Lakeview

I'm just going to drop this picture here for your viewing pleasure. It's a picture we found while looking over a listing for some land on Japutal Rd in Alpine.

I mentioned in my last post that there was some land we were really excited about. This was it. Do you now see why?

It was like:

Me: Chris! This land has a Lake view!

Chris: Lake?

Me: Lake!

Both: LAKE!

(Chris and I met in 2006 and after this amount of time, we've devolved into monosyllabic conversations. I doubt you actually need a translation of the above convo, but just in case, it went something like...

"Omg! I found something amazing! It has a lake view!"

"Really? I love looking at lakes!"

"I too love looking at lakes!"

Both: "Lakes are amazing!"

Somewhere around 20 years from now I'm hoping we've further deconstructed speech between us so that we're left with mere telepathy. Then the only thing that will crush the blessed silence of our home is the nightly watching of Supernatural and the charming sound of the occasional cat dump.)

The excitement about a property with a view of water has me musing about decision making. It's a funny thing. Like... anyone else get a little excited about those tests that are supposed to tell you about your personality? Bonus points if they then translate your results into what your punk band name should be or what kind of dog you are (even if they're absurdly incorrect). And mega points if you get your partner/s to take the test and then it tells you stuff like, why you fight with each other and how to understand the other person's perspective better. Not to mention how you yourself can focus on things such that you become less of an ass (don't worry; we're all asses in some regard).

I am pretty sure I know no one who doesn't ever enjoy those personality tests. Which strikes me as weird because... shouldn't we kinda' know our personalities already? I am guessing it has something to do with feeling seen or hearing things we actually do know but said in different or more clear ways. Maybe we can't see our personalities for the trees?

Anyway, back to decision making and lake views. I swear, every personality test has some question about how you make decisions. Here's one I remember from a book I had as a teenager (ok, I still have the book): Are you methodical in your decision making?

Because yes, I do want to know what color my aura is

At the time, I didn't fully understand the word "methodical." Funny how we remember these things. But I digress. The point is, I feel like the decision making for me and Chris around the land we buy should look something like this: 

Element	Scoring (1-10)
Price	7
Location	8
Buildability	8
Feel	6
Proximity to schools	0
Neighbors	5
View	6
Commute	7
Has pad already	7
Has well	8

But it actually looks more like this:

Element	Scoring
Price	$
Location	8
Buildability	3-18 depending on mood
Feel
Did the car nearly break getting there
Distance to amenities	7
Neighbors
Has Lake view!!!	Ticks -8
Did the dog like it	woof
Was it sunny that day	*
Has pad already	@*&
Has well

And this is why land with a view costs so much more. I'm not saying that this way of making decisions is the best way, but the good news is that Chris and I are pretty similar in our weird chart decision tree process. So at least we don't tend to have big disagreements about it.

So anyhoo, we were very excited about this land. I wrote to Adam last Sunday asking about getting us an address or coordinates or something so we could actually find the land. In the same email I asked about some other land as well. I heard back from Adam that we could look at the other land together Tuesday or Wednesday. I said Tuesday would be better and then... nothing. Bupkes! No correspondence.

I was a little concerned because, while he's not super responsive, he does usually respond and he was the one who suggested Tuesday. Chris even took Tuesday morning off from work. So, I'm hoping that he didn't have some family emergency or something. But still, we really needed to go see the land with the Lake view.

So, by Friday when we hadn't heard from Adam, I hit the "schedule showing" button on the website listing for the property. Within an hour, an agent was on the phone with me.

You know, I hate the phone. I really do. There's something just anxiety provoking about it. I'd go into it, but I've written about it before and I'm already gamboling down enough diversions today. But this agent was so easy to talk to and so friendly and I actually didn't mind one bit! She told me that because they're located in Redlands (about 2 hours away) and they're not the listing agents, she'd get in touch with the listing agent for me and ask them to contact me. AND she told me when to expect to hear from her (a few hours to the next morning) and dang if she didn't deliver! I'm so impressed!

She sent me the listing agent's email and two phone numbers (which I would never use) and asked him to be in touch with me. Now... he wasn't in touch with me*, but that is besides the point. The point is that this one agent was awesome. The point could however be that clearly not all agents are created equally. Ah well.

So, Saturday morning blossomed and I wrote the listing agent an email saying we wanted to look at the land that very day. When Chris got up from his nap around noon, the agent hadn't replied. So Chris went looking around and found the listing on another site.

Chris: I found the listing on this other site. It has a map!

Me: Oooo. A map!

So I put on my tall socks and ass-hole jeans, and, fielding a call from my friend-boss about some sundry work details, we headed out.

On the highway we witnessed this interesting choice of riding position:

We also got stuck behind a slow military cavalcade.

You can't tell but it stretched on for maybe a quarter mile

Somewhere around this point, Chris say to me, "So, I put the GPS pin at a point a little before the actual property. I have to then look for a road off to the side that I think the land is opposite."

Please understand, that when I heard him say 'map,' I inferred that it meant directions. It did not! It meant there was one of those maps on the listing that had a pin that we've experienced before as not being terribly accurate. I groused quietly to myself about having headed out without the ultimately necessary details.

We made it to the place Chris dropped the pin and continued looking for the indicative road off to the right. When we hadn't found it in about a mile we turned around, me stewing in smug self-righteousness. We pulled over and looked at some pictures Chris had saved on his phone of the listing and continued on looking for landmarks.

When we didn't find what we expected, we sighed and started to head home. I did not share my disappointed-yet-self-satisfied thoughts and took this picture instead, thinking that I'd have almost nothing to share with you all.

It's a very pretty street

And then we went past The road. So. We turned around again. Drove back and compared the literal view with the google earth view from Chris's phone. Clearly some time had gone by but it was the same, so we pulled off in a grassy, out of the way area and left the car.

The people who lived down that street had several dogs who, being unrestricted, bounded up to us with excited gaiety. Unfortunately, our anxious pup made his rapid sweet to dogicidal maniac transition and engaged one cute black and white pit in bark to teeth combat.

Now, when this happens, it is Chris's job to manage our dog. It is my job to manage the new dog. So, with Chris hauling back on the leash, I ran up to realize that this dog didn't wear a collar! I vaguely grabbed at its ruff and tenuously tried to put my squishy fragile body between the two canids. Luckily for me, this dog didn't want to fight. It was just defending itself and as soon as I encouraged it to shoo, it bounced back towards the woman's voice calling it from behind a row of trees.

Across the road we faced what had been described as undeveloped land.

Where to climb up?

It rose in a reasonable-to-climb hill but the under brush was less reasonable. We picked a place and waded in, dry bushes crackling beneath the soles of our shoes. That is actually the technique. You want to wade through a bush here? You stomp it and soon the branches that had been up to your hip/shoulders/face are slightly lower and at the very least, there's a flattish area on which to put your foot where the dry branches crackled into chips.

It was face bracken

There was much moo-ing and bief-ing** especially when our feet dropped into areas of excessively squishy soil or we slid slightly and found ourselves picking pricklies from our clothes and skin. Many scratches were acquired.

We made it to one of the more flat areas (and there were a few flat areas!) and looked out to see our magnificent lake view. It would all be worth it to live with such an amazing view...

Do you see it?

It is there. The lake I mean. If you don't see it immediately... well, yeah. It's not that I expected our view to be exactly what was in the pictures on the listing. But... this? Seriously? We'd need to have a 10,000x magnification telephoto lens installed in our glasses! And our view to the South? What would we be actually looking at all day?

Not a bad view. It's not super clear in this photo but actually, the neighbors at the edge of the street were really noticeable. I mean, we'd build a privacy wall around our property but all in all, our expectations were so dashed we both felt extremely meh about this property. Which is unfortunate because it was one of the few properties that actually has enough flat area for us to build (provided the top of the hill could be flattened and is actually part of the parcel).

But also, at $160K, land with no pad, and no well, and no driveway, and no Lake view, just doesn't amount to what we want and need. *sigh* I was so looking forward to coming back and telling you all we are making an offer, but we're not. Back to the drawing board.

* I have a theory that real estate agents could generally give two craps about selling land because it's so much less money than buying a house. I mean, capitalism makes us put our effort where the money is and what's better: commission from a $200K land sale or a $650K home sale? And that's for a modest home, 20 minutes outside of San Diego in the suburbs.

**Bief is another Kate-ism. It came about maybe 7 years ago and generally is used to indicate disgruntled agreement. And since moo is often used to indicate disgruntlement, bief is often the follow up. Oddly, although both the words moo and beef have to do with cows, neither moo nor bief have anything to do with cows despite being said the same way.