SO it was that about two (2) weeks after I returned from my trip to Markleeville, my wife and I found ourselves en route to “my town” so she could see the house and property in-person for the first time.
WE decided that we would let it happen, or not, depending on how things felt once she saw the place, and met Pat and Rich. We also thought it prudent to look at other properties in the area just to be sure and so we asked Sarah to set up some walk-thrus. This was August 11th, 2016.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
MY wife fell in love with the place, the town and the people right away. Just like I did. The other homes we looked at were nice but none of them were “it” like the house on Hot Springs Road. Yup, ’twas yet another sign.
WE told Sarah (our realtor) “yes” and headed home right away. We had both taken just the one day off; we didn’t want to lose the house and we knew there was another offer on the table. On our way home, thanks to technology and our fast moving realtor, we signed the offer from the side of the road, on the Hwy 99/4 cloverleaf, as it turns out. Things were moving very quickly indeed!
SELLING OUR HOME IN SAN JOSE
MY Mom, who now lives on the property with us in her own little home, lived in San Diego at the time. She dabbled in the real estate business down in Sandy Eggo, as she sometimes called it, and had made some connections in the Bay Area when she lived there for a bit several years prior.
SHE reached out to her connections and found us a realtor that we hoped would help us sell our home. You see, Clara Lee, who did in fact become our realtor wasn’t sure she wanted to take on new clients at the time. She had just wrapped up an arduous deal with some folks who, shall we say, weren’t the nicest to work with and she was feeling pretty beat up.
MOM, however, can be pretty persuasive and convinced her to at least meet us. I kid you not, when we got home that day, Clara was waiting for us. It was an instant connection and Clara took us under her wing. She walked through the house and gave us advice (some of which we didn’t like) as to how to move forward. Nonetheless, we listened to her and we had the house painted, prepped, staged and ready within a few weeks.
Speaking of signs…Here’s Clara attaching the “sale pending” placard to the “For Sale” sign at our San Jose house. 
The new Subie is packed, the bike is on the rack and I’m ready to leave San Jose for Markleeville.
THERE was a broker’s tour on August 31st and about two (2) weeks or so later we held an open house and received a whole shitload (love that word – it always takes me back to that scene in Blazing Saddles) of offers. Needless to say, we took the best one and began the closing process.
OUR SAGA CONTINUES…
WE made several trips back and forth to Markleeville in the interim. We also bought a Subaru, and named it Clara, in homage to our Clara. And we purchased a little trailer for Clara (the car, not the realtor), too.
OF COURSE there was still a lot more to do! We got the movers set up, took care of more (endless?) paperwork and packed. And packed. And packed. And cleaned. And scrubbed. And buffed. For those of you who’ve gone through this process, you know what I’m talking about.
ON October 13th, my birthday as it turns out, I picked up the new Outback, and that night we had a celebratory dinner with Clara (the realtor, not the car). She gave us this little sign (uh huh, another one) at that dinner that hangs in our garage today.
ON October 19th we made our way up to Markleeville. The deal had closed! Not without a whole lot of last minute drama (title company style), some of which took place on the trip east. It was a wild ride in many ways…
A RAINY DAY MOVE
IT was pouring rain when we loaded up Clara (again, the car, not the realtor) and her trailer with the little things that the movers weren’t going to take, and our three (3) cats, Ditty, Louie and Tina, and drove to our new home. This was Friday, October 28th. I remember it well for many reasons but mostly because it happened to be on my Grandmother’s birthday. See what I mean about all these friggin’ signs. Uncanny!
I dropped off mi esposa and the bambinos and made my way back to San Jose, arriving around 9:00 p.m. or so. I had the last minute clean up to do; we just couldn’t get it all done in enough time for me to not have to make this last trip and gawd was I tired!
CAREFUL what you wish for, right?
HOME Depot was a necessary stop before heading back to our soon to be former home. I needed a few more boxes, tape and shrink wrap. I slept on the floor that night and in the a.m. I began the cleaning, and packed the car to the gills, spending most of that Saturday to get ‘er done. I left Silicon Valley for our new home just before 5:00 p.m. (that’s when I took that pic above of the Subie in the driveway).
I got in so late that night that we postponed the real celebration until the next day, October 30th and we did so in style. My dear departed friend, Joe Karotkin, turned us on to this “100 year old” orange liqueur a bunch of years back and we decided we wanted to break tradition and go with it, instead of some champagne.
SO, there you have it, our story of whoa!
Definitely not “woe.” Okay there were some “woes” in there but they were soon forgotten as we began our new life in the California Alps.
IT takes some work to live here. There’s snow and cold and ice and bears and mountain lions and small town politics and so on but we wouldn’t trade it for ’nuffin.
WE earned major kudos from the locals, now our neighbors and friends, by the way, for making it through that first winter (2016-2017 was the drought breaker as you may recall) without incident but with quite a bit of help.
After all, we were greenhorns. Not anymore though. We’re now Markleevillians!
Have a VERY Merry Christmas!