Work Begins -- Week 1

If we ever get to it, part of our landscaping will include a display of our flags. Since the first dirt was turned on the 4th of July, I prepared a "banner" with them on it. You can see the edge of Trout under the shade of a palo verde for this picture.

That's us with the banner & the backhoe. We were there for most of the action. It didn't take very long for them to prepare the preliminary pad for the house. Dave, the builder, said we would go through stages where the place looked enormous, then small, then big again. This day it looked enormous.

These other backhoe pictures also show some of the land & the views. The first one shows some hills to the south.

Those white dots at the top of these mountains to the west are the telescopes at Kitt Peak Observatory.

Backstory

Take this job...: In 2002 Trout & I began to think & talk seriously about where we would retire. We had the when (2004) down & we were well prepared (we hope) financially & mentally. We considered lots of locations & ruled them out based on a list of requirements we developed. In particular, he needed relatively easy access to a road course racetrack & I needed very easy access to good medical care. We needed the costs to be lower or the same as in WA. We both wanted the weather to be warmer & dryer than in western WA. I wanted to be able to sit outside at night without socks, coats & propane heaters. I also wanted to see the moon & stars. After all the sifting, the Tucson area became the best destination. Bonuses for Tucson included mountains, southwestern & Mexican architecture & the extremely important access to good Mexican food.

Timeline: We checked our sanity by coming for 10 days in early July, 2003. I checked again by coming for about 2 weeks in February, 2004. We both officially retired in the spring of 2004 & began the work to get our WA house ready to sell. We had a firm contract on it by the time we brought a load of boxes down in December, 2004, stayed with our one (at the time) friend here & found a place to rent. By early February, 2005 we closed on the sale of our WA house & moved to our rental in Catalina, north of Tucson.

Local research: Part of what we learned in preparing to retire was that if at all possible, it was best to live in a place for a year without buying to be sure that's where you want to live permanently. So we spent the first year living, learning & looking for places to buy & renovate or land to buy & build on. The more we looked, the more we came back to the conclusion that building was the best option.

Location found: We weren't picky about location, but we needed enough land & the right zoning for Trout's shop. Dirt roads (which are common here) weren't a particular problem, but they had to be maintained by the county & we wanted a public water supply. We didn't want to dig our own well or be on a well share. In December, 2005 we found an area southwest of Tucson called Diamond Bell Ranch. It had Tucson water as well as underground utilities including DSL & gas. The roads were mostly dirt, but were maintained by the county. The lots were large, all over an acre, & the zoning was right.

Lot & builder selected: There was a small builder out there that had a lot we particularly liked. In early 2006 we met with them & liked them. We visited other houses they built in the area & were impressed with what they had done. We began the process of developing a house design for us based on one of their plans. We made so many changes, that it really became a custom house, but it all began with their plan. We got the design down by late 2006.

Contract signed & sale closed: It took until late April, 2007 to get all the design, financial & other details together so that we could have a building contract we all could agree on. We closed on the sale on June 1, 2007.