At some point in time during the three years we lived in North Dakota, we got involved with a guy in Utah who had several 1 acre lots to sell. They were located in Salem, UT which is down near Payson for those of you who have been there. We had some friends named Hutchinson who, I think, we had known in New Jersey and they had bought a lot and built a house and moved out there. They said it was a really good deal.
So, we negotiated with a friend that I worked with (Karen knew his wife, too) named Harlem Lerum who was a member of the flying club that I talked about before and the three of us (Harlem, Karen and I) set off to fly to Provo in a little small airplane. It took most of one day to get there. I remember we stopped in Rock Spring, WY on the way and got gas. We flew right down Provo Canyon with the mountains on either side of the plane.
When the canyon opens up to reveal Utah Lake and the Valley around Provo and Orem, that is a beautiful sight, especially from several hundred feet in the air. We landed at Provo Airport and then (probably) rented a car or got a friend to lend us one (don’t remember which) and drove down to Salem.
The property was very cool. It was part of a housing development that this guy was developing. It was high on the bench in Salem and you could see for miles from up there. I think you could almost see Salt Lake if the smog lifted. You could certainly see Provo and surrounding towns. And, of course, Utah Lake. It was very nice and the price was reasonable, so we signed up.
The only problem with the whole thing was, we forgot how inept I was (and still am) with handling money. The guy we bought the property from never really enforced any payment plan, so if I was a little short, I wouldn’t pay him. That happened enough until I was about a year behind in payments. The bank would have foreclosed on me long before this, but the man was nice as I said.
One day, I got a letter which said, in effect, you’re not keeping up payments and I need my money and tell you what: I got someone else who’ll buy the lot from you and pay you back everything you’ve paid into the project and take over your payments. Well, I could hardly say no. We could have lost it all. But we got our money back and lost the lot.
One day, a few years later, we drove up and looked at the lot we owned for a short time. They had built a house on it and it looked real nice. If we had still owned it, it would have still been an empty lot full of weeds. Everything happens for a reason.
Dad