As ya'all know, Linda and I were planning to retire
in the summer of 2000. We were going to RV fulltime
and not bother with a home base. Well things
change!
We've been visiting our kids in eastern Oklahoma in
the last few years, and really like the
area. When we returned from our visit in May, I
contacted some realtors there to get an idea
of what land prices were and what was available. We
had a couple of years to figure out what we wanted
to do.
One of the realtors sent us information on a piece
of property that would be "perfect" for us. It had
an RV pad with a deck, and all hook-ups and was only
a couple of miles from the lake. It sounded great!
We had our daughter, Christy, go and take pictures
and measurments of the whole property (size of the
pad, deck, etc.) and send them overnight. Every
thing looked wonderfull!
We were able to get a couple of days off with the
4th. of July weekend, so we drove back to check out
the property before we sent them a check. Before we
even went to Christy and Rob's, we went by "our new
property". We almost cried! The way the property
was laid out, you couldn't pull a trailer onto the
pad. If you had a Mini-Moterhome and jockied it
back and forth about 6 times you might be able to
get onto the pad. It just wouldn't work for us at
all.
The next morning we went to the realtor's and told
him thanks but no thanks. He asked if, while we
were there, we wanted to look at some other
properties. He showed us 5 or 6 others, one of
which was a 5 acre piece, on the lake.
We went back to the office to have the realtor call
the sellers, who live in Oklahoma City, to ask some
questions we had about the property. They answered
our questions and said that they were coming into
town to visit their Mom (who used to live on the
property) and they would be there in a couple of
hours. They said they would stop by the office and
would go out to the property with us, if we had any
more questions. Linda and I went out on our own
again to really check it out.
We hiked all over the place. We found the sewer
hook-up, measured the well depths, checked the
boundries, etc. We had decided this was just what
we dreamed about years ago. So we went back to the
realtor and told him we wanted to make an offer.
While we were drawing up the offer, the sellers
showed up. We presented our offer, they countered,
we countered and they accepted! All the papers are
signed and escrow closes at 10:00 AM., Aug. 22,
1998. Escrow did, in fact close at 10:00 AM, Aug. 23, 1998 (IT'S ALL OUR'S NOW!!!).
We
really fell in love with it!
When we got back from Oklahoma, we attended a "Y2K" (year 2000 computer foul up) class, which convinced us that the housing market will probably take a downward turn after the year 2000 and to get the best out of our house we need to sell it as soon as we can get it fixed up to sell. And if we're going to sell it we might as well RETIRE! Our retirement is set for July 12, 1999. We have already given notice to our employers. Linda and I are moving back "home" as soon as we retire and will live in our trailer as we expand our living space. We plan to be there for the change to the year 2000. Then if all's well, we will start our traveling as planned but with a super home base.
Ok, let me tell you all about our little bit of heaven. To start with it's five acres, 370ft. (road frontage) by 680ft. (lake & creek frontage). We are about 3 miles from the main road, the last mile is a rock road (gravel to most people) that ends at our property. So we are secluded. The sellers Mother lived in an mobile home which burned down about 4 years ago, the mobile home is gone but there's electric power, telephone, septic system and three wells on the property. There's a circular driveway that leads to the area that was cleared for the mobile home. Our property is covered with trees! We have Oaks (much taller than the Calif. Oaks we have out here), Walnut, Fir, Pine, Elm and a bunch more we haven't identifed yet. There are great rock out-croppings (Slate) all covered with moss.
We are not on the main lake (Lake Eufalula) but an inlet of the lake ("Oak View Harbor"). We own one side of the inlet, where we can keep our boat beached, and the people on the other side, own that side. The inlet runs about 550ft. along our property and ends at a spring fed crick (ok, go ahead and call it a creek) that runs across the corner of our land and feeds into the lake.
Ah, the wildlife !
Although we don't have wolves, we did see some beautiful deer not far from there. There are all sorts of other critters around, you can tell by the eaten walnuts under the trees. We have seen lizards, frogs, and water turtles (lots of turtles). We know first hand about the fish. Two years ago I bought a new rod and reel. My first cast into Lake Eufalula brought me a 1 1/2 lb. bass. The sellers said that they caught bass and catfish from their (our) property. So you know what we will be doing.
Now a little about the area. Lake Eufalula is the largest lake in Oklahoma. It has 675 miles of shoreline (108,000 acres). We are 35 miles north of Christy and Rob's in McAlester (door to door) and about 30 miles south of Muskogee. The town of Eufalula is about 8 miles from our place, by road or about a mile by boat. Eufalula has a real nice public boat dock that's 2 blocks from downtown. The village of Long Town is about 4 miles away, with convenience stores and small shops.
We are about 70 miles west of FT. Smith, Arkansas. Joplin, Missouri is 120 miles north of us and Texarkana, Texas is south, 150 miles. Another 60 miles south will bring you to Shreveport, Louisiana. Oh yea, about 110 miles north east is Rogers, Ar.and Beaver Lake, one of our favorite Ozark spots. As you can see we are an easy day's drive to a bunch of great places to camp.
We are going back for a week in Oct. to see our new Grand-baby, CODY ALLEN HENSLEY. And while there we will have the elect. turned on and clear the chest high grass thats over grown the clearing. I hope to be able to pour the footings for the storage shed we need to build also.
Our goal is to build a pad for our RV that is in a drive through garage. Adjacent to the pad will be a large room (40ft. x 16ft.) that would expand our living area when we're home. This will be all one building. The room will face the lake and will have a full length covered deck, lakeside. Most of the construction we plan to do our self.
We have plenty of room for visitors. So if you want to come by and say howdy, your welcome. We even have some friends that are planning to visit us at the turn of the century so they can be in a country setting to see what happens with Y2K and ride out any problems that happen, along with us.
SO IF YA'ALL WANT A LITTLE VIEW OF WHAT HEAVEN MIGHT
LOOK LIKE AND YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT GREAT LIVING IS
LIKE, COME ON DOWN !!!!! DON'T FORGET YOUR
FISHING POLE !!!!
WELCOME TO OKLAHOMA !
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