Thursday, May 12, 2005
nope
today was a free day, so i spent the time wisely obsessing over the raw land i'd like to buy.
i've been casually talking with a realtor in burnsville about my land needs: 5 to 10 acres, stream or babbling brook, stunning views. i picked burnsville because i figure by the time i pay off the land, asheville will have swelled so much with all the damn transplants coming up from atlanta, that the city limits will be right outside my front door.
it turns out that i would be incorrect. burnsville is fucking LIGHTYEARS away from asheville. i went to look at three properties today and it took me six hours. at one point, i took a "shortcut" down some road. i kept passing all these junked out ford escorts haphazardly parked in yards. it dawned on me as i climbed my ninth mountain mile, what if these cars just overheated or ran out of gas, maybe they're actually abandoned. city folks, come to look at some "properties" take a detour in their ford escorts, get stranded and are forced to work in one of the many christmas tree farms in the area never to be seen again. then i realized I was almost out of gas. and, i was driving a ford escort.
well, i managed to escape. found a gas station. i swear everyone inside had a lit cigarette. people were waiting inside to finish their cigarette before they went outside, that's how far out in the country burnsville is. i did like one piece of land. it had a little creek that ran alongside the road, the kind of stream that catches mountain runoff, really charming. when i drive down to atlanta through talulah gorge i always see people stopped along the road with a glass jug, catching water from one of those runoffs. i thought about this as i drove away from the site, watching the water. something caught my eye in the stream as i passed, so i backed up. there in the water, like a stump was the half-eaten carcass of a deer. its head was gone and so was most of its skin. i wondered if this might spell trouble for the owners of those kiddie toys i'd seen out in some of the yards down stream. But maybe they were abandoned toys, carried up from the city in a ford escort.
i did get a wicked sunburn on my arm from all the driving, so i got that going for me.
i've been casually talking with a realtor in burnsville about my land needs: 5 to 10 acres, stream or babbling brook, stunning views. i picked burnsville because i figure by the time i pay off the land, asheville will have swelled so much with all the damn transplants coming up from atlanta, that the city limits will be right outside my front door.
it turns out that i would be incorrect. burnsville is fucking LIGHTYEARS away from asheville. i went to look at three properties today and it took me six hours. at one point, i took a "shortcut" down some road. i kept passing all these junked out ford escorts haphazardly parked in yards. it dawned on me as i climbed my ninth mountain mile, what if these cars just overheated or ran out of gas, maybe they're actually abandoned. city folks, come to look at some "properties" take a detour in their ford escorts, get stranded and are forced to work in one of the many christmas tree farms in the area never to be seen again. then i realized I was almost out of gas. and, i was driving a ford escort.
well, i managed to escape. found a gas station. i swear everyone inside had a lit cigarette. people were waiting inside to finish their cigarette before they went outside, that's how far out in the country burnsville is. i did like one piece of land. it had a little creek that ran alongside the road, the kind of stream that catches mountain runoff, really charming. when i drive down to atlanta through talulah gorge i always see people stopped along the road with a glass jug, catching water from one of those runoffs. i thought about this as i drove away from the site, watching the water. something caught my eye in the stream as i passed, so i backed up. there in the water, like a stump was the half-eaten carcass of a deer. its head was gone and so was most of its skin. i wondered if this might spell trouble for the owners of those kiddie toys i'd seen out in some of the yards down stream. But maybe they were abandoned toys, carried up from the city in a ford escort.
i did get a wicked sunburn on my arm from all the driving, so i got that going for me.
# posted by joel @ 9:14 PM 
