Strike Out

Adam set up this special real estate site that does searches just for us.  It seems like we can't really affect the search much ourselves, but it has his suggestions for us and we can tell him through it if we want more info and whatnot.  This is how we came to be viewing two properties in Alpine today.  Or at least, trying to view them.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

There was a property advertised as 000 Puetz Valley Road.  Obviously, 000 is meant to mislead those of us who would like to do something useful like look at the property.  It's 9.43 acres, for $50K.  $50K!  Ok, the description doesn't do anything like signify that there's a pad or a well or a ... road to it.  But for $50K we really had to check it out.

The other property was only a hop, skip, and jump away from that at 000 Kumeyai Trail.  $150K for 5 acres and a seller who has a lot right next to that one that they want to sell together.  I can't say that we want to spend $300K for 10 acres, but there was no other reason not to look.

Today blossomed as a beautiful and unusual cool Southern California day.  Cool, like, I went out around 10am to get something at the store and wore a zip up sweatshirt over my ever-present California tank top.  This was largely due to rare cloud cover.

'Round about noon we were ready to go.  Well, we were ready if we knew where to go.  We looked up the properties again and spent a good amount of time mispronouncing "Puetz Valley Road."  We finally settled on how it must be pronounced like "putz" and left it at that because clearly that is the funniest and best pronunciation.  We didn't particularly try "Kumeyai."  Didn't seem interesting enough.

"We should go see the property on Putz rd and then... buy it." Chris declared.

"But... what if there's something wrong with it?  Like, for $50K, there has to be something wrong, right?  What if it's next to the highway?"

"Then we'll blow it up!" (He meant the highway.)

"Dunno' if that will end up saving us money what with jail time and legal fees."

"Not if we don't get caught..." he said in a sing-song voice.

"And how do we manage that?" I ask, somewhat suspect.

"We...

... sssneak."  Chris delivers this with devious eyes and a hunched back with raised Dracula arms as if he's actively creeping up on an unsuspecting bridge support.

I don't know how to convey why this was so funny, except to say that Chris looks as German as he actually is.  He's tall, white, bald, and when he does something intentionally silly, it's so unexpected (despite knowing he has a silly streak for 14 years now) that you can't help but laugh.  Which I did.  I laughed so hard, I snorted.

Anyhoo, we followed the wiggling doggy butt bustling down the stairs off to Alpine.  After a minor GPS mishap, we found ourselves on Puetz Valley Road, which is seriously windy (as in curvy), but so much so that you don't get sick because you must drive so slowly to keep your car on the road.  Thank goodness for small favors.  It's also a really pretty road.  I snapped a pic out the window on the way back:

The sun had decided to come out making my double sweatshirt cumbersome

The camera sneakily took a second picture as I was drawing the phone inside but I kinda' like it

In any case, we went to where the GPS suggested the road was closest to the property and it asked us to drive up a road that seemed clearly to be a drive way.  There were, in fact, many drive ways around there but despite that meaning we'd have many neighbors (boo! hiss!), it didn't feel overwhelming.  It did however mean that we couldn't find a way to get to the land.  There was a road where the GPS said there should be but it certainly didn't lead to the land.  It lead to more homes, a gate which might have let us walk to the property if it hadn't been across many other peoples' active properties, and also nowhere to leave the car.

In fact, there wasn't anywhere to leave the car there or along Puetz Valley Road.  We tried going a little further along Puetz Valley to see if there was a back way to seeing the land, but no dice.  After Puetz Valley Road turns, the way to the land would have been straight up a mountain goat worthy hill with bushes that all looked to be about 6' high and dense like fudge.  

Seems likely that this land has no road access at all and we'd have to build one, which ... maybe... It's really difficult to know how much it would cost to build a road.  But also, it would be straight up a hill or with many switch backs, which presumably would cost more.  *sigh*

I have to say, I don't understand how people get pictures of the land to post on the advertisements if there's no access to it whatsoever.  So there must be a way, right?  And if there is, what's the benefit in not saying on the advertisement wtf it is?!?  We would like to see this land.  I let Adam know when we got home.  Maybe he'll get back to us.  Not holding my breath really.

The property on Kumeyai was quite close.  That was exciting because at $150K, it had to have something good on it, right?  And this road was so pretty... if this land was close, it should be pretty too.  Right?  

Uh... No.  Well, at least I didn't think so.  It wasn't ugly or anything, but it felt much drier and much less... healthy?  If that's a way you can describe a sense or feeling of land.  And it surely didn't seem like it had a pad.  It had a surly valley that could have swallowed us and our car whole.  Maybe it would have been a seasonal water area, but then, maybe not.  Then it had a bit of a dirt road which we couldn't find our way to.  Then it went straight up a hill.  And south?  South was basically between perpendicular and towards the hill.  So... yeah.  I didn't even bother getting out of the car.  Chris did so the dog could pee.  He's good that way.

You can see the road just beyond the valley

All of us were unimpressed by the day to a large degree.  Pair these fails with the fact that the new YouTube music that's taken over for Google music streams your playlists by default rather than playing them from the download on your phone, making it impossible for us to listen to one of Chris's play lists on the way home where there was no connection. We figured this out as I was dodging potholes the size of New Zealand back towards Puetz Valley Road. There was much grumping.  Especially when Chris realized that as he's been listening to music on his way to and from work, meaning it's been using our data allowance.

Ah well.  Tomorrow, more Jamul properties we hope.