I'm back. I bought. Here's home in the Valley for at least one more winter while I see if this works.
If you're wondering how I come to be in the borderlands, the colourful, too often violent, Texan frontier with Mexico, here's a link to my three blog entries from a year ago:
Mine is a very modest little home on the range (an old orange grove), an inexpensive pied-à-terre of under 400 square feet. The deck, however, is large and, depending on time of day, ideal for iced tea or 'Becker Vineyards 2008 Claret' (' ... from the vineyards of three heroic and determined Texas High Plains grape growers'). Good stuff.
Through the screen, this is my street view.
In December, while in the Philippines, I got an email from Don and Jode telling me they'd bought a new home in the same park. A few emails later, I was the owner of their old place. Why now? Mainly because it fell into my lap. Without Don and Jode, I wouldn't have done it. Not so posh that it’s more a home than a cottage. Not so costly that, if it went sailing off in a hurricane - and this is hurricane country - it would be catastrophic (unless I was in it).
Here's the interior.
I would never have thought of Texas, much less south Texas, but for last year's visit. It's an easy flight from Toronto. Driving is about 2600 kilometres or 1600 miles.
Self-satisfied Florida, moaning about too many Canadians, Canadiens, never made the list. Arizona and California don’t appeal. New Mexico is a more complicated trip. All seem more expensive than Texas. I'm also told, although the locals are partial, that the Rio Grande Valley is particularly welcoming to wintering northerners. I agree. The Valley's a bit quirky and rough around the edges, but oddly endearing, of which more in another blog. And, at day's end, sipping that Texas claret, the sunsets are wonderful.
