More Lists -- In Search of the Familiar

Before I dive in to today’s post, I have a confession.  While the phrase “snowbird experiment” came to us really early, the idea for the blog came later – after we had received the apartment approval.  I thought it might be a good way for us to keep in touch with our friends and family while we were gone.  Then, we thought it might be fun to include some “pre-trip” posts.  Whew.  I feel better now that that’s out there.  J

It’s just over two weeks to our departure date.  What seemed so far away, now seems exceedingly close! How are we going to get everything done in time?!

Today, rather than making lists of things to take, or things to pack, or things to do, I’m making a list of familiar places, and then googling them to see how close they are to our Las Vegas apartment.  We’re all creatures of habit, and being in a new location can be disruptive to our routines.  So, I thought if I could find some familiar things, it would make the transition a little easier.

Tom goes to Life Time Fitness every day – EVERY day.  So, that was the first thing I looked up.  And, guess what?!  We found out that there are now TWO Life Time locations in Las Vegas – not just one.  And, the second one (the one we didn’t know about) is just 4.2 miles from the apartment!  That’s almost exactly the distance Tom has to his “home” Life Time in Highland Park.  It’s MUCH closer than the Life Time in Summerlin.  So.  Tom will be able to continue his daily workouts in a familiar setting.

Whole Foods was the next thing on the list.  I’m gluten intolerant, and know that I can shop for gluten free foods at Whole Foods.  Some local grocery stores have some gluten free options, but I don’t know what the GF options are in Las Vegas.  So, I sought out the familiar -- Whole Foods.  And, as luck would have it, it’s just a smidge further east than Life Time!

Making a list…or two, or three…

Christmas is behind us.  It was great.  We baked cookies with Tom’s grandsons last weekend.  We celebrated apart with our own families and then together with Tom’s kids and grandkids.  This morning, even though the house is a disaster area and I *should* be tidying up (okay, excavating), I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee doing one of the things I excel at – making lists. 

I travel enough for work that I have a pretty good checklist of things to do before I leave (stop the mail and the paper, get rid of anything in the fridge that will become a science experiment while I’m gone), but we’ll be gone for a couple of months, not a week or so, and that takes list making to a whole new level!

Tom toyed with the idea of sending some things ahead, so we wouldn’t have so much stuff in the car with us, but I *think* I can pack all the clothes I’ll need in one suitcase – especially since the apartment has a washer and dryer… 

Oooh.  Laundry soap… add that to the list of stuff to take with us!  And, snacks for the car…we’ll definitely need those!  

Which route should we take?

Okay. I know we said we were going to wait until after Christmas to do more planning and plotting.  But, dang it, it’s just too exciting!  So, last night, we started looking at routes.  We’re taking Tom’s car and leaving mine here.  We have three days to drive, so I can start work on Monday the 18^th of January.

Tom’s leery about driving through the Colorado mountains in winter.  (Can you blame him?)  So, we’re looking at several options.  And, we’re trying to keep the number of miles per day to a manageable number. 

Oh!  Here’s an interesting aside… When we ask Siri about mileage from x to y, the number she gives is always a few hundred miles less than what we find when we use Google Maps.  Is she giving mileage “as the crow flies?”  So, while we find her useful and reliable in many areas, we’ve discovered we just can’t trust her when it comes to reporting mileage. 

One of the things I love about Tom is that he plans ahead rather than “winging it” for lodging along the way.  So, after he figured out the total mileage from here to Las Vegas and divided by 3, he came up with our en route lodging cities!  The current plan is to stay in North Platte, Nebraska on Friday night and then near Salt Lake City the second night. But, if the driving conditions force us to alter our plans, the cancellation policies for each of the places will allow us to change our plans on the day if need be.  Another relief!

More help from our friends…

One of my biggest worries has been finding someone to watch the house while we’re gone.  I’ve been trying to think of a college student who could stay for a few months and keep coming up empty.  Last night, I told my neighbors about our snowbird experiment.  They asked about my plans for the house, and I confessed I didn’t really have one.  I said the cleaning lady was still scheduled, but she comes only monthly – not enough to ensure my peace of mind.

Then, one of the neighbors said she and her partner would do it.  They’d come once a week to water the plants and make sure the boiler hadn’t gone out. They even offered to shovel/snowblow if we get snow this winter.  I said they could use the snowblower in my garage, and she said, “Nick has one, too, and is itching to use it this year!”  So… that’s settled, then.  Reliable folks keeping an eye on my place.  My big worry eliminated.  Ahhhhhh.  Do I have great friends, or what?!

Welcome to Copper Creek!

Tom called Copper Creek and discovered that they had several furnished one bedroom places available for the period we wanted!  So, later that evening, we looked at the floor plans and furnishings in each of the available units and then began the application process. 

It took a few days to get all of the paperwork completed (for some reason, the electronic application allowed us to skip “required” information), but I called yesterday and got them the missing information.  I asked when we’d know if we were approved, and she said, “Oh, you’re approved already, we just needed this information for the file.”  I called Tom immediately and said, “We’re approved, let the adventure begin!”

The photos of the place look FABULOUS!  And, according to the site, they have a workout area, two heated pools, and a business center.  And, imagine our delight and relief when Tom got a call from his cousin, Mary, who had driven to the complex to check it out.  She said it’s every bit as beautiful as the photos.  We’re both excited (I might be a weensy bit more excited than Tom) but, I feel like now that the application process is done, I need to focus on work and Christmas before I can think about packing.

With a little help from our friends (and family)...

This has been an adventure already, and we haven’t even left the couch!  I’ve forgotten to tell you about all the stuff we’ve learned by talking to the leasing agents and our friends and family.

Friends and family have been GREAT about sending links to rental sites.  We’d been looking at apartments, but some friends recommended we look at sites like VRBO, homeaway, and Airbnb – sites where regular folks rent their homes (or a portion of their homes) – often for the exact length of time we’re interested in.  Tom’s cousins, Mary and Phil, who live in the Las Vegas area, also helped with a list of sites and an introduction to a realtor.

I had an epiphany one day when talking with a leasing agent in Florida.  When I asked about furnished units, he said, “Yeah, we can do that for an extra 300 per month.  We’ll just call rent-a-center and have them provide the stuff you need.”  DING!  I thought to myself, heck pal, WE can call rent-a-center ourselves, and avoid your markup.

So, we continued our search, and included unfurnished places, knowing we had the option of renting furnishings.  We surfed the vacation home sites a few nights, and found a few possibilities, but nothing that seemed perfect for us.

Tom asked again about Copper Creek.  I told him that I’d written back (a third time) and hadn’t heard back.  He suggested maybe we call rather than write.  And, that’s what he did!

Bye Bye Sunshine State!

Tom and I are having a hard time looking for a place in THREE locations.  We’ve been so discouraged, actually, that we took a little hiatus from searching.  We’ve been discussing the merits of each place, hoping that would help us. I made a chart of our discussion points, hoping that when we saw the points in print, some “tipping point” would jump off the page and point us in the right direction. 

It didn’t happen.  The hiatus continued.

But, then, one day, Tom said, “I know all these places might be great, but, it’s been my long-time dream to go to Las Vegas.”  DING!  That was it.  That was what we needed.  I said, “Great!  That’s where we should go, then!”  Tom asked about the “merits chart,” which indicated we should go to Florida or Phoenix.  And, I said, “Hon, sometimes the most important factor isn’t what you can see on paper.  Sometimes, the emotional connection is much more important than the logic. ”   We talked for a few more minutes, just to be sure.  And, then, we said good bye to the sunshine so we wouldn’t have to wonder “what if” about not going to Las Vegas.

This is harder than we thought (Are we ever going to find a place?!)

Well… we’re expanding our search.  We’re getting discouraged by what we’re seeing in Las Vegas.  And, Tom mentioned that the weather will be warmer in Florida than in Las Vegas.  We asked that paragon of information, Siri, to compare the temps for the locations, and… Florida is 15 degrees warmer than Las Vegas in January and February.  So, we’ve started looking for places in Florida, in addition to looking in Las Vegas.

We decided to look on the Gulf side rather than on the Atlantic side -- mid-state to south.  We're discovering that Florida is not only warmer than Las Vegas, but also more expensive.  The places we found that were within our agreed-upon budget) were really sketchy.

I mentioned this to my pal, Nancy, who moved to Phoenix last January.  She started lobbying us to explore Phoenix – warmer than Las Vegas – less expensive than Florida.  

Hopefully, one of these locations will be “just right” for us!

The Search Begins....

We started our search, in earnest, mid-October.  Our criteria seem pretty simple:  a furnished apartment, since we didn’t want to haul furniture with us; something bigger than a hotel room, since our plan was to spend three months away,  I need to work from the place we pick, and Tom can't play golf all day every day (as much as he might like to!) -- meaning we'll both be in the space for a good portion of the day; a place where we can "move in" mid-month.  I have a "big" birthday coming up, and I wanted to be able to celebrate with family and friends here at home before we left.

My only two visits to Las Vegas were last year (with my cousins and sisters on Presidents’ Day weekend) and 35 years ago with a girlfriend and three guys in a pickup truck.  Tom’s been to Las Vegas several more times, and he has an idea of where he wants to be and where he wants to stay away from.  So, before we started surfing, we looked at a map, and I circled the favorable neighborhoods in green and the unfavorable neighborhoods in red.  That way, I could surf when we weren’t together and have some degree of confidence about the location.

We spent many evenings surfing sites and sending emails or gathering phone numbers.  I’d make calls during lunch – only to find out that places that advertised furnished apartments, didn’t really have any, or that the advertised price wasn’t really the advertised price.

We both liked a place called Copper Creek.  And, we were really encouraged when the woman wrote back to us and said they didn’t have anything available for January now (October), but if we checked back mid-November, she was confident they’d have something.  Meanwhile... we'll keep looking!

How it all started...

Once in a while, Tom reminds me about the decade difference in our ages.  Mostly, he brings it up because he doesn’t want me to be taking care of him when he’s “ancient and decrepit.”  Recently, though, it came up because he’s had a longtime dream of spending the winter somewhere other than the frozen tundra we know as home.  

Because he’s retired and I’m not, he thought his dream would be put on hold until I retired, too – several years down the road.  So, he was shocked when I said, “Honey, I don’t know if you realize this, but I work from home rather than go into an office.  I can work from anywhere there’s an internet connection. It doesn’t matter if I’m in Minneapolis, Dallas, London, or Las Vegas.  So, count me in.”

And, that’s how the Snowbird Experiment began.