MARCH 2023 It was just about this time, seven years ago, that we moved into our newly built casita. Mid-March, in the middle of tax season and I had come down with the flu. Bill had to finish up the move on his own as I lay in bed, of no use to anyone. And here we are again, packing up mid-March - this time to leave our beloved city of Los Barriles. Yes, the time has come to move on.
APRIL 2023 Fast forward one month, and yes, not only did I get sick, really sick, but Bill did too! Luckily for us it was after we packed up all of our belongings and moved out of our beloved casita. We sold her to a lovely couple from BC, the third couple to look at the place in 2 days and boom, it wasn’t ours any more. They were very gracious and allowed us to stay for a month+ while I finished up tax season as quickly as I could and started packing shit up! I just did a little bit each day, sometimes more, occasionally not at all…but then the universe just took over and there was nothing we could do but get swept along with the momentum.
I started searching on the internet for a town, not too big and not too small…in a blue state, where pot was legal and there were vegan options in the restaurants. Where we were within an hour of Costco and a major airport and if there were a few Jews and Burners we would be golden. Oh and actually the most important things of all - weather and cost of living. I kept getting led to Las Cruces and we did like Prescott, AZ too but was afraid it was a little too cold in the winter, oh and then we found out the median price of homes there. So we zeroed in on Las Cruces and attempted to educate ourselves.
I put out a call to my facebook friends to see if anyone was from there or knew someone and Jennifer and Joe Flower responded. Jennifer connected us to their friends who lived there and a match was made! I took one look at her friend’s Facebook profile pic and BINGO!
After we met over the phone and chatted a bit I find out that they spend 6 months in Europe every year and were going to leave the end of April and would be happy to rent to us directly. We committed to 5 months with the option for the 6th down the road and began to make plans. We were invited to come early to stay as their guests and they are having a little cocktail party for us to meet a few neighbors and friends. We are beyond happy at this development, and the casa is in old town Mesilla, walking distance to everything - post office, cafes, restaurants etc.
Then I had to start thinking about how to get our stuff north, we threw around the idea to buy a trailer and haul it ourselves but quickly dispelled of that idea, then I started looking at costs for cross border movers, STARTING at $3000 and we don’t have but a piece or two of furniture, and a shit ton of bins and boxes. Friends Jon and Carol suggested I put it out on the Everything Los Barriles FB page to see if someone had an empty trailer going north that could swing by Las Cruces! I went right home after dinner at their home and posted on FB, within 2 minutes I had a message from someone I didn’t know, but had messaged with before about some Spanish classes, so I knew “of” this woman but didn’t know her. She said we are bringing down furniture for our new home in a 16’ trailer and it’s empty coming home to Idaho and we’d be happy to drop your stuff off! OMG this shit doesn’t happen, too many awesome people…overwhelmingly kind people. The trick with that I needed a place to move all of our shit to while we waited for them to get down here. Put that one out to the universe and neighbors, Sten and Susan offered their garage, WOW, right?! Our long-time friends, Mike and Cathy Perkins had offered their lovely 1 bedroom casita for us to stay however long we needed it. They are just the best and most gracious of all people, and that’s saying a lot because so, so many people In Los Barriles have been so incredibly kind and loving and helpful. Man - we went out to dinner last night to La Casita for our “last supper” and I was greeted by name and said he knew we were leaving and that they felt very honored that we had chosen to spend the evening there, at the end of our meal they gifted us a dessert of our choice….just wow. I will miss this but we are ready for a new adventure and to put down some roots somewhere where we can ride out the next….
A few pics of our last days in LB…because of our illness we had to cancel our going away beach party and only had a few days to say goodbye
