Bouncing Marty

Zion is beautiful. The more time I spend out there, the more I am amazed by the place. Its gotta have more spectacular and wonderfully unusual places than any place on earth. Having it so close is a major bonus as well.

Mollie and I were feeling stir-crazy and needed to get out of the desert for a while, so we headed out for some hiking and exploring. The weather was crisp and calm, and great change of pace. We spent a few hours exploring the Emerald Pools trail system, which made for a good relaxing morning.

The emerald pools are impossible to photograph. The location below is the Upper Pool, and it is like a giant sandstone amphitheater. The walls just in front of me shoot vertically out of the pale green water on three sides, briefly over hanging, then continuing upwards for several hundred vertical feet. Very cool spot.

Zion takes on a much different feel in the wintertime. There are no crowds. The main canyon road is open for regular traffic, but it is by no means congested. On our hike we ran into a few other people enjoying the park, but nothing like in the summertime. The main canyon is normally lush and green, full of animal activity and rushing water. This trip it felt peaceful, dormant, subdued, quiet. It was a great change of pace.

In the afternoon we headed into Springdale. Springdale is the tiny tourist town that serves as the Southern gateway to Zion. Its full of funky shops, eateries, and strangely enough, an Elk farm. This guy was particularly interested in my new camera. I’m sure he wondered if it was tasty.

I’ve kept it fairly under wraps, but Mollie and I have been house shopping for a while now. Paying for two rents has been very taxing, and frustrating to see that much money going down the tubes every month. And, if we are going to combine all of our precious belongings (aka…junk) together into one place, we’re going to have to have some more room.

Vegas housing is complicated, to say the least. Mollie and I both grew up in cities where your usual home has a real yard, grass, trees, and maybe even room to pay a game of football out back. You had neighbors, but they were down the road a ways, and privacy was something that was taken for granted. Homes were unique, built one at a time, and each had character, flaws, and benefits unlike any other home around town.

Welcome to the Vegas Housing Tracks. There are homes in Vegas that met our mental image of what a house should be, but they all either cost over a million dollars, or are in neighborhoods that I wouldn’t walk through without a trained German attack dog. So, we narrowed our sites a little, and found a house that is a perfect compromise of price, size, location, neighborhood, and privacy. Its 1425sq/ft, with a 5,200sq/ft lot. Three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a very open floor plan. The focus of the house is on the main room, kitchen, and dining room that you can see above. Vaulted ceilings and new tile and carpet make it feel quite ‘new’.

It was built in 2002, and is located in the Northern part of Las Vegas. The neighborhood is nice, and literally everything within 20 miles of it has been built within the last 7 years. It’s in a neighborhood full of larger two story homes, but we were fortunate to find one that isn’t surrounded by bigger looming houses, so the back yard is more private than the usual Vegas track home. The backyard could use some work, which I’m kind of excited about actually. Reminds me of my yard work days as a kid!

We closed our offer and the house is in escrow as we speak. There is still a LOT to be done, but we are scheduled to close escrow by February 28th. I can’t wait to have some more space! And a mortgage! (Well, not so much on the mortgage).

There’s lots more pictures in my gallery, or click on one to be pulled into my Flickr album. I can’t believe we are going to be homeowners!