Leaving Whidbey Island for good....we have sold our Brigadoon

A few months ago we made a big decision.  We decided to sell our home on Whidbey Island....our Brigadoon on Whidbey Island and have Nuestra Casa (our home in Mesa, AZ) be our sort of full-time home.

The reason that Nuestra Casa will be only sort-of a full time home is that many months of the year we haven't been living in any home--instead we have been living in the bed of our pickup or, now, where it or our Desert Rat (Toyota 4Runner) can take us.

There were many considerations.  One is that to have two homes seems wasteful.  It just feels uncomfortable.  Another consideration is that we love the desert, but instead of having to drive 1500 miles to get to our remote desert areas, we will now be only a few hours from the best spots in the nation to camp and hike.

We are also getting older, and living for 4-5 months in our camper was becoming too difficult.  We reasoned that if we had a home closer to our desert areas then we could sneak out there for 1-2 weeks, and then scoot back home and take it a bit easier for 1-2 weeks (including having a real shower), then repeat. 
 
We also realized that we needed to do the downsizing thing.  Both of us are good at letting possessions accumulate, and having a large home (and now two of them) just fed into that.  Everybody needs to do it sometime, and we realized that it was past our time to do this.  Moving is an opportunity to look at every possession and ask whether it is time for it to find another home, especially when one is moving into a small home like Nuestra Casa.

Finally, we love the sun.  In Nuestra Casa there are 300 sunny days each year.  In the PNW there are 2-3 (OK, a bit of an exaggeration).  But what we found by living in Nuestra Casa for these past 6 1/2 months is that we could get outside to swim and cycle EVERY day.   For our health, we need this. 

The hard part?  There are two.  Being more distant from our families, children and grandchildren.  That is the hardest part.  Second, we love this home and life.  The problem is that we only love it for 2-3 months of the year, when the weather is nice and sunny.  May to mid-July are awesome in our Whidbey Island home.  Great weather and all of the tropical birds are here.  Plants are growing and looking beautiful.  It is heaven on earth.

But even late summer doesn't do it for us in the PNW.  The birds are leaving, plants and flowers are leaving, and for the past few years, we have been leaving with them.

Our Whidbey Island home, our beautiful Whidbey Island home that is filled with the most powerful and wonderful memories we can imagine, sold yesterday.

We cried.

We know we are going to feel the loss for a very long time, but we don't feel regrets.  It was the right decision for two people who are either in their 70s or close to it.  We need to simplify our lives.  In Nuestra Casa everything we need in terms of physicians/dentists/specialists is within walking distance.  Walking distance.  No more setting the alarm for 5:00 a.m. in order to take the ferry and then driving 35 miles into downtown Seattle for a doctor's appointment.

No more mowing an acre of grass.  In fact, no more mowing any grass.  No more cutting up trees with a chain saw.  Now we will just move a little dial on the wall for heat.  It's a miracle!  You should try it.  We can save our energy for activities that are strenuous, but more gentle on our bodies, like swimming, cycling, hiking, dancing, ping pong, and walking.

We are sitting together this morning while writing this, in front of our window in what we call our "bird room," which looks out onto our front yard.  There are dozens of birds flitting every which way, including many hummingbirds.  If we sit here for an hour we will surely see a deer or two in the yard--this time of year they are frequently hovering over their just-born fawns.

We are going to miss this home so much. 

Celebrating the 8th anniversary of our first date

Every other year we have gone to  Buck's American Cafe in Everett and then to dancing at Noreen's.  But this year we were simply too exhausted from all of the work we put into getting the home ready to sell.

So we had a quiet celebration at home with our special fondue for dinner.  It was lovely.  

 

If we sell our Whidbey Island home, we will celebrating the 9th anniversary of our first date in Mesa at our desert home, Nuestra Casa.

Western Tanagers return

Our favorite tropical bird.  Bright yellow with a bright red head.

For the past three years we have noted when we see our first one of the season.  For those three years our first sighting of the year has been within a two-day window.  Amazing consistency given the distances they fly to get here.

Marina and Stella help us get the house ready to sell

We hired them.  They came over several times.  Both were very serious about what they did, were good workers, and it was a huge help.  And we had fun too!

Thanks girls!

I worked too!

 


The girls each got to pick out two of Grandma's LLadro figurines.  They were pleased.

 

And we took them out for dinner to our usual place with them:  Patron's Mexican Restaurant.

 

Hikes in Death Valley

While in Death Valley on this trip we got to take 5 hikes.  We would have taken more but had to return to civilization to deal with a problem with our home.

But the hiking was, as usual, wonderful.  Sometimes we were on old mining roads, and sometimes we did cross-country.  We saw no one else on any of hikes, except a motorcycle rider on "main" (i.e., only) road as we returning to our campsite.  That's our idea of hiking--nobody but us.

Our camping spots above Sand Flats, Death Valley, after crossing the Panamint Range

We had two camping spots for our five nights in Death Valley.  We saw only three vehicles driving past our sites in those 5 days and nights.  One was a motorcycle.  Another was a couple who was lost.  We encountered one other motorcycle on our hikes.

That's it!  That's the isolation we seek.

Our two camping spots:

You have to look closely to see us in this one, but we are there.  This shows the grandeur of Death Valley, the scope of it.  And how we truly are lost in the desert. It was beautiful.

 

A nighttime shot.  We happened to hit a full moon.  It was awesome.

Crossing the Panamint Mountains in the Rat

The second stage of our adventure was leaving the Panamint Springs Resort and heading north into Death Valley, crossing the Panamint Range.

This dirt/rock road was classified as a Level 2 road, with Level 3 in a few places.  This means that you shouldn't try it in your Prius (or, more specifically, don't try it in OUR Prius)

It was amazing.  The road was a nothing for our 4Runner.  In fact, and this is the truth, we didn't even need to put it into 4WD once!  But that is a testament to the vehicle.

A section of the road we drove on:

After we had climbed a few thousand feet we had an awesome view back down into the Panamint Springs area.  Because we were facing the early morning sun the photo can't do justice to the view:

Death Valley in the Rat: Starting from the Panamint Springs Resort

150+ years ago, some settlers trying to get to California made two fatal mistakes.  The first is that they left late, and the second is that, to make up time, they tried to take a short-cut.

The short-cut they took was to try to go over the Panamint Mountains instead of around them, as most settlers did.  They didn't make it.  Two of them died, and the rest had to eat their oxen to survive.

When finally through all of this, one of them said:  "This was really a death valley."

The name stuck.

This was our sixth time in Death Valley.  Obviously we like it.  Actually, obviously we love it.

But this trip was different.  For all of our other trips we were in the "Turtle" (i.e., our camper).  This time we were in our "Rat" (i.e., our new Toyota 4Runner).

Because we were in the Rat, we could get to the interior parts of Death Valley, the parts that are dirt/rock roads that even our camper on our 4WD Dually pickup can't reach.

We chose Death Valley for this trip because it was on our way back to Whidbey Island.  We had planned on spending 10 days to 2 weeks there.  Those plans got derailed, but nevertheless we had another great experience.

We spent our first night at the Panamint Springs "resort."  For real. The name actually has the word "resort" in it.

You can look at this "resort" in two ways.  One way is to compare it to other resorts, in which case the idea is laughable.  Our "resort" was a room with no TV, no coffee maker, no refrigerator, no microwave, no air conditioning (IN DEATH VALLEY?), no room service, no swimming pool, no pictures on the walls, no nothing except a bed in a room with ONE wall outlet.

The whole "resort" has dirt roads.

Does this sound like a "resort?"  No?  Well.........let's be fair.

To look at it in the other way, fairly, it is in the middle of nowhere.  To even have a room (a pretty expensive one actually) was appreciated.  There was even a gas station with overpriced gasoline.....except it cost a lot to have someone deliver it there so it wasn't really overpriced.

And for the time of year......the off season....it was fairly busy.  It fills a need.

We have no complaints.  Here are some photos, and I'm sure that anyone looking at this room would gasp with how primitive it is.  But, as we say, it was appreciated.  It is what we needed in order to enter the back country of Death Valley.  It was a fine jumping off place.

We had a good night's sleep, actually.  The next day we entered the heart of Death Valley in our Rat.

The Panamint Springs Resort--an over priced motel.  Just what we needed.  Thanks!