Saturday, March 25, 2023

Hike, Rich People and New to Us Real Estate

Well, I think we're officially not answering Jim's phone anymore.  We used to be warned with the screen that says "Potential Spam", but now we're getting calls that start with a +1.  They're all spam, mainly Indian boiler rooms claiming to be affiliated with Medicare.  The worst part is some of them have Jim's date of birth and then want me to verify his Medicare account number.  I don't know it off the top of my head, but I do know Medicare and IRS don't call, so they're lying.  It's just aggravating.  We'll never have another land line, too much spam.

After it rained all day Wednesday, Thursday was better.  We went up to Dove Mountain and did the right side of the Lower Javelina trail.  It was a lovely, albeit windy, day.  Here are photos.

I took this outside the front gate at the condo.

The spring flowers are out.



The trail.


Lichen on the rocks.


Penstemon growing in the wild. 


I think the is the lilac version of the other Globe Mallow I had a photo of the other day.

On the way home, we detoured to go look at a neighborhood.  There's a sign up that exhorts one to "drive through the tunnel."  So we did.  This is crazy.

Here is the tunnel.  Originally there was a restaurant, McClintocks, on the other side of the tunnel.  I can only guess at how much it cost to build the tunnel, and how long the restaurant owners thought it would take to recoup their costs.


Inside the tunnel.  Note the lights on the sides in the walls.

This is what you see on the other side of the tunnel.  It's the Saguaro Ranch in Moonlight Canyon.  It really is beautiful out there.  Building of a neighborhood has started.  Fifty lots are available, each starting at $1M.  The restaurant has been closed and repurposed as a hang out for the gazillionairs who are building out there.  There are not that many houses built yet.  I urge you to click on this link and wonder to yourself, how much will it cost each homeowner to staff and maintain this exclusive building, with its spas, yoga stuff and etc.  Don't forget the attendants who will help with snack selection!  Their HOA dues must be astronomical.  There's also a staffed guard gate at the entrance.

Here is a photo lifted from the internet.


So, it's nice to be rich.  You, too, can have a house nestled in the Tortolitas, untroubled by the great unwashed masses, with your own personal restaurant.  There is more on the subject, which you can read here and here.

I scraped this off twitter, it's from last night, I think.  The photographer captured the crescent moon behind the Space Needle in Seattle.  It's an attractive shot.

The orange ectoplasm is holding a rally in Waco, Tx.  He's more batshit crazy than usual.  His "truths" on Truth Social are more unhinged than usual, as are his nightly videos that look like he filmed them in the dark.  He posted a picture of him with a bat, and Alvin Bragg, the New York County D.A. on twitter.  There has been speculation that one of the lawyers told him to delete it, but it was kind of late.  The internet is eternal.


Yesterday we closed on a park model.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it's a teeny tiny manufactured home, located in a park that also has RVs.  Most people are seasonal, for the winter.  Even though I think this is the worst winter ever, it was nice getting out and riding and hiking, and not looking at snow all winter in Spokane.  They're small (11 by 35 feet), and very close to your neighbors.  Any arguements we have will be conducted using flash cards.  It's interesting, it started out as a single wide, and then a full length addition was added to it, so that when you're in the addition you're looking at the original siding on the interior wall.  It has massive amounts of storage for a park model, which was very attractive to us.  Plus there is a huge shed which can be locked which is where the bikes will live, and there is a washer/dryer in the addition (which is called an Arizona room).  We had gone to the office to get a list of units for sale, and Kris was standing there waiting to make copies of her for sale flyer, heard us talking, showed us her flyer, we walked over to her house, and bought it.  So there you go.  They left everything, furniture, dishes, all of it.  It's good to done with AirBnB.


We stayed in this RV park for eleven consecutive years when we had RVs, and now we're back.

9 comments:

  1. 37paddington:
    Exciting news about the park model. When will you move in? Now you can come and go between the snow and the desert at will. Sweet.

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  2. Saguaro ranch might have been an OK idea about twenty years ago. Not so much now, They did not get the "water" climate change memo? Nice to be done with Air B&B Especially after the crumby ones you have rented lately. Your photos are wonderful , as always, the country is beautiful.

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  3. Wow! Congrats on the park model! Nice to have a sunny place to go in the winter with all the proper kitchen utensils. :)

    I've never heard of a private tunnel. That's a new one. I'm with Linda -- the environmental cost of that neighborhood seems astronomical.

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  4. Nice! It definitely be a bonus not to have to deal with AirBnb, and to get the furniture and dishes in the deal makes things easier too.
    As for the gazillionaires, I can't fathom having that much money to sink into a property like that. Imagine the good they could do instead.
    Then there is IQ45....wow, batshit crazy is definitely the right word for it. He's such a sick man.
    The desert photos are incredible!

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  5. Sounds like a perfect compromise with a bonus of being fully furnished so you don't have to drag much back and forth....Congrats!

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  6. if your plan is to come south to Arizona every winter then this is perfect. no more nasty expensive surprises.

    as for Trump, he has nothing good to say about anything, no one and especially this country. all he does is air his grievances and I think people are getting tired of that. according to the Waco police, the crowd at its peak was about the 15,000 the campaign claimed but the police also said that after waiting for a couple of hours on the tarmac, they started leaving about a half hour after Trump got there, the crowd obviously diminishing. the reasons they gave for leaving...tired, hungry, ready to be home, wanting to miss the traffic crush of everyone leaving at the same time when it was over.

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  7. Very nice....without divulging what you paid for your park model, can you give a range of what one might go for? Will you summer in Spokane and winter in AZ?

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    1. The park model is in Rincon Country West RV Park. They have a website and a list of what's for sale. They can go from 50,000 to 125,000. The new ones are the expensive ones, and they are small, and have very little storage, and for the life of me I don't know why they cost that much. They older ones are cheaper and have more space. They're fairly dated looking, but I can get past that if I can unpack my clothes. We plan on being out of Spokane for winter.

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  8. Hey, congrats on the park model! There were a couple of decent ones in the RV park in Winter Garden, Florida, where we spent winters when RVing, and I admit they were a bit enticing. I thought it would be kind of fun to fix one up to my specifications and have an easier way to winter than in a motorhome. But then we moved to Mexico, and that ended the idea. (And of course, now we're back in NC full-time, where my family is.) I can't wait to see more photos and think it's a smart choice. That Saguaro Ranch falls under the "wretched excess" category to me. Ridiculous on so many levels. Some people have entirely too much money, and I wouldn't want any of them as neighbors, even if I were in that category!

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