The Brain Scramble Continues

With this much water left this morning from the overflowing creek across the highway I wonder where all of the water will go after it starts raining at 2pm, for the next week. I know where it will go since I've seen it a lot worse in June 2008. At that time three of the four highways coming into town were closed due to flooding. Up here on the hill we were sitting on the only open way to town.

I use to post this photo every day in my older blog as the first photo of the day. You could tell just by this photo which has me facing west, what the weather was going to be for that day. The rains will come from that direction but as Stella and I walked our Saturday morning stroll, rain seemed like a far fetched idea.

You can see the field is growing by leaps and bounds almost overnight. What a difference from just 30 days ago. I followed Stella's pace this morning which was the typical weekend "slower than slow" stroll through the field.

That gives me time to sort through all the thoughts I've had about moving the past week or so. It's really intensified the past few days and I thought last week was bad. Since I would like to keep some of the places I am looking at private, I'll only mention the two states that have the towns I am really interested in.

A few readers that I have gotten to know over the years, do know which towns I am speaking of and all of them have given me valuable information about the areas I am interested in. I know that all decisions can't be based on what I read on the internet or even pictures of property but I still get some idea of city comparisons by using BestPlaces and AreaVibes websites.

Since I have narrowed it down to two towns, one in New Mexico and one in Arizona, I compare them to my current town and Bloomington Indiana which is rated as a great place to retire and a town I went to college in just a short distance away. I'll not go into detail of those comparisons but it did have some surprises.

Take a look at AreaVibes to see what categories they collect data for and rate.

As always there is always doubt about moving with the hounds. When I had four of them it was no question that I would not be moving. Now with two that will be 10 years old this summer, moving is a little more doable. I have already been informed by an agent in Arizona they would be allowed for a certain neighborhood as well as renting a house.

Many have asked, how could I even move from an area like this and all the field that the hounds can walk and explore in. I know what you mean. The hounds have always been my first priority in these kind of decisions just like when I was trying to decide whether to RV full-time or not.

As you have seen, Heidi's walks in the field are few and far between. She really likes a hot sunny day where she can lay in the yard and enjoy the weather. I think she would love a place that has sunshine 285 days per year and less than 13 inches of rain compared to the 55 inches of annual rainfall we get now. That number seems to have gone upward the past few years.

Stella seems to enjoy her walks but at times I wonder if she only walks because I am taking her outside instead of the other way around. For example, Sadie was the one that decided when all of us would walk ... where Stella will sleep through the afternoon walk unless I wake her up to go.

I cannot put my finger on any one reason that this urge to move has hit me so hard. There are a few reasons, some private and some that are really logical. I do know that I cannot explain all of my thinking here in one blog post about the 'whys' of wanting to move. I will say that the past three days the chances of moving are stronger than anytime I have talked of it in the past four to five years. It's like I have already decided I am moving.

I still use realtor dot com to look at property. I bookmarked all my different locations (4 of them) instead of saving them as searches within their website because they are faster to access the way I have them labeled and saved. They are sorted in "newest listing first" so I can tell just with a glance of anything new that comes up.

I also get automated updates on the locations I have marked as well as the realty company's website in Arizona. I did speak with their agency assistant the other day because I had a question about my hounds and the property I was interested in. She was fantastic and sent me more links of information about their town.

Late yesterday afternoon I received an email from a realtor in her business with an introduction and asking what I am looking for. He was also born and raised in Indiana and attended the rival university in sports of the college I attended. So he will be very valuable with his point of view of living in Arizona compared to where I am now.

On top of that I met a vet on Twitter as I was searching Twitter for any kind of information about the town. The good thing is, he is also in to bicycling and use to live in San Diego so once again I gained valuable information about two subjects I like and am interested in. He understands what kind of information I am looking for and the questions I have.

Each bit of information adds to my preference in the Arizona town. I am down to four choices: (1) stay where I am (2) Bloomington Indiana (3) New Mexico (4) Arizona

So that is were it stands. I'd like to do this move sometime this summer and definitely before college football season starts on August 28-30th. At the same time I know it's a possibility that I might change my mind and stay here but there is something different this time. I feel it's really going to happen and in some ways I am excited enough that I could move next week if I had a place lined up.

So that is all I have as far as updating my thoughts on moving.

This next bit of stuff I am writing about is a little concerning. Long time readers will remember last July as the bloodhounds and I were walking along the back of the field on one of our walks we ran into a 'visitor' ... another dog, something we never see in the field on our walks. If you click here and then scroll down you can see the beagle we ran into. He/she never barked, stood and listened and then turned and ran away NORTH ... that direction is key to the story I am about to tell.

Well last night around 7pm I had just walked into the kitchen and when I glanced out my window I saw that beagle semi-trotting across my driveway heading SOUTH. At the time I didn't remember it was the same dog we saw in the field last July. He/she looked stressed out, nervous ... so I went to the living room trying to convince Stella and Heidi they needed to change their routine and come into the bedroom so I could shut them in there while I try to rescue the beagle.

Of course when you have two hounds that are use to their routines and know that as they select their positions on the couch as I watch another Reds baseball game, that there would be NO NEED to get up and head to the bedroom. They didn't understand what I was telling them and they were not going to move ...

And ... they didn't.  LOL

So I took a chance, I left them where they were. That would be okay with Heidi because she is the true house dog where we know from past blog posts that Stella likes to explore the house while I am gone looking for food. Anything from bananas, apples, mangoes or tomatoes that are left in bowls on the counter.

I sat the two bowls of fruit on top of the refrigerator and took off in my car trying to find the beagle somewhere in the neighborhood. Of course by the amount of time it took for me to start my search the beagle was long gone. I had no idea what direction it took but I did not see it along the highway for the two miles south of me.

It was late last night while I was watching the game when I remembered it was the same beagle I had seen in the field last July. I think it belongs to the neighbors five or six houses north of me.

Being this close to a high speed highway, it is never good to see a stray dog running in the neighborhood. The few I have been able to catch and find their owner, it was amazing just how far they had traveled away from their home by the time I found them.

As you can see Stella had another successful Saturday morning stroll. I know, just like you, I cannot picture her walking like this in the high deserts of Arizona or New Mexico either. Yet dogs are so much more adaptable than people are. I can see her though sleeping on the hot rocks or concrete under the sun in those two states, just like she was here yesterday afternoon when the sun was in the western sky.

While I sat outside late afternoon yesterday she slept the whole time which amounted to an hour and a half on the hot concrete floor. That hot sunshine probably makes her joints feel better. Sometimes the sun is the best joint and hip supplement there is.

I admit I don't like the constant rains anymore just like I don't like snowy single digit winters. Rain is nice for a day or two but never all the time. With the Reds game not starting until 1:30pm my time today, that is if it is not raining hard in St. Louis, I'll have plenty of time to look for new information about the town I have locked in on.

Both hounds are still sleeping as I post this but it is so close to their lunch, they will let me know what time it is as soon as I step away from the computer desk. Yes, the skies are looking like a LOT of rain is on the way right now. In my book 84° and dry is better than 60° and rain in the month of April.

Oh ... I never spent a second of time today thinking about my Bureau of Motor Vehicles visit yesterday. Gotta go, Heidi just woke up and she wants her lunch NOW ... barking non stop.

Lunch was served and you can see they had no interest outside other than getting back inside for their post lunch siesta.

Where did the spellcheck feature go when when writing a post on WordPress ???? I hate when they update their site.

It's a quiet Saturday here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Thinking While Working On Monday

Sunday afternoon Heidi went to the door to be let outside. It was a great day, much warmer and the sunshine never disappeared. She spent over an hour outside on her own while I checked on her from time to time just to make sure she was still in the yard. She has never wandered off during her time alone outside. Yesterday she found the bank on the south side of the yard to be her resting point.

About the time I walked outside a few hours later she was just about to the carport, heading toward the door.

Looks like I have grass to mow today after it dries, sometime this afternoon. I knew it would be tall after two or three days of rain. I've been cutting it taller this spring, 3".

Stella could feel it was much warmer Monday morning. She had a few stops to start her walk. She needed to think about her plan and also eat some nice green tall wet grass as she stepped into the field.

t was a little over 60°, perfect weather. By the time I do laps back and forth across the lawn later this afternoon it was supposed to be in the 70's. I had a lot to do today and with the improved weather all of those things were finished by the time I put the mower back in the shed.

During my search yesterday of warm weather locations I asked my old friend that has lived in Phoenix the past 20 years and loves it and the heat, about some of the surrounding smaller town on the outskirts of the city. The map showed nothing around those towns but I also know how fast that area is growing. After all I am not the only person that wants to migrate to warm weather.

I thought his answer was perfect.

"If neighbors are your thing and you want "community" then it a good time to get into something there.  It's cheap and it's growing at a disgusting rate.  If you don't want to be around people, the place you buy today with no neighbors in site might just be overrun next year with families, cars, kids, and stupid barking chihuahuas. Houses are made with the lowest priced materials that can be used to mass produce houses as quickly as possible.  AND they are track homes, yuck!"

I sat outside in the sunshine enjoying the day when that email showed up on my Apple Watch. I can always trust that he will give me an honest answer about anything I ask. Always has and always will.

I looked through some locations that were suggested by a few readers either in the comment section on the blog or by email. A lot of nice places but I admit, nothing really gets my blood moving until I am looking at places out west. When it comes to southern California I've had to ask myself is it the year round weather I want or am I wanting those great memories back from when I lived there before?

Why am I willing to buy something smaller and overpriced just to live in heavy traffic and jammed packed neighborhoods?

To widen my search I even increased the maximum I'd buy a house for. Of course that brings up a wide range of new possibilities. Some of them even showed some good possibilities for the hounds but after a morning walk like this morning this field is hard to beat. The obsession had slowed to just curiosity by my first cup of coffee this morning.

I knew I would think and process the information I gathered just like many times before. I was able to eliminate a couple of places and both of those were places I had lived in the past. I kept remembering the key factor of this quest was to move to warm 12 month weather.

Stella decided Monday morning had some of the best tasting, freshest deer scat in a while. I let her enjoy her delicacy before walking over to her and telling her to "come on." She would move before I had to grab her collar.

On her typical stroll and her pace. She has her own world that spins on her time, it adjusts to her not the other way around. I am slowly getting back to the same way of doing things. Not paying attention to any news, tv or online, is a great start to that change.

I had time all day to think about the places and houses I had looked at over the weekend. It made the yard mowing seem shorter. I made the different tasks I did today much easier since I was distracted.

On a side note, in the past two days I have never seen the ticks as bad as they have been since I moved here in 1998. They are all on me and I have yet to find even one on either hound. I check them each time they come back inside and figured if I am finding as many as I am on me, they have to have some somewhere. Luckily I feel them crawling and can get them off of me before they try to dig into me.

The deer traffic scent was so strong Monday morning that Stella went past her normal point where she makes the last turn with me to head home. I let her go to see what she would do or how far she would go.

She finally decided it was time to get back home. That is a worn deer path you see in front of her moving in a north/south direction.

As you can tell, the grass is a little higher than 3". It was finally dry enough to mow by 2pm and I had enough grass everywhere to mow the whole yard for the first time this year. Today will be spraying the weeds on the driveway. A few years ago in August I spent four straight days on my hands and knees pulling every weed out by hand ... only to have them grow back 3x as thick.

After Sunday afternoon's walk, Stella did finish by walking down the center of the yard, nowhere near the house. So this might just be a 'morning' routine for her and not dependent on what kind of weather it is.

With great weather Monday I found out we are outside more even if that is nothing more than the hounds sleeping in the sun and me soaking up some rays contemplating life. With that in mind I also found there are not enough hours in a day when the weather is great and was one of the reasons I did not blog yesterday. No, I wrote the blog post and added the photos but failed to post it later Monday night.

I just finished comparing "Taxes for Retirees" in the five states I am now interested in. I have a couple of states that are not western states that have peaked my interest and both have good weather year round. Plus in both states you can buy a lot more house for the dollar compared to Arizona and New Mexico. One state I am familiar with and the other recommended by a blog follower is quite a surprise.

So with that in mind I will be checking out those two states in more detail sometime today. The website that Barney gave me in a comment the other day has worked out really well and I like it better than the one I had been using in the past. Their information took a few of the towns off my list.

Well Stella is doing her normal morning stretching right before she hydrates herself, which means our Tuesday morning walk is just minutes away from starting.

Another day of great weather here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.