Driving to your Property?

[3RRL]

We have 27 acres in the foothills below Sequoia National Park, 250 miles from our home in So. California. We try to make it up every-other weekend. I's a long drive and gas is expensive, but we love going up spending time in Nature. Lots of wildlife, plants, an Oak forest and small river nearby. We have a campground set up for our weekend excursions and vacations. That's where the tractor is too /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif We've owned the property for 2 years now and are ready to start building our retirement home this Spring. We have a dirt road bulldozed in and a hard rock water well drilled (100+gals/min). Septic perculation is done and Architect finally finished the plans. Next steps are to choose the builder and get our construction loan and then we're off! Attached is a picture of our camp.

How many folks have to do what we do?....drive to get to your rural property. What do you have it for?...Do you hunt fish or camp on it? Maybe you've got a cabin on it or it's a second home for Summer or Winter, or are you going to build on it too?

 

[ToadHill]

I have to drive to get to mine as well but not as far, 70 miles. We've owned it for about 24 years and started out with a 12x60 ft mobile home. Just put up a 2000 sq ft home in 03. I use it for deer hunting, have some great fishing near by, and that's where my 2 tractors and cletrac are. We have 90 acres which is all I can afford with taxes what they are in New York.

 

[DUMBDOG]

Our land is eleven miles from the house, have a shed built there, with an apartment, on 28 acres of bottomland with the majority of it covered with trees. Across the road we have 46 acres that we farm. So a short drive, half hour when we do not stay down there.

We only make it down to Florida once a year, most years, but it is for two to three months. Trying to get down here earlier to make in five months. It is a little over 2000 mile drive down here. Thirty six hours without stopping for the night, the last couple of times been taking three days and not rushing it.

 

[Highbeam]

For me it's 41 miles each way for 15 acres. But when I drive out to visit I don't spend the night and I haul the tractor with me. Been doing this for about 2 years but I left a bulldozer there for the first two summers. The plan is to create a home/farm. So far, several acres cleared, perimeter roads in place, survey done, driveway installed, well in place, septic in place, now I just have to deal with wetland issues before applying for a building permit.

250 miles is a good trip but you californians are known for 100 mile per day commutes.

 

[MossRoad]

We bought about 20 acres 16 years ago. Land wasn't getting any cheaper and we found a nice piece close to town, but not too close. It is about 8 miles from our home. It had 10 acres of trees, and two 4-6 acre fields. We had the 4 acre field re-forested about 1992. The trees are over 30ft tall there, now. We hope to build there very soon. We go out there several times a year to mow trails, and just walk around. Lots of wildlife. Still a very rural area, even though we are on a highway.

 

[3RRL]

Man Dumbdog,
That's a LONG drive! But being able to stay for several months is great. Our longest stay so far has been 10 days using our vacation time. That sure makes a difference in what you can get done around the property. Usually it's leave Friday night and get to camp about 9 or 10 at night. then up early Saturday morning to do tractor maitenance and some work or repairs. Then relax after 3 in the afternoon and go for a hike around the property or into the BLM or down to the river. Sunday morning finish up what I started on Saturday and we usually leave around 3 in the afternoon. Makes for a short weekend.

Toadhill,
With the short weekends, we're constantly busy to keep the camp up. the rains are tough to deal with. That's really neat you use your property for hunting. A 2000sq ft house is a big private deer hunting lodge! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif I wish to get the house built soon so I can spend some time up there deer hunting. We have a lot of Coyotes but I haven't shot at any yet. They are thinning the deer herds though and may need to be dealt with.

 

[JDGREEN4ME]

Our "other" property is about 5 hours north of where we live now. Currently we are clearing land and would like to build in 5-7 years. At this point we have no storage on the property so we trailer the tractor etc. up each time we go up to work. Hope to get a garage soon so we can leave the bulk of our work equipment up there.

 

[3RRL]

Well that's interesting Mossroad, I've read many of your posts and always thouhgt (took for granted) that you lived on your rural property. I knew that Highbeam had to drive to his from his posts. As a matter of fact, I ended up getting a Lincoln arc welder as a result of his posts.

Our camp has grown a little with the addition of the tractor. I've expanded my "workshop" up there to do some of the repairs and maintenance. The mods to my tractor are done there too, so I needed a few more tools and stuff to work with. We got a few more canopy tents and put them up. Here's one of my workshop. My welder and air compressor are in another one along with the larger generator by our water well. The small generator in this tent won't run either one.

 

[tommu56]

We have 10 acers in the mountins it is about 200 miles away from home about 4-5 hours away we have had it about 30 years the only bummer is its almost impossible to get there in the winter. We might be nuts but my wife and I have rode up for lunch a couple of times (need to get away fron the kids)good luck on building. btw we dont have any utilities gas lights and frig and wood heat the camp is named RUFFINIT. I have hunted it all but the last 5 or 6 years just not enough deere up there now as compaired to at home. i was hoping to drill a well this year time will tell

 

[3RRL]

Looks like you and me and JDGreene are at about the same stage and similar distances from our properties. One thing is we don't get any snow there. The elevation is 1460' at the homesite location. The elevation at our So Ca home is 1468'. How about that? No snow except very rarely.

Here's a picture of our tent decks in late Summer. No grass this time. That's Mrs. 3RRL up there. If you look behind that cooler, you can see one of our tents in the background under another canopy.