extreme that it would be virtually impossible to update them all. They are a good company, and have been supporters of the site since 2004 as advertisers off and on, so I feel quite comfortable that they will take good care of it. Naturally, they will be sprucing it up — much of it still looks like the mid-1990s (which is when I started the thing), and at least some of the content is a bit out of date. So, if I’m going to be awake to do that kind of business tomorrow, I’d better get some sleep. G’night!

We are sitting in the RV in the middle of a thunderstorm, still parked in New Braunfels, Texas. We were going to drive over to Canyon Lake this afternoon to the Realtor’s office, but with this rain we called her and asked her to just email us the pages of the contract that have to be changed and signed after we came to a final agreement with the land owner. Yes, we definitely are getting the lot we wanted, and for an excellent price. We’ll scan, sign and email them back today, then get started on all the other details that must be taken care of before closing on June 22nd.

The area where our lot is located is called The Summit at Fischer, and is one of four developments created by the owners of The Summit Vacation Resort around Canyon Lake. All the streets in this particular gated “community” have patriotic names, like “Let’s Roll Dr.” and “Freedom St.” Our street is called “Stars and Stripes”. This development was started shortly after September 11, 2001. While there are over 200 lots, with a few still for sale by the developers and others for sale by owners, only a handful have houses on them so far. We probably won’t be able to start building until next year at the earliest, too, since we have a lot of planning to do first, and need to do something with our house in St. Joseph as well. I don’t think we can talk a bank into a house loan while we have an existing house and an RV, and anyway we would just as soon not have to pay Missouri property taxes any more. We will be establishing Texas residency as soon as possible after buying the land.

The Land. I have some more pictures of the lot in my gallery. You can click the link, or the picture above to open the album page. There are several mature liveoak trees on the lot, including this one right in the middle of the lot which we will probably enclose in the courtyard, as a centerpiece of our outdoor living area. I envision a circular wooden bench built around the trunk, and bird feeders hanging from the branches. It’s not an enormous tree, kind of middlin’ size, but when we clear away the cedar that’s crowding it now, it might well take off, as many others have done around here. One of the sales reps at another development kept talking about how these oaks get “bushy” when their share of the ground water isn’t all being slurped up by the cedars. So, if you look at the images of the model house I built in Second Life, just mentally substitute the tree for the central fountain.

Gotta go — the email from the Realtor just arrived and we have work to do!

We are still in New Braunfels. My ankle is healing nicely, but next week I have another visit to the surgeon, then we have to decide whether to head straight home to St. Joseph or stay down here, perhaps out at the lake, for another week or so. We are leaning toward staying. A lot (bad pun) will depend on how close we are getting to acquiring land to build on out there.

We are scheduled to meet the salesman at yet another development this afternoon, where a lot of their properties that had been held by investors are now up for resale after foreclosure. Some lots that had originally sold for up to $100,000 are now in the $20-50K range, including at least one we heard of that’s over 2.5 acres for less than $30,000. But the lots we saw on the north side of the lake are also attractive, and attractively priced. One thing that’s for sure — there is no land shortage here, even though it is a very lovely area. For one thing, there aren’t many jobs nearby. There are jobs, but it’s a matter of commuting 30-90 minutes to get to them, unless you can telecommute. Of course, in many neighborhoods around the lake, telecommuting is a very real possibility since the local communications comany offers fibre to the door. We aren’t even looking at places that don’t have that.

Last weekend we went out with a Realtor® to see a few places on the north side, two houses and two lots. The houses were nice, but not exactly perfect for us, and given that we have been developing our own concept of what we’d like, we’re now concentrating on finding the perfect land to build it on.

Here we are in the middle of God’s Country (Texas, of course), in the prettiest time of year, with wildflowers blooming their heads off after an unusually wet winter. The sky is blue, the grackles are squawking, and the trees are in full leaf. I have my magical iPad, Phil is enjoying Netflix, and all is right with the world.

Well, maybe the rest of the world might have a few problems, but for now we’ll disregard those and simply enjoy the sunshine. We have had such a great time here, in fact, that we have even considered buying some land to build on eventually just a little to the west of New Braunfels, near Canyon Lake. Last week we drove over there and looked at some lots in a not yet very built-up subdivision, where they already have water and fibre to each location. The developer has some special deals running, of course, and given the current economic climate this might be a good time to invest in an acre or two, even if we don’t build any time soon. We’re thinking of it.

One of the factors that has us in this mood is the thought of going back to St. Joseph and trying to get up all the steps into our house there with my broken ankle. And even after making it into the house, there are stairs to contend with on a frequent basis. By the time we go back at the end of May I ought to be able to handle those, but neither of us is enthusiastic about the prospect. Plus, the experience we’ve had of Texan friendliness has really impressed Phil. I could have told him Texas is friendly, of course, but it was better to let him come to that conclusion himself, and he has. We have been very positively impressed with the quality of medical care in this area, too. There are just lots of reasons to want to live here.

What we are thinking of, since selling the house in St. Joe might not be very easy right now, is turning it into a rental property, and hiring a property manager to handle it since we aren’t around much of the year. All this might be some time in the future, though, since it will take some work to get stuff ready to move and there are still things we need to do with the house to make it more attractive to renters or an eventual buyer, like finishing the built-in bookcases, replacing the baseboards that the previous owner left undone when the hardwood floors were refinished, painting or installing siding outside, and repairing the front porch and possibly replacing or tearing down the wreck of a garage. And the front steps down to the street are badly in need of replacing, too, possibly with a ramp instead of stairs. All that will take a year or two, but if we go ahead and pick out a lot here we can be thinking of what kind of house to put on it, and have one less decision to make when time comes to build. Plus, it would give us incentive to get the stuff done on the St. Joe house sooner rather than later.

So, that’s what is going through our minds at the moment. Moving is still some time away, but it is probably inevitable given the frustrations we’ve faced in dealing with life in Missouri and the attractive prospect of the Texas life.

Tomorrow I’ll finally get the cast off my leg! The surgery went well, and while the doc put in a whole bunch of hardware (six screws and a plate), I’ve been recovering and getting around better every day. Instead of the crutches, which were really hard to use, the clinic gave me a walker, but now I’m wondering if I might even get by with just a cane. It’s good to have options, anyway. I am getting really tired of lugging around an extra 10 or 20 pounds of plaster (or whatever the thing weighs), and actually looking forward to using the “boot” pictured in my last post. Maybe my sore left knee will get some rest at last. Having to hop around on that previously-injured, still weak leg hasn’t been exactly optimal, but it’s better than not being able to walk at all, I guess. It is a little easier to manouver every day, though, so I must be getting better at it.

Something else I’m looking forward to is April 30th, when our 3G iPad is to be delivered. There’s a countdown timer in the right sidebar of my tech blog, clicking off the minutes until UPS or FedEx comes a-knocking.

So yes, as mentioned earlier, we will be staying here in New Braunfels for another month, to give my ankle time to get better before I have to help get the car on the tow dolly, etc. This will also give us time to do some of the sightseeing we’ve had to put on hold while I’ve been stuck indoors because it’s such a hassle to get in and out of the RV. Phil has been a real trouper, cooking, cleaning and doing the grocery shopping, and trying to cheer me up, but cabin fever is no fun at all. I’m not sure we’ll be going river tubing, but we do plan to get out and go places. Luckily, the weather has turned pretty, after a lot of rain and gloom last week, and that should continue for the foreseeable future. It’s starting to get hot, but not unbearable, and we’ve got some big trees providing shade at our parking site, which is nice. It also provides perches for a large number of very noisy birds, mostly grackles and cardinals from the sounds of their calls, but there’s probably other varieties as well. Maybe after I get the cast off I’ll get outside and capture some more of this lovely Texas springtime with my camera.

This is where I broke my ankle/leg. See the steps on the right side of that tree? I managed to fall off my shoe on one of the rough rocks, tried to regain my footing, and fell hard down a couple of steps, twisting my right ankle, breaking the fibula (small stabilizing bone in the back of the leg) down near the ankle.

This is another part of Comal Springs. We were showing the park to Zack and family who came up from San Antonio to see us while they were there for son Ben’s graduation from Army Medic school. We had planned to go to that, but reality intervened…

It might not have been so bad if I hadn’t apparently injured the ligaments on the inside of the foot some time ago, maybe even back when I was a high school sophomore. I had a bad sprain then, and don’t recall any other injuries that could have caused a gap between the tibia and ankle. Anyway, the result of both of those is an “unstable injury”, which means I’ll be having surgery Friday to put a plate in to hold the fibula still while it heals. If the only thing wrong was the broken bone, I might have gotten by with just a cast and staying off of it for a month or two.

This picture is Raquel getting the monster one-size-fits-none boot ready for me. At least it is less uncomfortable than the splint they put on me in the emergency room in New Braunfels Sunday, and I can take it off to bathe. That’s a very good thing, after days of stress and sweating over every step I take.

We did have crutches in the RV with us (just in case), which we’d gotten last summer when I sprained my left knee, so I’ve had some means of mobility, but it’s not easy to have to put all my weight on that weak leg. It takes forever to get even short distances, and it’s exhausting as well as causing cramps in my “good” leg. So, we got a script from the doctor to rent a wheelchair for a few months, or while we’re here in Texas anyway, that is if we can find one that will fit in the back of the Z-car. I know they make some that will, but whether those are available for rent or not is a question. We’ll find out. I’ll also have a handicapped tag for parking in reserved spots. That would have been handy today when we stopped for lunch on the way to the doctor’s office. Again, since we’re from out of state it’s a question whether Texas will let us have one, but I rather think they will. That, and the pre-op workup will take care of tomorrow.

We decided that rather than trying to struggle home with my ankle waiting for attention, we’d just get it fixed while we’re here, even if it means extending our stay. There are certainly worse places to be “stuck” for an extra month than New Braunfels, Texas! And it’s probably easier to get in and out of the RV than the house in St. Joe with all those steps, inside and out. But unfortunately we’ll have to miss the Severance School Alumni Banquet this year, and Nick’s high school graduation. We’ll also have to reschedule several doctor appointments up north, but that’s easy.

One positive aspect of the delay in returning to Missouri is that it removes the uncertainty over where to have our iPad 3G+WiFi shipped when they are released at the end of this month. We got one box here via UPS, so I know the parcel services will bring them right to our door. I’m on the phone to Apple now getting that changed. Now I need to get busy and finish my video project for grad school. The instructor said I can have some extra time, thank goodness, since it’s due this week and obviously a few other things are getting in the way of finishing that. When it’s done I’ll post it on my account at Screencast.com.