The New View From My Window

A couple weeks ago I made a rather long move - like a 2200 mile move - from Baker City, OR to Petoskey, MI. I'm still trying to fit a three bedroom house with a garage/shop into a one bedroom with storage. Packing, driving, unpacking, and suffering from geo-social shock explains my absence from this blog.

Looking somewhat SW from my sliding window in the living room. Petoskey is over in that general direction, past the hill and on the edge of northern Lake Michigan.  Depending on which side of town you're trying to get to it is about 5 miles.  (Click Pics For Full Size)

Out to the NE is my landlady's house and my '74 K5 Blazer. Previous to the move I sold "the fleet." While I have no use for it, I'll sort of miss the old '50 Chevy COE. I'll much more miss the '62 Chevy II and for driving and gas mileage the '04 SSR is a real loss. I needed money and I needed to not have a huge insurance bill. I've driven the '78 K20 Chevy work truck longer than any other vehicle I've ever had, but I could move one vehicle and a utility bed truck that could get all of 8 mpg and seat three tightly just wasn't in the cards.  The driveway is very light colored because it is sand, if you scrape the ground anywhere around here you get sand and it takes some work to not track it all over the house...

Since you can't go much over 10 miles in any direction with out running into water, lakes, I figured I probably needed something that floated better than the Harley which is parked in the garage past the "hole in the water you throw money into."  This thing is a '94 18' Four Winns with a 5L 215HP Ford V8 and it can scoot - the test drive showed it making 50 mph, which is darn fast on the water.  While I was paying for it and doing the paper work the shop winterized it - so I have a large expensive yard decoration that, unlike the Harley, I can't ignore... all damn winter.  Yeah, it's 11AM and 39F and over cast which isn't too bad for the last two weeks - at least it isn't raining or snowing, like it has been.  Baker County is semi-arid - which means a couple less inches precipitation and you've got desert - did I mention shock?

There are a number of reasons why this move happened and not a bit of it had to do with wanting to leave my friends and the country side of Baker City. I shut down the construction contracting business last fall since I couldn't afford to subsidize it any more and this summer my wife and I decided to divorce which meant selling the house since she was moving and neither of us could afford to buy out the other. All that and my mother's age of 85 years and the closest child 3 hours away made it seem that with little employment opportunity it sort of fell on me to get within her neighborhood. Mom's place is about 25 minutes away, close enough that I can help her out whenever she needs it and still far enough that she can - heh - still like me.

It is odd and kind of claustrophobic to ride the country roads and not be able to see anything unless you're topping a hill.  The humidity is sky high compared to Baker City, though most places aren't that dry.  The air does smell clean and 'The Big Lake" is present - in damn near everything.  The snow fall is an issue, the lack of it the last couple years - but I think I'll have to do it to judge exactly what they mean by "lack."  I lived near here for a while 30 years ago and the lake effect snow fall was considerable.

I'll make new friends and get used to the climate.  There are a lot of roads to ride and it is rural (well, crowded compared to Baker County) and I'll have plenty of water to fish and play on.  Large change is never easy and I've not only lived in Baker City for the last 24 and change years but also 22 years in my house there after never living in one place in my adult life for more than a couple years. 

Maybe I'll start putting stuff on this page a bit more regularly.  Anyhow, hi to all my readers.

Oh yeah, I won't suffer political shock of any big degree, this area is as "Red" as OR2 - lots of NObama and Defeat Obama signs, I guess with rMoney it's hard to know what to be for...