The quote is
attributed to Lao Tzu. I can’t swear that he said it. Whether he did or not
really isn’t the issue. The content of the quote is what’s important.
“The journey of a
thousand miles begins with a single step.”
It was back
in 2006 … not long after we indentured ourselves for 30 years to a mortgage
company where this house is concerned … that we got in the car, armed with a
folder full of real estate listings that we’d garnered from the internet, and
took off on a week-long trip to Arkansas in search for a piece of property that satisfied our interests.
One of the
things we learned about listings on the internet … there is often little truth
involved where property listings are concerned. Especially when they say … level building site ready for building your
dream! We walked on property that you would fall off of if you didn’t
carefully watch your step. We drove good
roads that forded creeks. One good
road took us across a spillway with several inches of water flowing on a
“normal” dry weather day. We looked at a few ideal get away locations in out of the way backwoods areas with
neighbors that scared even this Alabama boy.
We really
liked North-Central Arkansas and South-Central Missouri. It’s a beautiful area
with a lot of really nice people.
It was more
to the Northeast though that we found what we were looking for. We made the
deal on 5 acres of Arkansas property and smiled all the way back to the Alabama
Gulf-Coast.
We hadn’t
been back long when a massive tornado ripped through the area where we had
bought property. That was a really bad year for tornadoes and we decided that
we’d rather not have to deal with the frequency of tornadoes that the area gets
hit with. We called the realtor, listed the property, got our money back out of
it after a few months, and resumed our search.
It was
around 2010 that we drove to North Alabama to meet with a realtor to look at a
piece of property that we liked … a nice acreage on Bear Creek. The price was
right. Of course, being a realtor, he had
to show us a few other properties that we
might like. They were not to our
liking.
The one that
interested us really interested us.
It interested us enough that we used the hood of the realtor’s truck to fill
out some paperwork and write a check as a deposit on the property.
The realtor
called before we got home and told us the seller had accepted our offer. A few
days later the official paperwork arrived in the mail. We signed it and
returned it to the realtor for the seller’s signature.
Somewhere
along the way the seller recanted his verbal agreement and refused to sell the
property.
Off we go in
2012 on a trip to the Volunteer State with another folder of listings that we’d
looked at on the internet with an appointment to meet with a realtor in one
area and another realtor in another area.
The first
realtor was a sad disappointment. Typical salesperson. We looked at quite a few
properties that day. We did get to look at a nice parcel of land on Wilder
Mountain … in the rain. Beautiful
place. The biggest problem with it was getting there. Honestly. It was a take your chances on a skinny switchback
road with no guardrails kind of place. Beautiful views though. Unless you
were going over the side of the mountain in an ice storm.
We drove to
Pikeville, TN the next day and met a realtor in the parking lot of McDonalds. A
really good guy. More of a I’ll show you
around kind of guy than a let me try
to sell you something salesperson.
The realtor
showed us a couple properties close to town that would have been nice building
sites for someone wanting to be close to town. Then he took us for a trip up on
the Cumberland Plateau. Another couple of properties along the way that didn’t spark any
interest in us. Then one last one.
We didn’t
try to dicker even one nickel on the asking price of this hardwood treed, never
been lived on, 3 acres on a county maintained gravel road.
Nine miles
North of town.
Left on the
paved road.
Right where
Valley View veers off.
Follow it on
up to the top of the plateau and go several miles.
Property on
the left.
That is
exactly where we would be headed at this point in the adventure had it not been
for a conversation that my daughter brought to our house a couple years ago.
It was
really more of a one-sided conversation.
Daughter talking. Us listening.
“Dad, I need
to talk to you. Now, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. And I know you and
Shirli have your hearts set on moving up there and retiring on your property in
Tennessee. But me and Danny have been talking. One day y’all are going to get
old and we’re going to have to come up there and haul your butts back down
here. So, whatever it is you are planning to do up there in Tennessee, why
don’t you just do it on our property down here.”
That’s
exactly what we are doing down here at The Cabin On Huckleberry Hill.
A thousand
miles?
More like a
few thousand.
