Part 1: In The Doldrums

Part 2: Things Are Looking Up?

Part 3: Our Plan, Currently

Months later... the new new plan!

This is the story of Brooke and Bruce's house hunting trip in the Providence, RI area (4/2 - 4/10).

Wazzup Widdat?
Recap for those we haven't talked with in a while: as neither one of us has a job tying us to the area, why not move someplace much cheaper and try something new?

Initial thought: we wanted to be just outside a big city, for all the benefits, but sizeable property. (Actually, me, I'm more of a city kid, but as long as we're close, I'm okay.) Our first try was outside NYC, perhaps near Bruce's hometown. HA! Almost as expensive as the Bay Area. In February, however, the epiphany hit: we love New England, how about something in southern NE, where the weather's still decent? It's near Boston, after all. We spent some time in RI and CT last summer, and we liked it well enough. This, as well as finding low housing prices in RI on the web, inspired our recent trip.

Executive Summary (since the whole thing will be lengthy): Let's say that visiting someplace as a tourist is completely different from visiting someplace as a potential home. Yeah. That says it. But there was a pleasant surprise at the end.

DISCLAIMER: if you are reading this and are from Rhode Island... hopefully you will take no offense at my comments.

The First Few Days of Despair
First of all, we went into the trip entirely exhausted. We hosted a party, both subsequently caught colds at the same time we started moving out of the 4 bedroom house in Union City... my cold gave way to a nearly-2-week case of laryngitis, which made it interesting for the friends who helped us move (me running frantically around giving assignments, since I couldn't be heard from more than a foot away). In the end, it took 5 days to move all of the boxes out of the house, which left 1 day to recuperate before the flight back east. Oy!

Our hotel was literally on the airport. No kidding! We were on the fourth floor, and out the window, you could see the Southwest terminal not too far away. It was convenient, but you can't call an area surrounding an airport "pretty" by any means. We got in at 11:30 (thanks to a delay... boarded a plane out of O'Hare, and had to get off because part of the fuselage was ripped... why do these things happen to me?) and didn't have the best impression when we were that tired...

But tomorrow was another day. We thought.

The First Daylight Images...
We hopped in our car to the tune of 30's and snow flurries. People tried to convince us that weather was normally better for April. (Hmph. Ten years ago, I visited New England in April, and there was the same "unseasonably cold" weather.) People also kept asking us... why on EARTH would we want to move to RI? We would soon learn.

Driving around... so many clearcut areas! Where were the trees??? And most of the state felt like one big Route 1 (New Jersey reference). Apparently there's no zoning in RI, so you can have the multi-million McMansion alongside the auto body shop. And the thing is, there are a heck of a lot of auto body shops in that state. And Dunkin' Donuts. Not that that's a bad thing. (Mmmmmm, raised glazed Munchkins...)

Anyway, I come from a working-class family, and the whole state felt too working class to me. It was promising, all the talk about renewal of Providence? Well, not much of it is renewed, yet. And the parts that aren't renewed... well... be careful. (Especially Pawtucket. The locals all called Pawtucket "interesting". My sentiments exactly.)

So, don't plan your honeymoon in Pawtucket.

Extreme Homogeneity?
RI is a state of extremes. Either end is very homogeneous.

Let me explain. There are many fast food restaurants (mostly McDonalds and Wendy's). With the urban renewal, there are also new "fancy" frou-frou restaurants (such as the Napa Valley Grille... don't forget the final E!). As far as the in-between... not a heck of a lot. And as a couple on a scouting trip, these were places we sought out for dinners. Not many. Almost all family-style restaurants were chains, and almost all of those were Italian. Don't get me wrong, I love Italian food, but occasionally I want something else!

Provinciality...
Many people in RI were so provincial... I could've been in Kansas (no offense to my KS friends, heh) or somewhere in the deep South. Come to think of it, I've never met anyone from RI out here. Heck, I've met people from Maine living in the Bay Area. For the most part, people in RI seem to grow up, live, and die there.

It was interesting seeing this, going to the hotel front desk and asking, say, about restaurants. Most of the staff could only mention restaurants in that town, or maybe the next town over. Bruce and I had a running joke about the place: remember how close we were to the airport? (Southwest terminal out our window...) We imagined that, if we were to ask the front desk something about the airport, they'd say "what airport?" All right, maybe that's extreme, but you laughed, right?

A Potential Town...
Just north of Providence is a town called Lincoln, in the Blackstone iver Valley. Lots of people told us Lincoln is nice, but "way too expensive, like $250K for a house." Heh. We took that as a sign to look. Much more greenery in the area, and paved trails around the rivers, but... still not our type of community, based on the behavior of local residents in stores. For instance... in a drugstore, two teenage girls were pointing at something on a bottom shelf. They did so with their feet, kicking the shelf, a little too hard as I heard a CRUNCH. They didn't seem to care.

We did go to an Open House in Lincoln, just to go, since we'd never been to one. The house was definitely overpriced for the area, given the small lot size. And an innocent comment from the realtor made me cringe: "you like good food? Go to Federal Hill, they have great Italian places!" See above discussion re: homogeneity.

By The Way: Another Scary RI Note
One evening, as we drove along Mall Strip, we passed a Sears Auto Center. Except.. the light on the E had burned out, so it read "SARS Auto Center". Um... maybe you should fix that E? Especially right now??? That says it all about RI...

Stymied?
By Day Three of the trip (mind you, cold and wet -- either rain or flurries -- each day) we were about to either come home early, or just turn it into a (wet and cold) vacation. This meant that we were able to catch up on sleep, though, since there was nothing better to do. (But I missed my various music groups... see, I love you guys!) We checked out local shopping areas, which was a mistake, since traffic is bumper-to-bumper in the newer developments. "Oh, what did you do this Saturday?" "Spent the day driving Route 2." Sure felt like it! Meanwhile, I attempted to burn off Italian food on the hotel dreadmill...

I had a swift idea about midway through the trip, though. If nothing else, it made us feel justified in having traveled out there.

Read about the Swift Idea!