A place I am lucky to call HOME!

A little over a year and a half ago, my wife and I were living in a townhouse apartment on the west side of the Midway neighborhood. The lease was up for renewal and our landlord, a slummy nationwide company, was trying to increase our rent by over 8%. Initially I had always dreamed of moving away from the cold weather and didn't even consider moving to the suburbs once my wife was done with school but this event sent us into having to change our plans and we chose to find a place around the twin cities to settle down. Of course the timing was terrible for looking for a home, interest rates had come back up to where they were pre-covid, yet the housing prices were continuing to skyrocket still. We didn't have much of a choice though, it was that or apartment living at astronomical rates for another year, something I couldn't see myself doing any longer.

I quickly started searching for homes in the area, drew about a 20 mile radius around minneapolis and searched for lot sizes of 1/2 acre or larger... It didn't take long to realize that these were few and far to come by, as my search came up with a whopping 3 houses! We looked at one in Inver Grove but it didn't tickle our fancy being on a main drag. The next was a very small and rather unfinished house in Mendota Heights, also on a main drag but with a beautiful garden and shed space. The 3rd and final house we looked at was here in Bloomington, backing up to the 9-mile creek corridor.

Surprisingly to myself, this house had actually come down in price since being listed and desperately needed some outdoor TLC as many things looked to have been neglected over the years for whatever reason and I think that detered a lot of home buyers from putting in an offer. But as soon as I saw this place, I knew I had to live here. Driving south from 106th and to the property made me feel like I was 4 hours north driving to a cabin for the weekend. The stress of home-buying was gone as soon as I got back here. I couldn't believe how much old growth there was back here and how much potential there was to have the property that I had always dreamed of, but in Minnesota of all places! We put in an offer and were accepted almost immediately. Over the course of our month of closing, my wife and I would come down here again almost nightly just to experience the nature bathing that many others have expressed as well.

I now get to call this wonderful place home and I simply cannot put into words how amazing it is to live 15-20 minutes from a major metropolitan area while having a virtual state-park experience right out my backdoor! I never thought I would buy a house here before moving here but now I can't imagine living anywhere else, this place is magical and needs to be preserved forever. Central Park, Moir, this whole area is simply amazing, albeit a bit buggy in the summer (but what can you expect, its basically a rainforest here). We are so lucky to have this amazing park here in our city and we should really work together to ensure that the city doesn't bulldoze the massive trees to make a highway for roadbikes to get the riverway..

I've unfortunately already got bad knees, must be hereditary because I am still fairly young compared to most of my neighbors around here. So walking on city sidewalks isn't much of any option for me. But walking on dirt or rocks or uneven terrain is very therapeutic for me. I can't imagine the area down there with paved trails, I think that would attract the wrong audience to the park and ruin the ability to have a sanctuary to nature bathe in for those who need it.

Please don't ruin what makes this place so special and instead use the funds to restore the area to how it was before the invasives were here and/or put in a raised walking trail for the area over the bog that floods every spring for months out of the year!