August 3rd, 2018
Liverpool, NY
Retired at last. Ahh.
For at least two decades I’ve been vacationing in various places in the mountain west, trying to decide where I eventually wanted to retire. Ten years ago, I bought what I thought would be my retirement home in Fort Collins, Colorado. Later I bought a second (investment) home there.
Also, I must come clean. My name is Patrick, and I’m a Zillow addict.
I had become enamored of Boise, Idaho, and thought I would retire there, instead. But then I started looking farther afield. There are some gorgeous ranches in rural Idaho. Stunningly so. But I wanted to be closer to the amenities of at least a medium-size town. Most those stunningly gorgeous ranches were 15-20 minutes from the nearest town of 5,000, and that just wasn’t going to work for me. So, “farther afield” included Coeur d’Alene. And, if you look at CDA, you also look at Spokane. Arguably not exactly the mountain west, but close enough.
In mid-January, I spotted a beautiful place just outside of Spokane and just couldn’t stop looking. I booked a flight to Spokane over the President’s Day weekend figuring if it was still on the market and I liked it, then maybe it was meant to be.
It was still on the market. And I loved it. And Spokane’s a cool place. And I bought it. I closed escrow around April 1st, while still on my annual training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The previous owners rented it back for two months.
When I returned from AT I gave four months notice at work. Who gives four months notice? My last day as a contractor was July 27th, almost exactly three years to the day from when I started there as a mobilized Army reservist.
Then the saga started with the movers. Oy. They were supposed to come August 1st. Then the assigned driver couldn’t make it until the following day. I was told they could load me with a local crew and truck, then unload in their warehouse, then later transfer to the long-haul truck. But every load and unload increases the chance of damage to furniture. So I agreed to postpone for a day, but a crew came up from Syracuse to pack the two rooms I had not packed myself – the kitchen and shop. That night I got a text from the driver about 8 p.m. that his trailer was full and he wouldn’t be coming. I left a rather terse message on the answering machine of Allied in Syracuse. I may have used a few opprobrious words. I was upset.
So, Plan C became that they would send up a local crew to load my stuff onto a local truck, which would, at some undetermined point in time, be transferred to a long-haul truck which I would later, at some undetermined point in time, meet up with in Spokane. That happened yesterday. I hate moving and I hate movers.
But I finally got on the road late yesterday. I could have just stayed in Watertown, but it felt good to drive at least an hour or so, and I made it to Liverpool, New York.
I have a detailed plan for travel. A plan maximizing microbrew. Also as many oddities from roadsideamerica.com as I can squeeze in. I will endeavor to provide photos of said oddities right here on the blog for you, my dear readers.
I’ll have a leisurely start here in Liverpool this morning. It’s two hours to Rochester and Martin House doesn’t open until nine-thirty. (See what I did there? It’s called foreshadowing. All the highest-rated bloggers foreshadow, I’m told. Only top-notch content here on the Remote Medic!)
I’m told I need to write an “ode” to my retirement. I don’t really do odes. I tried for a haiku, but failed at that, too. Verse, structured or unstructured, eludes me.
So, I guess it’s just this dumb blog post.
I don’t care, though, as I’m now retired and in one week I’ll be living mi nuevo casa poco y humilde.