Now What?

Cedartown gets its water from a natural spring, fittingly called 'Big Spring". It's right in the middle of town in a small park. The water is channeled from the spring/waterworks out this small canal and, if memory serves, eventually becomes Cedar Creek. I wouldn't swear by that part of it, so don't go checking the facts on me. As a kid I played in this park often, fascinated by the crystal-clear water that still flows from the spring. It's pretty, and when I drove past this morning I couldn't help but get out and walk around. Nostalgia at work. Cedartown, by the way, is still a lovely little town, outside the commercial areas of the main drag. There are some beautiful homes, old and new, and wonderful neighborhoods.

The best thing about this day has been the Prius. I did find a lot of apartment areas, even looked at a couple and they would be livable, certainly, at a reasonable rent. Dale and I looked at 7 or 8 houses, including the little cottage I originally fell in love with and at the end of the day we both agreed that the original cottage was looking better all the time. The place I was most looking forward to seeing, with the barn-like garage, basically needs to be bulldozed. It was so filthy we didn't even want to go in, but we took a fast cruise through. I didn't take any photos, although now I wish I had one to show you. We have one more to see tomorrow, in Alabama, and because it's in Alabama the odds are very slim that I'll buy it. That's nothing against Alabama, but I need to keep my medical insurance that takes over where Medicare leaves off, and those are individual by state. I'd need to buy Alabama insurance, but the nearest medical care is in Georgia and I wouldn't be able to use it there except in an emergency. I'd need to drive to Birmingham for medical care, and that's just too far away. Besides, the naturopath I want to use is in Atlanta.

The highlight of the day was a wonderful old home that I just fell in love with. It's bank-owned and on auction terms - repossessed. It's a little funky, but has potential screaming from every room. It's huge -- I didn't count them while I was there, but going on memory I'm guessing 8 large rooms plus a large hallway and an indoor hot-tub room, complete with hot-tub and skylights. Beautiful hardwood floors, tons of windows letting in all that glorious southern sunshine, fireplaces everywhere, high ceilings, even a closet-sized bar with swinging door and etched windows on the cabinet doors.

This was clearly a party place of some kind, and somebody did some expensive rehab in the kitchen, one bath and a room I don't even know how to describe. There's a swing on that gorgeous front porch that would be so nice for watching the world go by. There's also dry rot in sight and no doubt more of the same out of sight.

The back of the house was clearly for parties. The room I can't define has a huge, professional level 30,000 btu gas griddle and huge restaurant-style exhaust hood, all built into a wide counter for seating people, leading to the hot tub room and also leading via a series of sliding french doors onto a deck. I can't imagine what they could have cooked that would have required a huge griddle like that, and the big hood. It's not a grill -- it's a thick, flat slab of steel griddle.

The kitchen was fascinating. Like much of the place, the finish work was crude at times and it's hard to figure what they were trying to achieve, but the idea was great. This photo is of the grill that's built into one corner. The entire room has the same walls, counters and cabinets. The list price of this place is more than I could afford, although it's hard to say what the bank might be willing to accept. Unfortunately, all that potential would require a lot of money to actualize, so I'm only posting these photos because from a property standpoint, it was the highlight of the day.

The roads all seem to lead back to the original cottage, perhaps with a rehab loan that would solve all the problems it has. It was smaller inside than the photos led me to believe, but large enough, and very sweet. I'm a little discouraged tonight, but thankful I don't have to make any decisions.

Maybe I will work for another year or so and buy a Prius. And maybe, since I don't have anything else to do in Cedartown on Sunday, I'll take the one I have up to the mountains and step foot on the Appalachian Trail again.