Closing Time

Many of you will remember the song ‘Closing Time’ by Semisonic from the late 90s (watch video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGytDsqkQY8). Today this song comes to mind as we close (in the real estate sense) on our new poshranch adventure in Cheyenne.

In particular, the following lyrics come to mind:

Closing time
Time for you to go out go out into the world.

And

Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

While the songwriters likely did not have moving to a new home on their minds, I think a lot of music that moves us or makes us feel emotion is because of the way WE think of it personally. Music has gotten me through a lot of hard times (maybe that is an idea for a future blog post?).

So here I am, going out into a new world. And this is definitely a new beginning and an ending to living in the home we built just over a year ago with my parents, which was a HUGE beginning. That was the beginning of giving it a go with all of us living together. And it worked. And we all get along (most of the time…).

Apparently I’m big on definitions in this blog, real ones and ones that are made up. So, here’s another one.

Closing: a final meeting between someone who is selling a house or piece of property and the person who is buying it. The basic definition of the real estate transaction. (Macmillan online dictionary)

But it is also this:

Closing: approaching a particular destination; a coming closer; a narrowing of a gap (Macmillan online dictionary).

Hmmm, approaching a particular destination. While I like to think of events in my life as part of my journey rather than working toward a particular destination, this is definitely approaching a destination; a destination called Wyoming (think: cows, and horses, antelope and ranches, real ones).

Home closing was short, in the real estate sense; shorter than any other home closing I’ve ever done. After closing I spent some time walking the perimeter of our 5.6 acres. It seemed like a lot of walking. We realized that there is lots of landscaping maintenance that will need to be done. Tons of trees and an irrigation system to rival Water World, at least for plants. The backyard is hilly and I can see Ethan sledding down the hills in the cold and windy winter. A few laps around and I’ll get my exercise in for the day.

I started thinking about rattlesnakes. Are there rattlesnakes in my backyard? Do I need to avoid tall grass? And what about the dogs? Will they chase them away or will they get bitten? So much I don’t know about living on a poshranch. I’m going to have to Google that, how to avoid rattlesnakes on one’s acreage.

Wyoming has a very different culture than Colorado, as you can imagine, even though it’s just a short drive to my current home state of Colorado. I was thinking that we are going to need a golf cart, or ATV. Then I did some investigation into what kind of small vehicles people use to roam around their own land. I know, I know, the lazy way out, yes I could walk, and I very likely will, sometimes. But what if I need to make a quick run to rescue my dog from loneliness in the far away depths of the landscape?

So I found this: A utility terrain vehicle. Cute, huh? Maybe a little overkill, but we’ll see. Lots to explore in this foreign territory known as Wyoming.

On the way back to Colorado, after closing (we’re not moving in just yet), we saw this just off the I-25 freeway ramp.

Yep, where the deer and the antelope roam.

Until next time…