Drive To The Coast

Things have been a little slow in our search for a new home. When our realtor got back from her vacation after Christmas and before New Year's I gave her a list of properties we were interested in looking at.

One was pending, which I apparently hadn't noticed or it hadn't been listed as such yet; another would have to be a cash only deal because the only source of heating was with wood. The banks would not give a loan out for that one. And there was also something to do with the size of the house (small) and the price per square foot, even though it was a large property. I didn't quite get that part. But anyway, banks are rather fussy these days and we don't have that kind of cash! On the one I really wanted to see it turns out the owner had signed an acceptance to an offer just the evening before. So we did go to see the fourth property. It was built in 1936 and the kitchen had been totally remodeled. Unfortunately nothing else had been done and it would have taken a small fortune to fix it properly. We never even went out to look at the barns or other outbuildings because we knew it wouldn't work for us.

Our realtor sent out an email to a ton of area realtors describing what we were looking for. The hope is that one of them may have a client who has not listed yet and had been planning on it, and this way they might get a sale without having to actually list. We got one promising lead on a place where the new owners bought about 280 acres but they wanted to split the property and the split part would include the house and 80 acres. I had seen the place on the internet while browsing but it was a couple hundred thousand over our allowed budget. Now we are just waiting to hear back from the new owners on how they wanted to make the split, the price they would be asking (we were assured it would be less than our maximum) and when we might be able to look at the house.

We've driven by just about every other possible place so now we are waiting to hear about that property and hoping there might be some new properties coming on the market. We've heard from other people that have shared our dilemma and I may have said this before: If we find the property we like the house is totally unacceptable, or if we find a nicer home the property is too small or too expensive.

So yesterday we decided to take a break from it all and we headed for the coast.

We took Highway 38 which takes you by the Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area. There aren't always elk out but there were yesterday.

And of course there are always tons of Canadian geese everywhere.

We headed south from Reedsport to Winchester Bay.

Outside the bay the water looked like it would have been good to surf, if you knew how to surf, which I don't.

Inside you can see how calm and quiet it is. That's a lifeguard stand in the background and where I took the above photos from.

Growing oysters in the triangle breakwater.
Here's a view of the triangle breakwater from the Umpqua Lighthouse.
The Umpqua Lighthouse.

There are miles and miles of sandy beaches and of course the famous Oregon Dunes. Right now is a great time to go there because it's virtually empty. We were here about two or three weeks ago and we were literally the only people there. Of course it was absolutely pouring rain at the time.

So that's it for now!