Come on down to Texas, y'all!: Part Tres: Yanking the plug on the yurt...

My grandparents had property up in the hills of San Diego. It was pretty wild, undeveloped, undisturbed land at an elevation of 4000 feet and about 45 min. from where we had been keeping our RV. Bill and I had been camping up there for years. When my grandparents passed away, my mom and I ended up with a 40-acre piece. After weighing the various options for a more solid, permanent shelter, Bill and I decided to try a yurt! Relatively cheap, theoretically portable, and an interesting project. Took us about 4 months - from building the deck flooring to erecting the actual yurt (which really only took one day with several friends helping) to building interior walls and installing carpet, tile, shower stall, cabinets, wood-burning stove, composting toilet (woo-hoo!), propane heater and frig, and other kitchen stuff. We made it a specific challenge to build and outfit the yurt for as cheap as possible - both for our budget and because we realized there was always a chance we could lose it all in one bad wildfire... We completed the project and spent our first night there on the last night of 1999/the beginning of the new millenium. Despite all the talk about Y2K, we felt completely secure in our little off-grid paradise! Bill had outfit us with batteries/generator/inverter, with water transportation and storage tanks, we had a chainsaw for wood-cutting. We were good to go!!!

But what need have we for this, while living in Texas?! I decided no need. We could use the cash, and it would be good to get real and to let go of that which would no longer be relevant to our lives... Sounds easy. Wasn't. We were lucky and ended up with a quick sale (other than a bit of a mess to untangle with title vesting, etc.) thanks to distant relatives of mine who already owned adjacent property! The hard part was that the yurt had to go, whether they removed it or we did. That part made me sad. Saying good-bye to the structure that had been such a great, sweet part of our lives for so long, that we had created and enjoyed together, and that was really still a fully functional, fairly cute place to hang out was hard. But I can see how it might not be everyone's cup of tea, esp. at its mousey-worst, which is certainly what it was like when the buyers-to-be saw it for that last time (the mice took it over every time we left for any length of time, but it didn't take that much cleaning or living in it again to restore it). But the bottom line was it made no sense to keep it, we would most likely not be returning to it. Happily, however, we found someone who agreed to take it! So hopefully our little yurt will live on!!!

So, that meant trying to clear it out as best we could, and clearing out the shed that Bill built (that the new owners did want to keep). And it meant dealing with all the escrow paperwork (incl. that for my mom, and all the notarized signatures, etc.) in the midst of moving. Pure stress and craziness.

So here, join us on our last yurt run...(and yes, better bring the kleenex...)

Heading down into the valley with the tiny town nearest to our yurt - there's one good restaurant, one surprisingly decent but small grocery store, a famous pie shop, a famous bread bakery, a realtor (ours! and one I had done a little real estate photography for!), and a small post office.

It was a pretty day, kind of stormy, kind of sunny (but we knew this meant we would be in the stormy part - as the clouds liked to linger on our hilltop!).

I have always loved these beautiful trees lining this section of road.

Getting closer, and you can see how now we're almost into the fog.

And we're here. Beautiful place, terrific views - and soon to be returned to its previous state..

Looking down the driveway we've traveled countless times...

A pretty view on the west side.

OK, this is where it gets iffy for me, even now... For those of you who haven't seen my earlier blogs (like the very first one!), here are a couple links to show you what the yurt looked like lived in: A Yurt Christmas and Comfortable Living Yurt-style and one more, Do cats like yurts? But here, now, is what it looks like when its inhabitants have moved out, moved on...