Life is a beach (or “How we went to Florida to pick up the motorhome and came back owning a house”)

Chris writes:

This is a story about a house that found us, when we weren’t looking.

It all started when the pesky window leak recurred in the motorhome and we had to stay in Florida longer to get it fixed. With extra time, we decided to meander up to Saint Augustine for a few days. But the campground we had chosen there was full, so we ended up quite accidentally in a place we had never heard of, Flagler Beach.

If you don’t believe in love at first sight, then consider this. We arrived on Saturday evening, and by Sunday morning we were looking at real estate listings on line—idle curiosity, we told ourselves. And since we really liked the area and had time to spare, what harm would there be in calling a broker and checking out a listing or two that seemed interesting?—we told ourselves.

The first places we saw were older manufactured homes in a 55-plus park just a few hundred feet from the ocean. Great location and it was a nice, well-kept park. It had a pool and a clubhouse with an ocean view from the rooftop deck. But the housing stock was aging and tired. And besides, we weren’t really in the market—we told ourselves.

Just before we left Flagler, we asked our friendly real estate agent to e-mail us a full list of everything for sale in the area, just to educate ourselves—we told ourselves. We then headed south to New Smyrna Beach for a few days, and put Flagler Beach behind us for a while—so we thought.

On the day we were getting ready to leave New Smyrna for points south, the real estate agent sent the list of listings. I was outside getting the motorhome ready to travel when Jacky came out the door and said “you’ve got to come see this house.” Testy because we were running late, I said, “not now, I’m busy,” and we packed up and left.

We were about to enter the southbound ramp onto the interstate, when Jacky again encouraged me to stop and take a look at the listing. I pulled over. I looked at the pictures. I looked at the location. Then I turned the motorhome around and drove north, back to Flagler Beach.

We would go see the house. If we liked it, maybe it would still be on the market when we returned to Florida in the fall—we deluded ourselves. We viewed the house Wednesday, made an offer on Thursday, and learned that the offer had been accepted on Friday. We have a closing scheduled for July.

Veni, Vidi, Emi. This from two people who agonize over whether to buy a bag of candy in the grocery store if it isn’t on the shopping list.  Well, when we do buy an impulse item, it’s a whopper!

We’ve already posted plenty of pictures of the Flagler Beach area, but I can’t resist a few more, because these views are a block and a half–a two minute leisurely walk–from the little house that just fell into our laps. The wooden walkway is the dune crossing at the end of “our street.”

The story of all the coincidences that lead us to this point is much longer (believe it not) than what I’ve told here, but I’ll spare you all the details. Let’s just say that we were swept along by a tide of events in ways that have left us feeling this was meant to be. All because the motorhome leaked and the campground was full and the beach that wasn’t even on our itinerary captivated us both.

Flora and Fauna of Florida

Jacky writes:

Looking back over the pictures we took while we were in Florida last month, I see that we took quite a few pictures of interesting (to us) plants and animals. Here they are, from A-Z:

Alligators
Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades, FL

Bird of Paradise
New Smyrna Beach, FL

Box turtle
New Smyrna Beach, FL

Butterfly
Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory, Key West FL

Cactus
Beverly Beach, FL

Century plant
Flagler Beach, FL

Coconut palm
Marathon, FL

Paddle plant
Beverly Beach, FL

Pelican
Matanzas River, St. Augustine Beach, FL

Pelicans
Matanzas River, St. Augustine Beach, FL

Seaweed after a storm
Marathon, FL

Shaved cat
Flagler Beach, FL

Spanish moss
Flagler Beach, FL

Zoey
New Smyrna Beach, FL

And that about wraps up our 2013 Florida-to-Maine trip. We’re not sure when or where the next trip will be, but we hope you’ll bookmark the blog (or better yet, “follow” us so you’ll get e-mail notifications of our posts) and come back often to see where we go next.

Time to go home

Jacky writes:
A sign that it’s time to go home:

Sea Fever

Chris writes:

Actually, not Chris, but the English poet John Masefield writes:

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I’ll take one more walk on the beach before we leave in the morning.

Adieu Flagler Beach

Chris writes:

In the morning we say goodbye to Flagler Beach/Beverly Beach and aim north to New England. We came here over a month ago, quite by accident, and stayed, off and on, much longer than we expected. We hate to leave, but, as some of you already know, WE SHALL RETURN.

God’s own creation

Chris writes:

I was taken aback today by the intricate beauty of the simple seashell:

How amazing that the lowly bivalve lives its life in this exquisite house and then leaves it for us to admire. Isn’t the seashell convincing evidence of intelligent design?

I’m reminded of the poem The Chambered Nautilus,  by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
     Sails the unshadowed main,
     The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
     And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
     Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
     And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
     Before thee lies revealed,
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
     That spread his lustrous coil;
     Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
     Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
     Child of the wandering sea,
     Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!
     While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
     As the swift seasons roll!
     Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
     Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Winged Migration

Chris writes:

One of the things we’ve really loved about our time at Flagler Beach is the constant presence of all kinds of shore and sea birds–pelicans, ospreys, terns, gulls and a variety of sandpipers. I think the birds have outnumbered the people on the beach by a factor of a hundred.

Today we were surprised to look up into the sky and see a distinctly landlubber species–swallows, all headed determinedly north, following the coast without pause. There were not great flocks of them and they didn’t fill the sky, but they just kept coming, flying over in a steady stream all day long.

Perhaps we should follow their example. I guess we must. But we don’t want to leave!