Our Final Stop
Why? I believe I said it well in the On the Road Again post: “Time passes, things change. Decisions that were right when they were made—decisions that changed the direction of your life—are revisited. The endless conflict between the known and the unknown, between security and adventure, demands new decisions.”
As we’ve traveled the country over the past year, the search for a retirement home has gradually become more of a focus for us, with “settle someday” becoming “settle someday soon.” There are a number of reasons why this has happened, my age and faltering eyesight being two important contributors, but mainly due to the fact that we just weren’t having as much fun as we did first time around. We’ve found ourselves saying, “Been here, done this” on a regular basis. There’s still a lot of the country we haven’t explored but most of it is much the same as we’ve seen. The call of the open road has faded.
There’s also the important fact that we miss having friends around to enjoy. On the road you make acquaintances, but a week or two later most are just a memory. Those you remain in contact with remain friends, but they’re soon halfway across the country. We’d really like to stay in one place long enough to get to know the people and find our place amongst them. So finding a home has become important.
As you probably know, we considered the west coast but found California too expensive, Oregon too cool, windy, and wet, and the Puget Sound area too expensive and too cool, windy, and wet. Colorado stayed on our list of places, but it’s an expensive place to retire and winters are simply too long. We went to Asheville expecting it to be THE place but came away disappointed; it’s a great place to visit but not the place for us to retire. Florida is wonderful, but hurricanes and sink holes and rising sea levels and the crazy increase in the cost of flood insurance caused us to scratch it from our list. Austin is a great place and I have two sons in the area, but it’s also an expensive place to retire, the summers are too hot, and global warming is quickly turning Texas into a desert.
Which brings us to Northwest Arkansas, Bentonville, to be specific. Ann and I met and married in Arkansas and lived here a number of years. It’s one of the most beautiful states in the country, the cost of living—particularly housing—is amazingly low, and we have a lot of friends in Arkansas. Bentonville, home of the Walton family and Walmart, is a growing, thriving town of about 40,000 people. We love the social and cultural energy of the place, to a large extent fueled by the Walton Foundation’s support of the local community.
The old downtown square area is one of those “feel-good” places you enjoy coming back to again and again. It hosts the weekly farmer’s market and regular entertainment events, and is home to “Walton’s 5&10,” Sam Walton’s first store, the ancestor of the thousands of Walmart stores scattered across the globe.
The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded and supported by Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton, is a world-class art gallery and the centerpiece of the town’s growing artist community.
The city, with the support of the Walton Foundation and a number of other local philanthropists, has established 16 city parks, hundreds of acres of open spaces, and over 30 miles of walking/biking trails, with more to come. Oh, and two brew pubs are under construction. In other words, it’s got just about everything Ann and I have been looking for.
The fact that we already have quite a number of long-term friends in the area is also very important. We’ve observed over the years that for some reason we’ve tended to stay closer to our Arkansas friends than others we’ve met. There’s a warmth and accepting manner about the people here that makes it easy to make and keep friends. The people of Bentonville are noticeably friendly and outgoing so it should be easy to make new friends in Bentonville, probably through volunteering with local community organizations.
Given all the above, we’ve decided to move to Bentonville. A couple of weeks ago we made an offer on the perfect home to retire to and the sellers accepted our offer. If all goes well, we’ll close on July 7th and, following a few days of painting and replacing carpet with wood floors, we’ll move in. Our “new” home is in a great neighborhood located along the spine of a wooded ridge in the northern part of town. It sits on a half-acre lot with plenty of old-growth trees providing a park-like feeling. It’s a 2,900 square foot four bedroom home with a nicely finished walkout basement and two decks. Being an older (1987) home, there are a number of things we want to update but we love the home as-is and plan to make changes gradually as time and budget permits. After a lifetime of moving from place to place, I think we’ve found the place to spend the rest of our lives. Only time will tell.
So this blog is nearing its end. We’ll put our motorhome on the market as soon as we move into the house and our travels will officially be over. I expect to make one or two more posts as we wrap things up. After that, maybe we’ll start another Web site focused on crafting a new life in Northwest Arkansas. Or maybe not.
Alan
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Catching Up
Let’s see, in my last post we were about to leave Patrick AFB for Saint Augustine. On the first of February, we moved to Ocean Grove RV Park on Anastasia Island, the barrier island separated from Saint Augustine by the Matanzasas River. The park itself was a primitive mud hole but the location was nice, putting us five minutes from downtown Saint Augustine.
The old part of Saint Augustine is beautiful, historic, and interesting. It’s also a bit Disney-like, made so by the hundreds of tiny businesses struggling to capture their share of the tourist’s dollar. This is most obvious up and down Saint Gorge Street, a walking street of shops, restaurants, and pubs. It’s a fun place for the first hour or so, after which you start feeling overwhelmed. Relief is only a block or two away along the back streets, most lined with historic buildings and quieter, calmer businesses. We sincerely enjoyed ourselves, but after nine days we were ready to move along.
Our next stop was the Naval Station at Mayport, FL. The FamCamp is a nice, well-run park across the street from the channel connecting the naval yards and the ocean. A quarter-mile away is the naval station’s beach, a mile-long stretch of wide, flat sand. I’ve read that dogs have limited memory, but Muffin got excited as we started on first walk toward the beach. I’m pretty certain she remembered it from our visit in 2010. Needless to say, she and Ann spent many hours on the beach. Other than that, our two weeks there were spent doing a lot of walking around the base, eating a lot of shrimp at Safe Harbor Seafood Restaurant and Singleton’s Seafood Shack, visiting Engine 15 Brewing (several times), and generally hanging out. Nothing spectacular, but a nice stop.
We left Mayport on the 24th of February and drove straight through to Naval Air Station Pensacola. Having become regulars there, we immediately settled into our routine: take a long (5+ miles) walk along the waterfront in the morning, spend the afternoon strolling around old downtown Pensacola (along with a visit to Pensacola Brewing, of course) or touring the area or doing chores, take a long late afternoon walk along the beach, and then settle in for the night. We also became good friends with a former Air Force pilot we met in the FamCamp, a great guy with a thousand great stories. Hammer, we miss you.
On March 29th, we arrived in Austin and settled into a spot at La Hacienda RV Resort, our favorite RV park. The next morning we met my three sons, my (step)daughter and her family, and a Denver friend and her daughter at Camp Mabry National Guard Center where we joined over 1,800 other run/walkers for the Head for the Cure 5K walk/run. Head for the Cure is a great organization chartered to raise funds to support brain cancer research. The 5K was a huge success and raised over $210,000. After the run/walk, everyone came back to our motorhome and we spent a great afternoon and evening doing what families do—catching up and reminiscing and teasing one another about past events. It was a great way to start our visit here.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve done Austin things: eat BBQ, visit brew pubs and wineries, visit Hill Country towns, and enjoy the blue bonnets that blanket the countryside this time of year. We like Austin a lot—almost enough to settle here, but not quite. The city is straining under the influx of what seems like millions of people. We notice the difference between now and our last visit in 2010—way too much traffic, new homes everywhere, more worries about water for the city (exacerbated by the long drought they’re enduring), and crowded stores and restaurants. That and the stretches of over-100ºF days in the summertime are enough to cause us to continue looking. But we’ll definitely visit whenever we get the chance.
Tomorrow is a very special day—Ann’s birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we won’t get to do a lot of celebrating since we’re heading north tomorrow morning bound for Northwest Arkansas, stopping in Arlington, TX for a Scottish Festival. We expect to be in Arkansas for at least a month, visiting old friends and deciding if it’s where we’d like to settle. We’ll let you know as soon as we do.
Alan
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Disney World / Patrick AFB
We arrived at the campground at Fort Wilderness at Disney World on December 16 for a one-week stay. The campground is “on the property” which makes it simple to get around Disney World and Epcot Center. I won’t say much about our actual visit to Disney except to say that we enjoyed it, particularly Epcot. The campground itself is something to be seen, as many of the visitors festoon their sites with huge inflatable Disney characters, animated displays, and music. Our one string of white lights around our patio made us look like country cousins. Anyway, it’s a sight to be seen.
While at Disney, we made the decision to not make the trip to Key Largo and Key West. It’s a long drive through crazy traffic, our stay at Key Largo was going to be ridiculously expensive, and we’ve “been there, done that” several years ago and, while Key West is an interesting place to visit, it’s not a place we feel drawn back to. So, we punted and headed east to Patrick AFB.
Patrick is on the Atlantic coast of Florida just south of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. I deployed to Patrick for a military exercise in the early 1980’s when I was flying F-4C’s for the Flying Razorbacks. At that time, it was a beehive of activity. Now, it’s quiet, noticeably lacking airplanes. The aircraft stationed on this huge airbase consists of 3-4 C-130’s and about a half-dozen helicopter, all belonging to the Air Force Reserve units based here, and a mixed bag of about another half-dozen airplanes belonging to “other” US government agencies. There are no active duty airplanes here! I’d be happy to see the military in decline if it meant that the world was at peace, but I’m afraid that’s not the case. Time will tell if we’re making wise decisions or not.
The FamCamp at Patrick is located in a remote area of the base on the bank of the Banana River, about a half-mile from the Atlantic coast. We arrived and were put into the overflow area, which has electricity but no water or sewer. Luckily, we were soon able to move to the best full hookup site in the park, right next to the water, where we’ve remained. How we keep getting assigned to the best site in parks we visit is beyond me—our luck is amazing! The park is a little rundown and doesn’t get the attention it deserves, but it’s a nice place to stay anyway. (For all you taxpayers out there, I should mention again that FamCamps actually turn a profit, which goes to the local Moral, Welfare, and Recreation fund that supports activities and facilities for our troops. Your tax dollars are safe!)
But the big news is that a couple of days after we arrived, Ann made the decision to go to South Africa for a visit that coincided with the marriage of our niece, Lisa. Ann left on December 30 and returned home on January 14. During her trip over, she spent a day with her sister and family in London. She then had a full two weeks with the rest of the family in Cape Town. I’m really glad she decided to go over, as it had been seven years since her last visit. My only regret is that I couldn’t make the trip with her. Someone had to stay with Muffin.
Luckily, my loneliness during her absence was reduced by some great friends who live near here. We met Dan and Sherry during our stay in Asheville and have remained in touch. Dan is a retired Air Force Brigadier General, giving us a lot in common. They’ve opened their home to us during our stay here and have shown us around the area in hopes we might fall in love with it and decide to move here. Whether they’ve succeeded remains to be seen. We like the area but we aren’t through looking. It’s definitely high on our list, partly because of such great friends.
The weather has been a bit odd. Unlike the rest of the country, the Florida peninsula has stayed warm. We’ve had high temperatures of 84º and our lowest nighttime temperature has been about 41º. Nice! We’ve had a few rainy days, including today, but it’s been mostly sunny and warm. I’m really liking Florida!
We move to Saint Augustine this Saturday with the plan to stay nine days. Our friends Bob and Teri visit there regularly and rave about what a great place it is, se we have to stop and see for ourselves. After our stay there, we go to the Navy base at Mayport, near Jacksonville, for two weeks and then back to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola. That’s assuming we don’t change our minds.
Alan
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Dunedin
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that one purpose of our travels is to find that perfect little place where we’d like to spend the rest of our lives. The Denver area, where we lived a total of fourteen years, is great, but it’s expensive and busy and the winters are too long. Several west coast towns showed promise, but the cool, cloudy, wet weather is just too much for us. Asheville looked like the perfect place “on paper,” but the reality of the place was different—it’s a nice place to visit but not where we want to live. Pensacola offers a lot, but it’s a little remote and too spread out.
So we came to Dunedin cautiously hoping that it might be the place. We’d done a lot of Web research and had talked to a number of people who have spent time in Dunedin, all of whom spoke highly of the town. Our hopes were up, but they’ve been up before.
Well, it’s too soon to commit, but Dunedin may just be the place. On our first day here, Ann decided that she could live here, and I wasn’t far behind her. “It feels like home,” she said. No place is perfect, but this one is feeling really good!
First the positives. Dunedin is in a great location. It’s situated on the coast west of Tampa, north of Clearwater and south of Palm Harbor. It’s protected from Gulf of Mexico storms by two beautiful barrier islands, Caladesi and Honeymoon. The location provides easy access to just about anything a human could need. The old downtown is a few blocks long along Main Street, ending at the marina. The downtown area has a “village” feel about it, small and highly walkable. The people are noticeably friendly, the weather is wonderful, there are no vagrants, and real estate prices are reasonable, particularly for a coastal area. Oh, and it’s very dog-friendly, to the point that its nickname is “Dogedin.”
The other interesting thing is that Ann and I both immediately felt like we were in South Africa, Ann’s home of birth. I know the weather and rich flora has a lot to do with that, but there’s more to it than that. Dunedin was settled by two Scotsmen and retains its Scottish/British heritage to this day. The name, “Dunedin,” is a simplified form of "Dùn Èideann,” the modern Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, Scotland. The local schools all have one or more pipe and drum bands. In fact, the Scottish Highlander Band is one of the biggest and most prestigious organizations at Dunedin High School. Florida's largest and oldest Highland Games and Celtic Festival are held each April in Dunedin. This strong Scottish/British heritage, coupled with the tropical flora and the sunny coastal weather, results in a town that would fit perfectly along the Indian Ocean coast of South African.
Finally, there are two brew pubs and a craft beer tap room in the downtown area which, as you probably know, is important to me. One, Dunedin Brewery, is Florida’s oldest craft beer brewery. They brew great beers, serve great food, and have an exceptionally friendly staff. It’s the perfect place to spend some leisure time.
The negatives are few but important. Heat, humidity, and bugs are what you’d expect in any subtropical area—a nuisance—but hurricanes are a different matter. Although the last major hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area was in 1921, Tampa and the surrounding coastal communities are number one on the list of cities “most vulnerable for major impact by a hurricane.” It may not happen for another 92 years or it may happen next year, but when a Category 5 hurricane does strike, it will devastate the little town of Dunedin. I’m not concerned for our safety. Given the fact that we’re retired and that forecasts of hurricanes come days or weeks in advance, we can leave the area with our “too precious to lose” possessions and sit it out somewhere. But losing a home we’ve fallen in love with will be tough.
But there’s another big and much more immediate negative: flood insurance. Homeowner’s insurance does not cover flooding, so if you own a home in a flood plain, you have to buy a separate policy. Until recently, FEMA subsidized such policies, making them affordable, but in 2012 Congress passed and the President signed into law the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act which eliminates the subsidy for newly-purchased homes, second homes, and a few others. Flood insurance was already expensive, with many people paying upwards of $2,000 each year for their policies, but now the price is expected to rise as much as 1,000%. In one recent example, a family’s $4,300 annual policy premium increased to almost $44,000. To be clear, let me state that this isn’t just a Florida problem. People living near streams and lakes in unlikely places like Colorado and Arizona will be also see huge increases in premiums.
So it seems like the solution would be to simply buy a home that’s outside the flood plain, but it’s not that simple. Many of the older homes in flood-prone areas are owned by people on fixed incomes who will not be able to pay the higher premiums. As a result, the market is going to be inundated with homes, lowering prices. Many will remain unsold and the owners will be forced to walk away, leaving the home in foreclosure. This will cause home prices to drop even further, resulting in even more foreclosures. The worst case scenario is a total meltdown of the housing market in impacted areas.
Will it happen, or will the government step in? Given the utter incompetence of our current Congress, one would be a fool to expect them to do anything. In any case, this means that if we decide to move to this area we’ll probably live in our motorhome, parked in a long-term spot at a local RV park, until things have settled.
So what are we going to do? We’re going to enjoy our remaining four days here and then move on to Disney World and then Key West. We’ll come back to Dunedin for a short visit in late January before we continue our travels north. We don’t plan to force the issue. If it’s the right place, it will call us back.
Oh, by the way, Muffin says she’d give Dunedin a thumbs up—if she had a thumb.
Alan
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Pensacola
I mentioned some time ago that if we go silent, it means we’re either bored or having too much fun to stop and talk about it. The latter explains our absence of late. I started the post below over a month ago, shortly after arriving in Pensacola, but never stopped long enough to finish it. Given the fact that I’m playing catchup with this post, I’ll be brief and just hit the high points.
On a cold gray day in mid-January, 1968, I left Oklahoma, headed for Pensacola, FL, and a new life. I’d recently graduated from college, upon which I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps and given orders to report to Pensacola, FL, for flight training. Flying was a dream I’d had since childhood, and now it was becoming real. I remember the excitement of seeing my first palm trees, my first beach, and my first glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico. Everything was so new and different from anything I’d ever experienced. I remember my first training flight and my first solo. I remember my first carrier landing. I have many great memories of Pensacola.
Now, forty-five years later, I find myself once again on the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, parked at the FamCamp (family campground) across the street from the field I once flew from. The airplanes are different but they’re doing the same thing I once did. There are new buildings on base, but most of the ones I knew remain. The jet noise still sounds like “the sound of freedom” and JP-5 fumes from the tailpipes of the jets still smells just as sweet. The sand is still white and powdery and the water is still a beautiful blue. The weather is still nice, warm days and cool nights, and the town of Pensacola is still the same little coastal town with a heavy military influence. All in all, I feel almost like I’ve returned home.
The FamCamp is located in a grove of Live Oak trees next to the beach on the western end of Pensacola Bay. The sand is the color and consistency of fine-grained sugar. The water is blue with modest surf. Given Ann and Muffin’s love of the beach, you can guess where they spent a lot of their time. Access to the amenities of military bases is one of the benefits that comes with military retirement, and nowhere is it more of a benefit than at Pensacola.
Three major attractions of the area are located on the Naval Air Station. First, the National Museum of Naval Aviation is one of the best aviation museums in the world. It’s of special interest to me, as I’ve flown several of the aircraft on display. If you ever find yourself near Pensacola, be certain to visit the museum. Second is the Pensacola LIghthouse, constructed in 1858 and still in use today. The 177 steps to the top don’t sound like much, but you’ll find yourself ready to be at the top long before you get there. The lighthouse, by the way, is the best place to watch the Blue Angels, stationed at Pensacola, do their practice shows. The top of the lighthouse is 150 feet, which means you’ll find yourself looking down at the Blues as they zoom past. Finally, Fort Barrancas, now operated by the National Park Service, is built on the site of the original Spanish fort which dates to 1698. The site of several battles, the fort is worth a visit.
We also spent a lot of time in the old town part of Pensacola. Pensacola is called “The City of Five Flags,” having been under the control of the Spanish, French, British, the Confederate States of America, and the United States. Many of the streets are named for Spaniards who fought and governed in the area. The remains of Spanish forts and other buildings dot the area. Despite all the hurricanes that have battered the coast over the years, many of the homes were constructed in the 1800’s. All this, mixed with the beautiful waterfront and marina area, make it an interesting and beautiful downtown. Oh, and it’s also home to the Pensacola Bay Brewing Company, producer of a number of fine beers.
We also enjoyed three special events during our stay. The first was a quick trip to San Antonio, TX for a reunion of my old Marine Corps squadron, VMA-331. In 1970, as young men, we flew our A-4 Skyhawks aboard the USS Independence and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. We crossed the Atlantic and spent several months patrolling the Mediterranean. It was a life-changing experience, and those of us who shared it meet every couple of years to reminisce and tell tall tales. We had a great time.
The second event was a chance to meet up with three very good friends from the Denver area. Heather, Katy, and Chris were vacationing in Destin, FL, for a few days. We drove down and hung out with them one day and then met Heather for lunch as she headed for the airport. It’s always great to see old friends.
The third, a very special one, was a Thanksgiving visit by my three sons and daughter-in-law-to-be. My son Mark drove his motorhome down and parked in the spot next to us. My sons Mike and John, and John’s fiancee, Cynthia, stayed in a cabin about 200 feet from our motorhomes. We had the traditional turkey dinner, toured the base and town, and generally enjoyed our time together. It was a great time, one I’ll remember forever.
I could go on with tons of details, but I can summarize by simply saying that we stayed very busy, had lots of fun, and look forward to returning next spring as we pass through on our way north.
We left Pensacola last Sunday, overnighted in Chiefland, FL, with great friends, Mac and Karen MacFeggan, and arrived in Dunedin, FL, on Tuesday. I’ll do a post soon about Dunedin, but here’s a teaser: We Love It!
Of course, no post would be complete without a picture of Muffin the Wonder Dog. Here she is, enjoying a last fix of beach.
Alan
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