Decisions, decisions...

   I'm just hanging on right now spinning round and round, hoping to make it through in one piece. This story actually has nothing to do with brains. Or bicycles for that matter. It concerns that crazy thing, life, that requires important decisions to be made every once in a while hoping one doesn't screw up and make the wrong choice. This is a long and bumpy one so buckle your seatbelt and hang on!
   For a little background Kit bought his house here in 2008, a run down ramshackle building on an incredibly narrow lot only a few feet wider than the house itself. Parking was a big issue with space for only 2 cars comfortably in front of the house, 3 was pretty crammed. About a year later we began taking over a vacant lot adjacent to the house, setting up a fire pit and myself beginning a pump track that has never been much above average but still a pump track in the yard, and using the extra space to park vehicles and as a campground for visiting friends. Not too long after we decided we should probably find out who owns the lot and see if we could rent it yearly. We did and we could; it stayed that way until maybe 2 1/2 years ago when the entire compound containing that lot went up for sale...our first thought was hey, lets try to buy it!
   Kit wanted to build a garage so badly and this could be a perfect opportunity. Things seemed in our favor since nobody really was interested in the empty lot but us. The first offer combined with another buyer who wanted only the rental units on the corner was rejected by one of the banks involved. That took about 6 months to find out. Then a Truckee local guy was going through the buying process (taking about a year). He intended to sell the lot to us as soon as things went through but he finally just got frustrated with all the hoops he had to jump through. Finally an out of town investor was interested, still so long as Kit wanted the lot. Could this be it? We waited almost another year for this one to go through, and when it finally did, a certain scumbag local real estate agent was working for the buyer. Kit heard his name and thought, this is not going to go exactly as planned. Well, it didn't. Said realtor decided that the lot was worth nearly twice what we offered, and opted to put it up on the market for that ridiculous sum instead of selling it to us for the lower price. Whether or not he thinks we would still want to buy it is up for debate... the joke's on him at this point.
   We absolutely freaked out about this for about a day, and came to realize we were more upset about being strung along for so long than actually not getting the land. We had already discussed options for if we couldn't end up buying the lot and all of those involve moving out of this house and going somewhere else. Moving to Bishop naturally came up, since both of us have talked about it for years now every time we visit for a climbing or skiing trip. At first it seemed like a great idea, but the more we thought about it there were a lot of considerations to make. Finding jobs was one of them, finding friends another. Then the issue of the seasons: Bishop is perfect in the winter but way too hot in summer for my taste; being from western Washington where it rarely gets in the 80's I start to melt when it reaches 90 and need to jump in some cold water. Mammoth on the other hand is just too small and touristy, though in the summer it is more pleasantly cool. Food is also an issue there with the only health food store being pretty pathetic compared with what we are used to.
   We both finally concluded that it's hard to beat Tahoe with all our friends, jobs lined up, the CSA box, and backdoor access to mountain bike trails in summer and XC skiing in the winter. But it's still time to move away from Brook Ave and get closer to the forest somehow. Honestly, neither of us really liked this part of the neighborhood that much with the garbage, idiots driving way too fast in their Cadillac SUVs, screaming kids and barking dogs all around, and mariachi raging most nights of the week. It dawned on us both that not getting the lot was the biggest blessing in disguise because it really cut us loose to do what we've wanted to do all along. Optimism says that things will change down here but likely not before both of us are driven to insanity by our neighbors. And trading easy beach access for forest access is a no-brainer, since the beach is so crowded in summer and the woods are definitely locals territory and an easy place to escape people.
   Enter the "coolest house in Kings Beach." Shortly after I moved here and began riding the trails up above town in the national forest, I took a different street to get home one day and passed by a cozy little cabin with lots of windows, fully in the sun yet surrounded by trees and set back from the quiet road. I immediately wished more than anything to live there! When Kit and I started riding together I showed it to him and he agreed that it was a really neat place with so much solar potential. Fast forward 4 years and it happened to show up on the market several weeks ago in a new properties email from Kit's realtor. At first we think, ahh well, that will probably never happen. Then the lot falls through and we both think, WAIT JUST A MINUTE!!!! What is this situation telling us? Let's make it happen! So we're madly scrambling now to figure out how to go about getting that cabin so we can be happily in the quiet part of Kings Beach once and for all. To sell Kit's Brook Ave house or keep it and rent it out for a while? I supposed finding out how much of a loan he can get will probably decide that one. Finally though, we are so glad to have put in so much work making this house as nice as possible, because if it comes down to selling now it should be worth a fair amount more than it was before. If we're meant to stay in Tahoe this might be the last chance since the housing market is still climbing slowly but steadily, and there are not many affordable places left around here especially in such a great location and not in dilapidated condition.
   Should we acquire that little cabin it will likely be the final step in putting down some roots here in Tahoe, which is a little scary in some ways since there are so many places I could think of going to at least try for a little bit. I miss Washington too, at least some parts about it, and my parents would sure be happy to see me move closer. At the same time, we've managed to vacation rent our place to a friend's family once already, so knowing that's an option makes it a little easier to think about getting away for a trip now and then and making it pay for itself. Although Tahoe has a reputation for being a black hole, pulling many folks back who try to leave, at least it's an amazing place to be sucked into staying. I'm not complaining one bit! We'll just have to wait and see how things unfold over the next several weeks, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that finally something will work out in our favor.