I'm on a solo vacay in 'Bama for about 5 days, hence the lack of blogging. As I get older, I like typing on a laptop keyboard less and less. On this trip, I'm in a little VRBO right near the Fish River.
My trip was originally to see Hank Williams Jr. at the Wharf in Orange Beach, but I also decided to make it a scouting trip. I'm trying to answer the question: Does it make sense to buy a vacation / hobby home in Dixie? We'd have a place for family vacations, I could raise some crops here and have a workshop. When I wasn't there, I could rent it out as a VRBO.
I anticipated coming to the conclusion that the idea was stupid for a variety of reasons.
On this trip, my backyard looks like this.
That right there is a good reason to keep the experiment going. The South is simply incomparably beautiful to me. The concert last night was a lot of fun and the people, being southern, quickly became my new best friends. I stopped at Billy's Seafood when I first arrived and got local oysters, crab and shrimp. Yesterday afternoon, I made an exquisite seafood gumbo.
So far, so good.
One reason for thinking the idea idiotic was the flights. Every time I came here, I'd lose a day on either end, traveling. It turns out that's not a consideration. Once the travel day is behind you, it ceases to matter. The cost of the flight is three figures, but that's no big deal. The cost of renting property for my hobbies in San Diego is mind boggling.
Still good.
It's in the high 80s and humid, but that has never bothered me. I went kayaking in the heat of the day yesterday and didn't have any problems with the heat or the exertion.
How about the fam? How do we make them want to come?
That's a tough one. Wife kitteh is bored down here, but a lot of that comes from not having her friends around. I know how I'd fix that, but I'm not her, so my advice in that area is inapplicable. We'll table that one for now.
As for the kids and the grandkids, if I get a nice, big house, we could outfit it for parties and playtime, which a lot of VRBO owners do. If I buy a boat and some towed floats to ride, river and bay fun is all around us. Gulf Shores is a veritable playground for families. That sounds like a winner.
It's Still A Bad Idea
I still think the idea is a loser. All of my friends who have vacation homes, have them in places their families have gone since the kids were tiny. The extended family grew up going to Mexico / Colorado / etc. Here, I'd be trying to introduce this idea to adults. They'd go once, but it wouldn't have the cultural draw as if we'd been doing it every year for decades. The real reason I want to do this is because I want to do this.
That's a no sale, right there unless I resign myself to making solo trips.
2 comments:
I wonder if they have the equivalent of VRBO for agriculture. You could go there in the spring to plant, and again in the fall to harvest.
As for getting relatives on board with the idea, you obviously need your young relatives for this. Offer to take them off your adult relatives' hands for a few weeks every summer, and get them accustomed to spending time with their Grandpa/Grunkle on his Alabama vegetable farm. That way, it doesn't matter if your adult relatives want to come very often.
==As I get older, I like typing on a laptop keyboard less and less==
I use a KVM switch to connect both my laptop and "real" PC to a single set of monitor/keyboard/mouse. When I take the laptop travelling, I also take a USB keyboard and mouse ... and a full-sized monitor.
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