Land ho!
The wife and I have decided to invest in raw land. To be honest, we've been looking at this for over a year now. Initially we attempted to find something close enough to downtown Houston that I could, with a rough commute, continue to work at my current position. Prices anywhere within about 90 miles of Houston are absurd, though. We'd spend about as much as a nice suburban home just for the land!
Consequentially, we gave up on the keep-my-job approach and started looking elsewhere. If it was going to be elsewhere, we wanted a place with a winter, and if I wasn't going to be able to keep my current job...why not somewhere with mountain views? Also, I wanted a lot that was rectangular to the point that I would be able to shoot 1000 yds on my own property. We looked for a lot that was at least 50 acres. That amount is relatively arbitrary, but seemed like a good number.
We ended up finding a lot in far Northern Wyoming that was 70 acres, and after several attempts to purchase lots only to find out that contracts were already pending or the owner had decided not to sell and never told his realtor, we have sent earnest money on one! We fly out a week from today to confirm that the mountain views in the pictures we've seen are actually ON the property, and not generic to the "western heartlands" area that these parcels reside. Below is the pictures we were given and the outlines of the parcels.
As you can see below, the lot is kind if unique in the Western Heartlands area because to the east of us is BLM land. BLM, Bureau of Land Management, is federal land which means I will never have a neighbor to my east. This particular parcel of federal land is also nice because it's legal to shoot on (as far as I can tell) and headed up on a hill so I will have a natural backstop for my shooting!
This is a backed out view of the "Western Heartlands." It looks to me like this was at one time a MASSIVE ranch, and the original owner chopped it up into 35ish acre pieces and started selling it off. It seems most people are buying 2 or more pieces at a time. So...it means our closest neughbors will be a 1/4 mile away. The brown line at the top of the image is the Wyoming/Montana border.
Here's my idea for shooting lanes. This will all depend on where the neighbors might be so I don't piss them off and/or any restrictions on how close to the road I can shoot. I've read you must be 50 ft from a road. Not sure if overland drive counts because it's just dirt, but we'll see.
The best I can confirm from Texas using google earth (which, by the way, this feature is actually pretty cool, combining satellite imaging with radar topography from the space shuttle) is that these pictures could be legit. This is actually on the property facing west. We'll find out for sure...and before we sign our lives away...next week!
We've got our work cut out for us over the next 10ish years to get ourselves in a financial situation to build out there as well as figuring out how to live a life that remote.
And I have to learn to actually shoot that damn far!
Consequentially, we gave up on the keep-my-job approach and started looking elsewhere. If it was going to be elsewhere, we wanted a place with a winter, and if I wasn't going to be able to keep my current job...why not somewhere with mountain views? Also, I wanted a lot that was rectangular to the point that I would be able to shoot 1000 yds on my own property. We looked for a lot that was at least 50 acres. That amount is relatively arbitrary, but seemed like a good number.
We ended up finding a lot in far Northern Wyoming that was 70 acres, and after several attempts to purchase lots only to find out that contracts were already pending or the owner had decided not to sell and never told his realtor, we have sent earnest money on one! We fly out a week from today to confirm that the mountain views in the pictures we've seen are actually ON the property, and not generic to the "western heartlands" area that these parcels reside. Below is the pictures we were given and the outlines of the parcels.
As you can see below, the lot is kind if unique in the Western Heartlands area because to the east of us is BLM land. BLM, Bureau of Land Management, is federal land which means I will never have a neighbor to my east. This particular parcel of federal land is also nice because it's legal to shoot on (as far as I can tell) and headed up on a hill so I will have a natural backstop for my shooting!
Oh yea, it's also 80ish miles from Yellowstone!
Below are the pictures from the ad
The best I can confirm from Texas using google earth (which, by the way, this feature is actually pretty cool, combining satellite imaging with radar topography from the space shuttle) is that these pictures could be legit. This is actually on the property facing west. We'll find out for sure...and before we sign our lives away...next week!
We've got our work cut out for us over the next 10ish years to get ourselves in a financial situation to build out there as well as figuring out how to live a life that remote.
And I have to learn to actually shoot that damn far!
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