Why do you live there???

[hillslider]

We moved to West Virginia 5 years ago from northern Wisconsin. If we ever moved again it would only be back to Wisconsin for us. We both love the outdoors and love ling out in the country. Plus the wife would not have a place to ride her horse Bo if we did not live in the country. Living in WV is great. Taxes are low...alot of scenery....good people.

 

[Poppa]

Junkman, the winking smiling face is kind of freaky. Must say that though your response is not surprising, it was a little disappointing. You see, Connecticut was a perfect example of my own ignorance of certain US geography. I look at a map, see CT smack dab between NY City and Boston and just assumed the whole state was a bedroom community for those two cities. Bunch of two-story, clapboard sided, houses, a strip mall with a Gap, an Old Navy and a Walgreens, two gas stations and a Dunkin donuts. Then I see some of the Pics you have posted and the pics from (I believe) Steve in CT showing open spaces and it strikes me as odd even though all it really did was highlight my own ignorance. Heck, when I looked at your profile and saw you had 15 acres I started to wonder just how big a percentage of CT you actually owned.

Anyway, Glad you were able to have some fun with the post and if you ever fell like talking about why you live there, well then I'll be here to read that as well. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

TXDON, I should have put in a disclaimer for Texas. Why anyone lives in Texas is obvious, it is merely the best place on earth. Anyone who has ever been to Texas knows that living there is enough reward to make up for any wrongly perceived short-comings. I would live there tomorrow but the wife will not go.

Boondox, classic example of making assumptions about people. I see Vermont for your location and just assumed you were a lifer there. Didn't know anyone ever moved to or from Vermont let alone from San Diego, WOW! Your answer has been echoed by Gary and others and is also part of my answer. Wives. Good ones are worth following to hell and back. Bad ones there is no return trip. I would love to move farther East and see more of the country but my wife is now a thousand miles from family in CA and she will not move any farther away. Because of what she means to me, that is just fine.

MikeZ, I honestly do not know how you get into a vehicle and drive away from that to work. Vistas like that would have me glued to a chair with a cup of coffee. Absolutely beautiful. And that goes for Hillslider as well. And Gatorboy, I have seen pics of your place in other threads. Your's too is fantastic place.

Thanks for the responses so far and hopefully everyone will keep them coming.

Mike

 

[MarkV]

I bounced around a bit from Illinois, Florida, California and ended up in Georgia for the last 17 years. The Southeastern climate and people seem to suit me though I could do with out a couple of the summer humid months. Met my bride and were pretty happy with Atlanta city life for the first 10 years. As the city got bigger and my patience shorter we built a weekend get away house in the N.E. Georgia mountains not far from Yonahforge's photo. Found that we spent more time there than our big expensive house in the city. Decided when retirement came we would get that country dream place with some land. The wife parents are having some health problems in their senior years and we were spending more and more time near them in N.W. Georgia. Stumbled onto the near perfect, for us, retirement place near her folks and put the retirement cart before the horse.

Sorry no photos so I'll just have to say that I am sitting here typing while I look out at the ducks and deer across the 5 acre pond in the middle of our 32 acre wooded tract.

MarkV

 

[Harv]

I've lived in Northern California all my life. The climate is such that tennis is pretty much a year-round sport. In my somewhat younger days I would scuba dive in the Pacific and ski in the Sierras, sometimes in the same week. Outstanding schools and hospitals (something for the kids and something for me /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif).

Our governor is also an action figure. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

To be totally realistic, though, I'd have to say that this list is pretty accurate. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[pd444]

I've got ancestry traced back to the Creeks and Choctaws along the upper Gulf Coast. I've also got some ancestors that whacked them on the head and sent them into the swamps and off to Oklahoma.

While the whole story is a bit more sad than I have portrayed, one way or another, my family has been in these parts for hundreds of years.

The picture shows you a spot I hold dear and defining.

P.S. to Gatorboy: Since you brought it up…There is something to look forward to in Florida--all the Northerners going home. Thanks for doing your part.

 

[fenneran]

Lived in N.J. as a kid, then grew up in Orlando. Hot, flat & crowded is how we always described it. My wife and I had always talked about living in the mountains of Virginia, but then careers, kids, relatives and other things got in the way. We decided that we would probably retire there. Then, driving through the Shenandoah Valley on the way home from a family visit in CT, we felt God was telling us that now was the right time to move. We pulled off at the next exit and camped for a couple of days to get a lay of the land. I stopped by the chaber of commerce to get a list of companies in the area. That was September, 1996. By November, I had gotten a job and moved up. The house was on the market and we were on our way. (A year after moving up and renting a house, we actually bought a small farm about a mile from that campground!)

What we found was not hot, not flat and not crowded. We get three months of every season so when you are about tired of one, the next one starts. We're in a small town where you can stop at the gas station and chat with your neighbors for an hour, yet close enough to D.C. (2.5 hour drive) to see the museums and things. In Florida, you had to drive for hours just to start your trip. Here, we can be in five different states in a matter of hours.

Unless the good Lord has other plans, I am going to die here.

-Frank

 

[Chuck52]

I'm an academic-type with a specialty that requires a fair-sized university to have a place to do my thing. Both my wife and I are from East Tennessee (note the capital E in East - it isn't the same state as Memphis), and we moved from there to Norman, Oklahoma, then to the suburbs of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and finally to the middle of Missouri, as my career meandered along. I can't say I'm strongly attached to Missouri, though the southern part of the state is nice and reminds me of home. I would retire back to the mountains of East Tennessee, western North Carolina, northeast Georgia, or the corner of Virginia, if I had my wish. However, we now have locally produced grandchildren, and I suspect we are rooted here. Three years ago, we moved out of the small city where the university is located onto about 10.5 acres, far enough from the city limits that we expect to expire before we are annexed. I miss mountains and clear running streams. This part of the state tends more toward muddy creeks, many of which only flow during spring. There are some beautiful areas around here, and I like my little homestead, but I fear I am one of those people who will always feel a strong pull by the old home place. It always seems to me that there should be a mountain just over there a little ways, and it's not there.

Chuck

 

[chim]

I have lived in 4 places (in a small town) before getting married almost 34 years ago, and 3 places (out of town) since then. All of these are within a two mile radius. I have been to Arizona, Florida, and places in between. I spent a week in Ecuador and one in Hawaii.

I like it here because of the seasons, familiarity, family nearby and the terrain. People from the northern part of the commonwealth call us "flatlanders", because it isn't nearly as hilly as up North. Real flat land, like Florida or out in the western part of the US doesn't appeal to me at all. Wifey and I have thought about pulling up stakes and relocating to the area around State College or farther North at times just because we want to be farther from the cities and towns that are creeping nearer and nearer.

I can still walk out back and try different loads in the pistol without disturbing anyone. I like it that way. We don't dislike people, but do enjoy living with enough space so the neighbors don't hear us when we flush the toilet /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif................chim

 

[KubotaSteve]

Born and raised in WV and love the peace and quiet of the country although with our crazy county commissioners, they are trying to turn our county into more of a city type place. I travel back and forth to Washington DC to work and wouldn't live there if someone paid me. The trip by commuter train is about 1.5 to 2 hours each way. It makes for a long day but watching my kids running through our land makes it all worth it. I have pictures of my tractor and land in my office and the people I work with who live in the DC area are just amazed. The funniest thing is about these crazy cicadas. DC has them all over the place and I haven't seen a single one at my place knock on wood. People around me have them on their property but not one on mine yet.

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

Pacific Northwest, rains all the time, traffic is terrible, prices are out of sight, full of mean spirted people, nobody lives here it is to crowded. Stay away at all costs.