You’re not stupid, so Im pretty sure youve figured that your buddy Zero found himself a property that caught his interest. Indeed I did. It caught my interest so much, in fact, that I drove out there today to look at. Glad I did because, in case you didnt know, what you see in a Google Earth satellite pic and a real estate website gallery may not always jibe with reality. In the words of the War Department “There is no substitute for boots on the ground.”

The property in question was two 20-acre lots that butted up against a couple thousand acres of private land that was in a conservation easement. Nearest power was a long ways away. The property had two storage conexes already on it. My biggest two concerns were the terrain and the roads. I don’t mind driving a dirt road but if the road was a winding, torturous affair that precluded things like a well-drilling rig and the like….well, thats gonna be a problem.

I knew it might be a challenging drive so I packed for it…shovel, hilift, straps, chains, extra fuel, extra water, radios, flares, smoke, first aid, rations, etc. Because in Montana you just don’t know.

We’d made it about 3/4 of the way to the property (amazingly staying on course, which was an incredible accomplishment all on its own) before I had decided in my head that this was going to be a ‘hard pass’ just on the strength of the truly horrific road. There was one stretch that was such a steep downhill run that I seriously doubted my ability to climb it on the return. In rain or thaw it would have been a Slip-N-Slide. How a couple conexes made it to this property is utterly beyond me.

Once there it only took a few minutes to see that this was not gonna be the new Beta Site. Altitude was a bit up there at 6000′. Terrain was all distinctly stingy with the flat spaces. And, more importantly, there were more houses up there than my careful Google Earth reconnoitering had shown. Combine that with the Highway To Hell and I couldn’t salvage the rest of my Saturday fast enough. SO, since I am definitely not taking it…here’s a link to it.

I have almost always regretted spending money more often than I have regretted not spending it. I am certain that this will be a case where I won’t regret not spending money.

But, for the last week, while waiting to get a chance to go look at this piece, my mind had to go and start addressing concerns that I really hadn’t given too much thought to. Things like maintaining privacy in the purchase, fuel logistics, septic logistics, water logistics, fuel selection, structure type, internet access, neighbor politics, vehicle considerations,  etc, etc, etc. Some of these issues I’ll be bringing up in the blog later to get the opinion of the hivemind.