Looking Towards Pendleton

Knowing the problems we'd experienced with the Realtor in Grayland, Jared took a little bit of time before deciding on our contact in Pendleton, finally deciding on a gentleman named Matt.

Mike is a great guy, who not only works a Realtor, but also teaches math and runs his own Bed & Breakfast in Pendleton At first this worried us, wondering whether it would be a good idea to go with someone that would essentially be our competition if we got a place there. Turns out the opposite was true, and having someone like him as our guide was spectacular. Of the three properties available that we were interested in, Matt helped us eliminate 2 offhand. One was pretty far out of town, and while on paper it l0ooked like it might have possibilities, he assured us that once we drove past it, we'd see why we didn't want it. The other we vetoed to an extent, partially because it had too many rooms, but also because it had a pool, something neither of is wanted to deal with.

The other property, The Rugged Country Inn, looked great though, and we started working on seeing the property. Curiously, my wife and I had stayed there the year before, on a trip down highway 101 with my family. The most vivid thing we remember about the Rugged Country was that it had a folder in the room that in addition to outlining the city and food, also had a bit of "homestyle" history of the place, and we remember at the time that it seemed to be a little too detailed and kind of close to the edge of creepy. Apart from that, we remembered the Rugged Country as being a nice place, and according to the listing, it was about the right size, and had an owner's quarters on the property. We asked Matt to look into viewing it, while we looked a little into financing, this time deciding to play it smart, and have some assurances of a real thing before diving in. We hoped....