John, great photo, although you're just killin' me! This is the 15th year that development far up the steep hill above my old growth spruce acreage means that my driveway's either flooded or in danger of being flooded from Nov 1 thru end of March. I park far from the house, at the very edge of the road, just past the creek culvert. It means donning boots and carrying everything across the creek and up the hill to the house...cranky, cranky, cranky. In addition, last week we had, OMG, real ICE for the first time in my 62 years here, very close to the ocean where it almost never gets below about 35. No power (which means no water from our well). No way to charge my phone because there was a downed wire lying across my ice-laden car. I learned that our wonderful Earth stove cannot adequately heat our 1600 SF house when it's only 25 outside, but also how to cook on the top of the stove instead of digging my camp stove out of all the camp gear in the back storage space. Lots of alder wood to salvage, before the next time we lose power!

we bought a home here during the first year of Covid and planned to use as a vacation place and rental. But then when schools were closed in Q1 2021 again we decided to have the kids here for a semester just because we could be outside and be with other people. We just fell in love with the school and community...and then I had my heart attack here in costa rica May 2021 which threw a wrench in things. The diagnosis was a stress heart attack from too much work (ET was not diagnosed yet) so to de-stress we moved here. Been here since July 2022 after a year in MN recovering and through the school year. The health care here is amazing actually. My heart doctor here (who put in the stent) studied in the US and worked for years in Houston. Now that I know I have ET I've got a little local blood lab about 5 minutes from my house + (based on advice from Mayo) getting a "back-up" hematologist and care person here. Amazingly that person worked through the Mayo system and the UofM and is the head of the cancer clinic here in San Jose CR. So...its actually really good as most of the doctors here are US educated and trained. I'm still planning primary through Mayo but it's nice to have great care here in case something goes wrong.