Although we can hardly believe that it's actually done, we have the papers sitting on our computer desk to prove it . . . we bought a house today! It seems a little hard to comprehend, especially since we saw our house for the first time less than 48 hours before it officially became ours. That sounds a little scary, but we are so excited! On August 1, we will be moving into our cute little bungalow in the southwest of St Catharines, in an up-and-coming neighborhood. The house is right across the street from a park with a playground and a baseball diamond. It's a cozy little place, with three bedrooms, one bathroom (with a claw-foot tub!), a kitchen, living room and dining room, and a full unfinished basement. We love the beautiful hardwood floors which are throughout the house, as well as thick wood trim around all the doorways - it certainly has lots of character! It's 10 kilometers from Heritage, which is fantastic, and it's also on the bus route which is wonderful. After looking at a good number of other homes, it was exciting to walk into this one and realize very quickly that this was "the one". We are in love! August is so far away . . . Ahhh! There's all this excess energy and excitement bundled up inside of us that it's hard to keep from bouncing around the walls, and it's pretty much impossible to concentrate on anything. 71 days till we move!!
I believe it was about two years ago that Mike and I were on the road going somewhere which required a map-book, and I decided to look for streets named after us. I found that Michael is a fairly popular name, with Streets and Avenues and tree-lined Boulevards all over the place. I found one Rachel Avenue. It was in a trailer park.
Today, I discovered a place where we will need to go on vacation someday. It is Rachel, Nevada. A town! Named after me! And this is no ordinary town, either. It has a population of 98 people (down from around 500 in its glory days) who are "mostly very helpful, courteous, and rather interesting to talk to". It is home to a top secret US Air Force base, and is known as the "Sonic Boom Capitol of the World". We'll have to take Highway 375 to get there, officially known as the Extraterrestrial Highway. In fact, along with being the Sonic Boom capitol, it is also the UFO Capitol of the World, so evidently it is quite the place of fame and glory, definitely befitting its regal name. It has three local businesses: one restaurant, a mini-mart, and a gas station. It also recently even got its very own fire truck!
Something else, which I found quite appropriate given the time of year, was that every second Saturday in May is officially celebrated as Rachel Day, with a parade, crafts fair, live music, food and the whole nine yards. It is held in honour of the town's anniversary, officially founded in 1978.
So I was definitely excited to learn about the existence of this town, thinking that having a whole TOWN with my name, and a very unique town at that, more than makes up for the fact that the only Rachel street in Ontario is a trailer park. Then I discovered that everybody in the town of Rachel lives in mobile homes, and even the business are set up in trailers.
Shoot. After all that, it's still just a trailer park. Information mostly taken (sometimes directly) from http://www.rachel-nevada.com/
This may make a bit more sense...
