With so much talk about relocating I thought it would be good to have a "moving" thread. Here we can chat about moving, finding and selling houses and how the orchids are going to fit in.

Thanks, Alice. You are on the ball.

That's great news, Bill. At least you apparently have some viable home options. I will probably have to deal with a "bridge-loan" too.

My wife saw a nice two-story home in Grant-Valkaria, but practically all the living is upstairs. She says it would work IF we had an elevator put in. Champagne tastes on a beer budget. She's just an optimist! Does anyone know anything about the Grant-Valkaria area? We never got that far south of Melbourne when we were looking at home two weeks ago.

A year and a half ago we moved 105 miles further south to Sebastian, Fl. and 3 months ago we made the 105 mile move back. My husband thought he was ready to retire from his 42 year career of teaching and we fell in love with the neighborhood where my sister and brother in law live so we bought a house down the street from them and rented it to a couple from Maryland for a year before we moved down.

l don't envy those of you contemplating long moves! When we moved south we did it ourselves. I packed for 6 months and even after downsizing and getting rid of a ton of stuff we'd accumulated over 45+ years, it was amazing how much we still had to move! We took all the furniture and household things first and then concentrated on the plants. I gave away some plants and left others for the new homeowners; I didn't have a lot of orchids, just a mish-mash of different types of plants but it took 2 trips with a 26 foot U-haul type truck and 3 trips with my husbands pickup and motorcycle trailer loaded with plants ... so, I cannot imagine what it will be like for y'all with all the orchids and other tropical plants you grow! We were fortunate that we didn't have to sell one house before purchasing and moving to the other, otherwise it would have been extremely stressful to say the least! When we moved back north to the Daytona area a couple of months ago, I did all the packing but we hired a company to move us which made things much easier. My husband did borrow a friends enclosed trailer to move the plants but the movers took everything else. I gave my sister the few Vanda orchids I had and left many other plants in their containers around the property and on the deck. We still haven't sold that house yet and my husband has been back a few times to take care of repairing two sprinklers and a pipe that were damaged by a lawnmower. He's going down again soon to have people come and clean the carpets and I may go with him and bring back a few more plants but I'm really limited for space here ... and especially shade. I kinda wish we'd stayed where we were because I loved that property but he decided that he isn't quite ready to retire and the 2 hour commute each way was getting old. We haven't listed our house with a realtor yet and I'm still thinking that renting it out may be something to consider again; when he does decide to retire from teaching, we may want to be farther south where it's warmer in winter.

Alice!
I was so busy that I did not notice but excellent job in starting a "wandering orchid growers" thread!

You guys are worried about me and the cold in Michigan?!
Well it got down to 32 degrees here this morning! For the first time since January 10 and 11, 2010, it went that low. Low enough to put a thin layer of ice on my birdbath.
Back eight years ago, I had 26 and 30 those two nights. For Pete's sake, I might be warmer in Michigan!!

Yeah, but you will probably be back in shorts by the weekend in FL. It will be months before you ever need shorts in MI. Having family around makes up for it though.

The summer my son was at Interlochen we had LL Bean ship him wool blankets and flannel shirts. At that time the thought of using a blanket at all in summer was foreign to him.

30 here this morning, I had to pour hot water on the bird bath to melt the ice. If these weather patterns keep up we will all be enjoying Michigan style weather.

If getting their by land, this is what I think of when I think of Grant. Says its only been going on 52 years, I might have been at the kick off. If you miss the festival, all you can clean and eat crabs are a great draw.

Do you mean this event?
http://grantseafoodfestival.co...

Thats it. Im guessing its a zoo by this time. Good for Grant.

My wife has found some "possible homes" in Vero Beach, but again, we know absolutely nothing about the area. We are simply expanding our search-area because of the inability of finding anything in our initial search areas, Melbourne and Sarasota/Tampa.

Grant/Valkaria is a quiet area but if your wife likes to be near shopping or museums and such, she'd have to drive north to Melbourne. I loved the Sebastian area and Indian River County but disliked that there was no decent shopping in Sebastian; only a Walmart and a few thrift stores. For shopping, one has to drive about 15 miles south to Vero or even farther north, to Melbourne. Traffic in Brevard county (Melbourne, Palm Bay area) is always horrible, no matter the time of day. Vero Beach is very nice but some communities are quite expensive and to find property of an acre or more (without being a gated or HOA community) you'd probably have to look in the western sections of the city, out near I-95.

No shortage of shopping in vero

Remember there are some good HOA's. I lived for many years with one that never put any unreasonable restrictions on the homeowners.

I know you want to stay close to the coast but those prime orchid growing regions are only an hour or so away from beaches. Some of the towns like Mt. Dora are totally charming and very artsy. Winter Park is over the top high end but beautiful. I saw a town called Sanford on the map, it is closer still to the beach, and a lot of growers are there.

Hurry up and check them all out for me.

My wife is not a big shopper, just wants to be able to do so when "necessary". Heck, we live in Starkville, Mississippi, so it's not like we have a shopping paradise here. There are boutique shops around though, have a major university at our doorsteps.

The main thing with Kathy is that she wants to have civic and artsy stuff available, fairly nearby. We don't golf, I no longer fish, and we have no need for athletic facilities, so all those things are unimportant to us.

I have contacted a real estate agent in Vero Beach and presented him with three home possibilities. We'll see.

Good luck Ken!

Alice, there are not enough hours in the day.......... I am trying my best to deal with our home sale, my little business that has suddenly awakened (I haven't shipped a plant since Christmas) with the "fire-sale" of all my orchids, and finding a home in FL.

Alice, an HOA seems to be a different animal in Florida. Even those with monthly rates as low as $8.00, and that are even "voluntary", have onerous regulations You would think that those would be very lax and very flexible. Think again. I have now looked at dozens of HOA and their documents, and it seems like most every one has the same "cookie-cut documents". Those neat little communities you named are actually too far inland for my wife (she has her reasons ) and too far north for me. I know, I know, Apopka is not far away and millions of plants are grown in a 50 square mile area around there. I am not a commercial grower though, spending big $$ to do so. I am and always will be just a hobbyist grower, loving to grow tropical plants and being able to sell a few now and again.

Apparently, Bill, I need all the luck possible and a lot of praying, to accomplish this. I am not sleeping well right now.......

Alice, Mount Dora is a beautiful little town, I love the downtown area and Lake Dora is so scenic. Winter Park is really beautiful too but yes, over the top high end .... and traffic, lots of traffic; but that's part of the Orlando area and it will only get worse in the future. Sanford ... well, that city has grown so much over the years. I didn't know there were growers/nurseries in Sanford. That city is not my cup of tea but it's been a long while since I've been over there and it may have changed since then. Those cities are all in the area of Interstate 4 which is a traffic headache 24/7 but we met a lady a few days ago who told us that I-4 is soon to become an all toll road like the turnpike. I'm sure that won't happen but they may change some of the lanes to toll lanes so drivers will have the option of paying the toll or purchasing the Sun Pass to avoid heavier traffic in the regular lanes.

Hmm. Sounds like my area in So. Cal. It was a perfect place to live...62 years ago. Then everybody heard about it, and ruined it.

When you look at the real estate listings for these towns you see many, many "new construction" listings. There are neighborhoods going up all over.

Lin, I do not know anything about Sanford I only know there are some growers there that a friend used to buy from. There are some nice listings there for 1 acre+ properties.

The area where I live is still beautiful and if we were younger you could not drag us away but at our age it is just time to be closer to one of the kids.