Land Quest - Day 2

This morning on our way out of Albuquerque, we saw many hot air balloons hovering over the city in the cool morning air. We have found out that the annual balloon festival is next week so we imagine that they were getting ready for the big event.

Today we headed south past Socorro to the subdivision of Antelope Hills. The access to this subdivision was horrid at best. The gravel/ dirt roads were washed out in many places and it was 14 miles of torture for Tonya. The lot we looked at was beautiful with fantastic views but we had to take it off the list since it is soooo far out and power is not available there.

So we headed back to the freeway and up to the town of Magdalena, which is west of Socorro. We headed out north of town to Pinon Springs, which was a 14 mile drive and we found three lots that looked promising. Two were 20 acres and one was 30 acres. All were well within our price range. They all had great views and had power and telephone available. We put these on the "short list" for now.

Next stop was lunch in Socorro and then on to Tierra Grande. What a big disappointment!. Tierra Grande sits out in the middle of nowhere and there is absolutely nothing there. It is no wonder that you can but 20 acres for next to nothing, because there is nothing there!! So we drove on to Mountainaire and proceeded north to Tajique. We wanted to look at Shiraz Ranch which has several 10 acre lots for sale. We found it easy enough, but the roads were so so and none of the lots were marked. We found several areas that were interesting with decent views, but it was had to tell if it was a lot for sale or not.

This was the end of the list of Internet finds, so we headed back to Albuquerque, tired and disappointed. We estimate that we drove over 400 miles, 50+ on dirt roads (really bad at times) and all we have to show is tired achey bodies and slim prospects for our dream retirement land (and a rental car that will never be the same).

We are not ready to give up yet. Tomorrow we seek professional help. We are going to contact a real estate agent in Los Lunas to try to find the dream hacienda.

Lessons Learned: Admitting you need professional help is not a bad thing...

And there are really big grasshoppers in New Mexico!