We’ve now been living in the Gorge for a few weeks, yet it still doesn’t feel like we’ve moved. Our house is still pending sale in Bozeman, due to close in the next couple weeks. We’ve started some talks with a realtor and have driven through some areas of interest. Originally, it was the plan to wait until the funds from our Bozeman property were available to us, but now I have the itch to find a home.
Over the weekend, we took a drive to check out two properties that were a bit far away from work. Ideally, we’d like to live in, or close to, White Salmon, but we might not be able to afford the area and have expanded out to locations within a 30-minute commute. We explored to the west, and for this outing we explored two locations that were a little farther out to the northeast. The first home was almost due north of The Dalles, up and over the hill from the Columbia River Gorge. As we climbed into the clouds, we were set into fog, which made for a beautiful drive, but not so great for getting an impression of the extended scenery. This house is a long shot, a HUD home on a fair bit of land. It would require a decent amount of work, but could yield a good return on our investment. While what we saw of the countryside was pretty, I’ll have to reserve my opinion for a clearer look.
The second home was in Appleton. This home has intrigued us for a while. It’s a cozy cabin in the woods on some acreage and with a guest cottage. It was still foggy when we arrived at the property, a moody yet cozy ambience persisted around us. This home was more expensive, but more or less move-in ready. Of the two, this one felt more like home, but I will withhold judgement until we actually get inside these places. All I know is that we could entertain some amazing capture the flag games.
The one element that both these homes share is how remote they are. We would be looking at a 30-minute drive time to almost any store or larger population. I grew up living away from town, but I’ve also become accustomed to being close to amenities. We’ll just have to weigh all the factors when we actually start touring homes. So here’s to house hunting!