To flee from the harried, congested life of suburban Chicago, we recently purchased a house in a smaller town in Colorado. It’s nestled in the foothills of the Rockies and is away from any and all things city-like. The neighborhood is quite remote.  In fact, the only method of landline Internet access is… dial-up. (Don’t worry, I haven’t lost my marbles. I can get LTE with that spiffy little wireless dongle I carry about with me at all times.)

During the purchasing process, my husband and I would drive down the street so I could roll down every window in the car to “listen to the quiet”. He gave me a hard time about this but this quasi-remote lifestyle was what I longed for after living in the Chicago suburbs for way too long. The quiet test was the most important criteria propelling us to purchase the slightly dated home in the foothills. And when we did the walk-through and discovered a real-life skull under a tree in the backyard -- I was sold.

Peace, quiet, a little abode on the edge of 1,500 acres of nothing. It was bliss waiting for me.

And then, it happened. I did the final walk-through and noticed, for the first time, some yard decorations that solidified the deal for me. Three green pedestals were proudly lined up next to several tall pines. One large one for electricity; two for phone and that blazing fast dial-up. Yes, I was home. It was meant to be.