Staunton, VA- Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014

We checked out of the Stonewall Jackson, and went to Waffle House for a very enjoyable breakfast.  We drove past Robert E. Lee High School to see where Julie used to work.

Then  we stopped in at a real estate office to see if an agent could talk to us.  Surprisingly, without an appointment, we found a nice woman who spent the better part of three hours with us.  Julie had seen some listings online that sounded promising (and we actually did see two of them today) but we learned that prices that were too low to be true were probably HUD houses, and had all sorts of conditions with them that we wouldn't meet.  So, we told her what we were looking for- a small place, with two or maybe three bedrooms, and so forth.  She started looking at listings with us by looking at the area around Gypsy Hill Park and then outwards to the rest of the city.  After looking at about 10 total, we narrowed it down to four that we would like to see.  She then made a few calls and took us around to them.

We seemed to see them in ascending order of attractiveness. The first one, on Sunnyside St, near the library and Mary Baldwin College.  It was a wreck, and had asbestos tiles on the outside.  The second one was on Bagby Street.  It had its nice points, but had a few weird things like some really low ceilings and some very slanted floors.  Julie's asthma acted up after leaving there.  The third, on Poplar, was a cute bungalow near the park but it was too small.  It was advertised as having  two bedrooms but really only had one and that one didn't have a closet.  They were counting the dining room as possible bedroom but it was right in the middle of the small floor plan.  With four of us, this one wouldn't work, plus it was already "under contract" and almost sold.  The last was a cabin on F Street, also near the park.  There was a lot to like about it, from the screen porch on the front to the new smelling carpets and paint.  It had a few quirky things about it, but overall it was quite charming.  It's biggest problem was that it's asking price was $90K.  That's more than we paid for the house that we're living in.

We had told the realtor that we would get back in touch, and maybe Julie would come down again in February.  Now, however, we're thinking that a house isn't for us.   We started this process thinking about a mobile home, and we've been slowly going up in prices as we've seen what we can get, but as the price climbed, our ability to make this work reasonably seemed less likely.   If we commit to something like this now, we'll certainly lose our ability to take the epic trips that we have been taking, right when Anna and Emma will be going though high school.  Ultimately, we love our trips as a family, and we don't want to lose them.  So we think, for now, that we've decided against buying anything down here.  If we were suddenly able to buy the house we used to rent on Norfolk Ave. for a reasonable price, say $40K, then we'd probably do it, but that's not going to happen.

We drove by that place on Norfolk.  We showed the girls what used to be the Statler Brothers offices, as well as Gypsy Hill Park that Grandpa and Grandma Frank talk about, and Lake Tams where Wags jumped in and smelled like a sewer afterwards.  We went to a late lunch at Wright's Dairy Rite (aka Hamburger Dan's).   Then we headed north.

We ended up in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  It's too late to go to Chocolate World, so we'll go there tomorrow.  We took a vote and decided to check in to a hotel and order Papa Johns.