Life Transplanet

On the sidebar of this site, you may have noticed a little green vine crawling up the side. Well, we have added a new feature: the Moving to Rincon Progress Meter. It is a scale from one to 100 that will track our progress to our goal of living in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Mostly it measures the amount we estimated that we need to save in order to move there and be able to do some major upgrades to the property, but it also covers some things like ongoing income sources as well.

At this point in time you will notice we are at approximately a 35 on the scale or 35% of the way there. We estimate an increase of more or less about 5% per month on this meter. We thought this might be a fun way for those of you out in Internet-land to watch the progress we are making as we close the gap to moving and living in Rincon. We will be down visiting Rincon in just a few short weeks, so watch the blog soon for updates straight from there.

It’s been difficult to update due to the problems with our internet server back in Colorado.  It seems the power went out there and the internet has been spotty.  It appears to be working better for now so I figured we’d post up some pictures.

We’ve been doing errands to get set up with our house in Rincon.  We got the water turned on and we have the electrcity on and in our names too!  The water we were able to do online, but the electric we went into Aguadilla to the AEE offices.  Everyone has been very friendly and helpful with us.

Water Guy Leaving.

The timing of the water being turned on was awesome.  We were just about to leave and go to the beach where they have a public shower to hose off with when I heard a truck.  We spoke to him…Well Cassie did.  He waited for us to check the house and ensure nothing was leaking before leaving.  He was super nice.

Cassie and “Water Guy”

Then we headed up to the Puntas Bakery and I put a few hours of work in.  It is nice that I am able to work remote and help out.  It means I don’t burn as much vacation time and they get to have a part time worker when they are really busy. 

The bakery is pretty good for breakfast and it is just up the road from the house.  You can usually spot someone sleeping in the middle of the day in Puerto Rico.

What a life!

Hopefully the blog stays steady for a while.  It’s one of those things where you just never know what will happen when you leave.  The webserver has been difficult but thanks to my sister and mother in law it is functional.  It’s frustrating.  Kind of like when you try to run in a dream and you just cant..lol.

We have been staying in this small concrete studio apt that is also on the property.  It works out perfectly -our air mattress, a bathroom (now complete with water!), and electricity to watch a few shows we brought with us on the laptop before falling asleep!

Concrete Studio

One of the huge royal palms in the “backyard” 4 acres

We’ve got a lot of interesting stories building up due to internet being sparse and our blog being down.  Hopefully we’ve got steady access and can update more frequently now!

Well I guess it’s as sure as it’s going to get so here is the scoop:  We signed a contract to buy a place in Rincon!

A few weeks ago while I was sleeping Jack  (Cassie’s Dad who recently passed) came to me in a dream.  We were in Puerto Rico on a sunny day on top of a hill.  It was on the west side of the island and I could see the ocean from where we were.  I don’t remember all the details about it but a few things stood out. 

1. Jack was waiting for us in Puerto Rico or already had a place.
2. The house reminded me of playground equipment for some reason.
3. The place had an ocean view.

When I woke up I told Cassie about the dream.  I had been waiting for Jack to visit me in my dreams and he finally did!  I remember telling him something like: “Well if you already had a place in Puerto Rico why didn’t you tell us!!! This would have been so much easier!”

Fast forward a week…Maybe a week and a half.  A Realitor calls me while I am at work.  I met him in PR when I was down there last time and we looked at a property.  He said that the sellers of the property wanted to extend an offer/price.  They knocked $270,000 off of their inital asking price!   Well I told him that I’d have to ask Cassie, but I am pretty sure we would make a deal. 

Here are a few pictures of the place.  I have some video to upload later on too.  There is a main wood house, a small studio concrete guesthouse and 4 acres of land.

This place meets nearly all of Cassie and my criteria.  It is a perfect compromise really.  It has some land to move around/build on, it’s located in Rincon and it’s affordable.   We really like Rincon because it will be an easier transition to move to, there is the possibility of making our own rental/vacation home business there, and there is a lot of great events and things going on. When I looked at this place before I didn’t take it too seriously because they were asking so much.

The house is a wood treated place which is good and bad.  It’s good because we will have a place to stay while we are down there.  It’s bad becasue we are planning to eventually take it down and put up a concrete house of our choosing.  I like this though because it is more of a ‘pay as you go’ option.  We don’t have to take out a major loan, we can design it how we want it and it has something we can use now.

Both of us are SUPER excited about it, and even more certain that it is the right decision.  The down side is that we have a contract on the other place near Isabela.  We are going to break the news to that realitor soon that we had something totally unexpected come up that will prevent us from purchasing that property.   There isn’t much money on the line so it is something that Cassie and I are willing to let go and chalk up to the cost of the other place.

This place in Rincon is going to require a lot of work and improvements to make it what we want.  That’s fine though.  We are looking forward to the challenge (as we’ve done before with our rentals)! And in the mean time, we can enjoy the sunset over the ocean from our literal dream home in the tropics- which will make it all the more worthwhile.

We have an interesting development in the Puerto Rico saga. Something totally unexpected. Something we can’t really turn down. We are excited and still shocked. Something is in the works. When we know more, we’ll let you in on it. It’s good news though!

It does have something to do with this…

Well I found the property on Google Maps.  It looks as though my memory was right in that we are the only house in the area.   I had a GPS location from my phone I grabbed during my last visit but I couldn’t figure out exactly where it was at.  We are excited for this new year and the things it will bring. The real estate agent received our contract, so we are on our way to an exciting year!

Click for larger View

There are 2 clearings (triangle shaped and one directly across from the property that is squarish shaped).  The clearing across the street had been filled in with Greenery by the time I got there but the triangle clearing was pretty much the same from what I remember.

Both areas would make for good places to build additional housing.  In total there are 11 cuerdas (acres).  Our plan today is to build another cabana and a pool on the property and visit as often as we can.  Over the next couple of years we will work towards moving permanently.

We have a plot plan and I am trying to match it up to the picture so we know our borders.  That will help us with the planning out of where to build the next structure and where to put our pool!

Well I wanted to put up a brief update as to what we were doing.   I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a happy new year!