Yup... Dave and i have decided to retire even farther north!! Most of our friends have chosen the south west-Arizona or Nevada so they all think we are crazy to look for more snow and cold. But Dave and I love winter sports , so why not go where you know you can do them for sure. Priorities for our retirement location was proximity to the Great Lakes and places where we can bike, swim,hike, kayak, cross country ski and snowmobile.
Years ago when our two girls were still in grade school ,we happened on an old farm house on Washington Island, Wisconsin. This was one of our favorite summer places to visit. It is farm community right off the tip of Wisconsin in Lake Michigan. you have to ride a car ferry over to "the island" as our family affectionately calls it. The island is 100 miles of roads with about 750 year round residents and about triple that of seasonal residents in summer.It has one grocery store, two gas stations, 2 coffee houses,about 6 restaurants/taverns, a performing arts building, a community center with swimming pool and small gym and gifts shops and museums. Outside there are 4 beaches, 3 harbors,lots of quiet roads for biking, shoreline for hiking, bays for kayaking, and safe locations for salmon fishing. So we found a 100 year old farmhouse on 6 inland acres of growing alfalfa. with a beautiful stand of cedar and maple trees surrounding the old farmstead. Its a beauftiful and uncrowed area but if you are looking to shop and alot of variety of culture stay in the city!!
We didn't have alot of extra money but we were thinking of moving to a larger house in the chicago suburbs where we lived ,as our girls were getting to be high school age now and we needed more space. So after some discussion we decided to remodel our existing house in Illinois, sell the lot we purchased to build a new home in Illinois and buy the property on Washington island, Wisconsin instead!! We saved alot of money doing this and got a beautiful weekend and summer vacation property to enjoy with our girls only a six hour drive from our home in Illinois. Prices back in the early 80's were good and this house and land were part of a divorce settlement so we bought it for rock bottom pricing( less than our quarter acre building lot in Illinois!!) so very affordable on a 15 yr loan. What a dream come true. So many stories to tell over the last 20 years of enjoying our island home with our girls (but i will get to those in other blogging).
Anyway we love the island for all it offers in Summer and early Fall ,but have found the winters to be pretty snow less .Being an island, alot of the winter storms seem to by pass it and go out over Lake Michigan, missing the island all together so there is almost no skiing and limited snowmobiling . Plus it is a bit difficult to get to in winter, as they run only 2 ferries a day( by reservation only) and they fill up with residents going off island for Dr. appts , vacations, and shopping etc.... But we were at the 15 year mark back then and had paid off the loan for Washington island property and our Illinois home so we were free and clear now.
We started to drift off to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for our winter recreation weekends the last few winters. We began to fall in love with their 200 inches of annual winter snowfalls and the unbelievable number of miles of cross country ski and snowmobile trails. It was a place of endless winter adventures and we were getting hooked!! The same 6 hour drive from Illinois but no ferry so we could leave any time on a Friday and enjoy a long weekend of winter fun. With Dave 6 years from retirement now, we got the bug to look for inexpensive housing as we both agreed that Washington island was amazing in summer and fall but the U.P. of Michigan was just as amazing in winter and perhaps we could spilt our retirement to both places when selling out Illinois home in a few years from now?
What started us thinking this way was not only the beauty of winter and the available months of winter sports, but also the amazing house prices- so low as many small towns that used to be mining communities and now without income for growing families reduced the house prices so much lower than any i had ever seen in my lifetime. You could buy a cute little 3 bedroom house for as little as $29 thousand dollars!! , or a beautiful historic Victorian for $89 thousand dollars!! WOW!! It was something we just simply had to investigate for ourselves. We had eaten at a cute Irish pub in the western peninsula when we went up to the UP for our 34th anniversary two years ago and stayed at an amazing old mining mansion bed and breakfast near Houghton. While having a stout ale at the Irish pub, the bartender talked of just buying a property to fix and resell as an his investment- hence we heard of the $29 thousand dollar house concept. We of course had no desire to buy a house to fix up as it would mainly be used in the winter so would have to be somewhat good condition to take the difficulty of winter plumbing and heavy snowfalls on roofs- we didn't want any surprises when we came for a weekend. But the very afforadable home pricing now enticed us to research the possibility of buying a place for winter retreat in the U.P.
And so began our Winter retirement house search. Over the 2 years i think we saw over 100 houses in all price ranges. We even toyed with the concept of possibly selling our Washington Island property and buying ONE larger retirement house in the U. P. But the more we looked ,we realized we could keep the size and price down of a U.P. house and thus afford to keep the paid off Island property. The bugs (black flies and mosquito's in Spring and early summer) have a bit of reputation in the U. P and it just doesn't get any better than W. Island for us in summer with NO mosquito's to date on our island property(not true of the whole island however as plenty of wetlands so you have to know that when you search for property there). We noticed that the U.P. had alot of wetlands too, so we were careful to observe for this when property searching there as well . Also how well the roads were plowed was a concern in winter,so we looked at houses both in spring( for water issues), winter (for snowplowing needs) and summer to explore access to to parks, as well as exploring the services in each of the small town near by. But the search was really fun, to explore houses from Copper Harbor to Munising across the whole U.P. of Michigan.
Our perimeters for house hunting in Michigan were: amount of regular snowfall( we wanted the max!!), affordable but well maintained house to withstand U.P. winters, moderate size to heat,and a bit of land for privacy(2-5 acres min.), a garage or land to build a garage on it, and the ability to bike in Fall and snowmobile in winter right out of our driveway, fairly close to a small town with services (like grocery store , hardware store ,gas,, churches, library or book store,and a few cute eateries), all on well maintained roads in winter. In our search we found out that there are alot of seasonal roads that YOU have to plow to get to those cute inland lake properties for instance ,and that is not what we wanted( although hiring a local snow plow guy is a must here as they use both a truck with snowplow plus a front end loader to push back or remove the snow as the amount of snow accumulation are so intense here- thus snowplowing is yet another utility bill here.) The house itself needed to be a three bedroom ( so one guest room and an office for us) with a garage or land for one , two bathrooms or ability to add one( for guests), a functional kitchen , eating area, and a front room that could have a wood stove or fireplace for supplementary heat.
After a huge search over two years of about 100 homes and with 3 Realtors we found it!! A great little ranch house with double garage and huge walk out basement , on 20 acres of land and only 5 years old so in great shape, and located just outside of the town on Munising( about a 6 hr drive from our Illinois house at present). It has just the right amount of living space, and for entertaining family or friends with beautiful hard wood floors and lots of light, and such a quiet and peaceful location. The house and property are on a road that leads to the National Lakeshore of Lake Superior and Hiawatha National forest. It is a wonderful find after alot of searching but just right for us. It is even single level for later retirement issues of mobility( not yet though please!!). And yes, we can bike and snowmobile right out the driveway- yeah for that!! As a bonus it has a beautiful public golf course two houses down the road from us that we can walk on to the 6th hole, play 6-7-8-9, pay our 9 hole fee at the clubhouse, and then finish holes 1-5, ending at 6 and walk home a half of block- NEAT HEY!! It is heaven - we are home!!!
The best thing aboutall of this, is that my husband Dave has been enjoying his semi- retirement for the last 20 years at Washington island for weekends in summer and early fall and now we will have the next 6 years before his actual retirement with winter weekends in Michigan as well!! I think too many Midwesterners count on good health and wealth at retirement age, but often run themselves into the ground with over working ridiculous hours away from family and over-extending their finances but then run into health and/ or financial issues when they actually retire. So, this 25 years of affordable recreation has been a dream come true. We took the money out of the stock market to pay off the Michigan house fully so would have no debt with any of our houses( just a few weeks before the crash- praise God for his timing) . We will have the equity of our Illinois house for our retirement savings and I am humbled to say that we have not over extended our finances to do any of this. (This started by buying our Illinois house for far less than the Realtors said we could spend with our income and remodeling vs moving up to a bigger more expensive house to give us the savings to do all of this and living in this house fro the past 24 yrs !!)
We have been blessed beyond comprehension with Dave's job of 35 years and good health- praise God for the oh so many blessing we enjoy. We have found a church we like in Michigan and hope to continue in a faith community and years of community service as well in the U.P. which we enjoy so very much. What a blessing in our lives to have this amazing nature landscape that Lord has provided us in Wisconsin and Michigan to keep our health in check!! Dave and I grew up in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area and although I have traveled all over the world with my family and in doing christian service work I am indeed thrilled to be remaining in the Midwest for our retirement. It just doesn't get prettier than this in summer, fall and winter!
We are home!!!!
P.S. What about our location in the Spring- when it is cold and muddy in Wisconsin and Michigan?? Well we hope to do Christian service work , perhaps overseas with the "Jesus Film Project"or other projects that HE leads us to in service to others.
This too will be a huge blessing in our lives!!Either way we will committ to service work weekly in our retirement- not a retirement only filled with lesiure travel/sightseeing, daily restaurant eating out and golf resort for us- we want our retirement to include God's work!!We have been sooooooooooooooo very blessed.
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