Sandpoint's up in the panhandle, on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille. Why did we ditch brats, beer, cheese, and Packers for mountains, pines, and moose?. Here's one reason:
We actually moved because the Sandpoint log home pretty much fell into our lap.
My wife's father retired from his job in Minneapolis back in 1984. He decided to resettle in Sandpoint to be near his daughter, the oldest of four. The other three lived in Milwaukee (that's us), LA, and St. Paul respectively. Since he'd spent his whole life in the Twin Cities, and since Milwaukee and LA are not attractive retirement destinations, his choice was clear.
A gregarious and happy man, he made more friends his first week here than I've made in a lifetime. One such friend was a builder who convinced him to buy three acres of land on the side of a mountain and build a log home on it.
Time marched on, and in 2005 the good man passed away. While going through his papers, deeds, and contracts, we found that he'd put a reverse mortgage on the log place (don't ever do that to your heirs). My wife and I were the only ones able to buy the home back from the mortgage outfit, which we did, and subsequently rented the house out for the following five years.
Then a nickle dropped. We work remotely, half the year from a small town in Mexico, the other half from the States. Why, we asked ourselves, couldn't we work remotely from Idaho? Property taxes in Wisconsin were killing us. The kids were out of school and established in their careers. What was holding us back. Nothing, it turned out. We gave the renters notice, put our Wisconsin home on the market (made a modest bundle on the sale), loaded up the Prius, and headed west.
The house was rough. My wife's dad did not put a premium on creature comforts and the renters had not treated the property gently. After six months of daily trips (sometimes two or three trips) to Home Depot, we brought the place to our comfort level.
My forays to the Depot introduced me to the locals (we are now locals too, so I should say 'neighbors'). I detected a pattern. Many of the people selecting hardware, lumber, tiles, and electrical boxes were my age ... baby boomers, two or three years on either side of 1950. And many had adopted the styles of the late 1960s, that formative period for a whole generation. The thing is, a majority of them hadn't changed, sticking stubbornly to the hippie mode. Their hair was gray and thinning, but the pony tails still trailed limply down their backs. Women in halter tops and long embroidered skirts. The cars they drove were the moral equivalents of the VW bug ... beat up Outbacks, rust-spotted Toyota pickups with DIY plywood shells over the beds.
This place, Sandpoint, was evidently the place where hippies, people who cherished their independence and refused to conform, went in order to live in peace.
And finally we're here too.
My wife's father retired from his job in Minneapolis back in 1984. He decided to resettle in Sandpoint to be near his daughter, the oldest of four. The other three lived in Milwaukee (that's us), LA, and St. Paul respectively. Since he'd spent his whole life in the Twin Cities, and since Milwaukee and LA are not attractive retirement destinations, his choice was clear.
A gregarious and happy man, he made more friends his first week here than I've made in a lifetime. One such friend was a builder who convinced him to buy three acres of land on the side of a mountain and build a log home on it.
Time marched on, and in 2005 the good man passed away. While going through his papers, deeds, and contracts, we found that he'd put a reverse mortgage on the log place (don't ever do that to your heirs). My wife and I were the only ones able to buy the home back from the mortgage outfit, which we did, and subsequently rented the house out for the following five years.
Then a nickle dropped. We work remotely, half the year from a small town in Mexico, the other half from the States. Why, we asked ourselves, couldn't we work remotely from Idaho? Property taxes in Wisconsin were killing us. The kids were out of school and established in their careers. What was holding us back. Nothing, it turned out. We gave the renters notice, put our Wisconsin home on the market (made a modest bundle on the sale), loaded up the Prius, and headed west.
The house was rough. My wife's dad did not put a premium on creature comforts and the renters had not treated the property gently. After six months of daily trips (sometimes two or three trips) to Home Depot, we brought the place to our comfort level.
My forays to the Depot introduced me to the locals (we are now locals too, so I should say 'neighbors'). I detected a pattern. Many of the people selecting hardware, lumber, tiles, and electrical boxes were my age ... baby boomers, two or three years on either side of 1950. And many had adopted the styles of the late 1960s, that formative period for a whole generation. The thing is, a majority of them hadn't changed, sticking stubbornly to the hippie mode. Their hair was gray and thinning, but the pony tails still trailed limply down their backs. Women in halter tops and long embroidered skirts. The cars they drove were the moral equivalents of the VW bug ... beat up Outbacks, rust-spotted Toyota pickups with DIY plywood shells over the beds.
This place, Sandpoint, was evidently the place where hippies, people who cherished their independence and refused to conform, went in order to live in peace.
And finally we're here too.
1 comment:
Great view! Love the moose :)
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