What I Really Like About Where I Live....

RP · #1 03-07-2020, 07:50 AM

It hasn't been a severe winter around Charlottesville, but still, as my dear departed mother would have said, "Enough already." Tomorrow and Monday promise to be warm and sunny, and I've got the itch to drop the top on my Mazda MX5 (Miata) and take a short road trip. As a William & Mary grad, I always enjoy off-season time in Williamsburg, and the hotel rates are very reasonable. So tomorrow I'll take my bicycle and my ragtop down to the Colonial Capital for some cruising and pedaling. That's one of the things I really like about where I live - the ability to pack up and go to the mountains, the beach and/or CW. How about you???

Kerbie · #2 03-07-2020, 08:03 AM

Beautiful, RP. For the last couple years, I've lived in a lovely little resort town that is also gorgeous. I think I'll enjoy retirement here. Gotta bring your golf clubs!

PHJim · #3 03-07-2020, 08:20 AM

I'm in Port Hope, a small town about half way along the north shore of Lake Ontario.
I love to walk along Port Hope's Waterfront Trail, with the lake on the south side of the trail and the AK Sculthorpe Marsh on the north. I'm not a birder, but I do enjoy seeing the mute swans who raise a family every year in the marsh. There are a number of birders who walk down the trail and they will identify the birds I don't know for me. Besides the swans there are many geese and ducks. I have seen an egret and great blue herons and green herons. I am sometimes attacked by red-wing blackbirds and if I take seed with me, the chickadees and chipmunks will eat out of my hand. There has been a lot of damage to the trail due to high water over the last few years and it's interesting to see the changes in the trail over the years.

Port Hope is also a very picturesque town and the backdrop for several movies and TV shows. We also have a drive in movie that still operates in the summer. Maggie and I went to see a double feature of the "set in Port Hope" movies It and It Chapter Two. While I've seen much better movies, it was fun to see familiar Port Hope landmarks on the screen.
Sad to say, the drive in was a lot better when the car had bench seats.
Here is a photo of our park with the bandshell where I have played many times as have my wife and kids:

For a small town, we have some good venues for playing or listening to music and we're just ten minutes from Cobourg and a half hour from Peterborough which also have some good venues. My son Darcy lives in Georgetown and Clay lives in Toronto, but they come back to Port Hope to do some gigs on occasion. They don'toften play together, but their friend Jake Chisholm talked them into it for this gig at Port Hope's Ganaraska Hotel. All of my family have done many gigs there.

I grew up in the city, but have been a small town boy since 1969.

hubcapsc · #4 03-07-2020, 08:23 AM

South Carolina mountains:

South Carolina tidal creek:

-Mike "no drop top"

Mr. Jelly · #5 03-07-2020, 08:55 AM

My new bicycle will be here next week. My grandson is picking up my old one today. It's sunny and in the sixties today but I don't even want to ride my old one again.

AmericanEagle · #6 03-07-2020, 09:13 AM

i don’t like where I live (Mass.) that much.
That’s why when I want to take a long drive,
it’s always either up to New Hampshire (White Mountains) or Maine (along the coast).

6L6 · #7 03-07-2020, 09:23 AM

I have no plans to move from our home of 51 years in San Mateo, CA.

Having grown up in the Midwest with severe winters and hot humid summers, I still don't take for granted the incredible weather we have here. And NO MAN- EATING BUGS!

Time it right and Lake Tahoe is just over 3 hrs away for skiing and summer sports. San Francisco is 25 minutes up the road.

It was a self fulfilling prophecy for me to move here and I've never regretted it for even a second.

Best of all, my whole family lives within 15 minutes of us with no plans to leave the area. It doesn't get any better than that for me.

Pitar · #8 03-07-2020, 10:55 AM

South Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Ohio, California, Illinois, Indiana, Guam, UK, Western Caroline Islands, Arizona, Kentucky, Florida...I've lived in each for at least one year, obviously more in some, and in between anywhere between one and six months at other places (Hawaii, Alaska, Korea, others) and have to say all have the same color grass. Some just have it longer than others. Being a gypsy, once my pop laid down roots I was old enough to take off on my own and did. I thought I'd set down roots in central Florida but urban sprawl just may get me packing again. I discovered distant relatives in the family tree in Sicily and have since established some ongoing dialogue about relocating. It's all the same for me but I will admit that being in my sixties now the cold weather is something I prefer to avoid if possible. I can experience all the seasonal changes in calendar photography. That's enough for me.

Jim Owen · #9 03-07-2020, 10:56 AM

Wonderful, Randy. The last time I was in the beautiful town of Williamsburg was back when I lived in your neighborhood (Quinque, to be precise). Yvonne and I spent a week in Duck and capped it off with a weekend in Williamsburg—I’m thinking that was around 93.

Good times. I still miss the valley in the spring, summer, and fall.

tbeltrans · #10 03-07-2020, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 6L6

I have no plans to move from our home of 51 years in San Mateo, CA.

Having grown up in the Midwest with severe winters and hot humid summers, I still don't take for granted the incredible weather we have here. And NO MAN- EATING BUGS!

Time it right and Lake Tahoe is just over 3 hrs away for skiing and summer sports. San Francisco is 25 minutes up the road.

It was a self fulfilling prophecy for me to move here and I've never regretted it for even a second.

Best of all, my whole family lives within 15 minutes of us with no plans to leave the area. It doesn't get any better than that for me.

That is a great area to live if one can afford it.

I have had a number of opportunities to move to Silicon Valley or San Francisco, or farther out and commute in as a software engineer over the years, and have spent a fair amount of time in that area during the course of my career.

However, one time that we seriously considered it, I was working out there in Sunnyvale and staying in Mountain View. The startup I was then working for, moved out there because that was where the VC capital was. I had a great offer for a moving package too. I worked with realtors to find a place to live in the East Bay area around Pleasanton and nearby areas that would be more affordable, and the numbers just didn't work for us. We are used to debt free living and as a result, I was able to retire early and fund myself until I was old enough to collect Social Security. I doubt I would have been able to retire at all if we had moved out to that area. The people I was working with out there couldn't imagine debt free living or even retiring.

So, we have stayed in the Twin Cities and like it just fine. It is apparently expensive to live here now, but we paid off our mortgage a long time ago and tend not to do expensive things such as nightclubbing or gambling. There is a lot to do here, much diversity, and a number of quality educational institutional institutions as well as a healthy music scene.

I suspect that if a person is "dug in" in northern California as we are here, that the situation for that person would be similar to ours is currently. We would have been starting out at market prices and that was just way too rich for us. It would be a wonderful area to live in though.

Tony

RustyAxe · #11 03-07-2020, 10:59 AM

What I like most about where i live is how wonderful it feels to get away from it.

tbeltrans · #12 03-07-2020, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RustyAxe

What I like most about where i live is how wonderful it feels to get away from it.

Ouch!

Tony

TJE" · #13 03-07-2020, 11:04 AM

I was actually OK with where I lived, until I saw the above pictures of the South Carolina mountains.

marty bradbury · #14 03-07-2020, 11:28 AM

Being in Washington (the state) You have the wet side (western) and the dry side (eastern) Both sides having great qualities. I like the fact that I am 30 minutes from the mountains for hiking and shorter time to the water, Puget Sound and all the islands that my wife and I love to visit.

tbeltrans · #15 03-07-2020, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marty bradbury

Being in Washington (the state) You have the wet side (western) and the dry side (eastern) Both sides having great qualities. I like the fact that I am 30 minutes from the mountains for hiking and shorter time to the water, Puget Sound and all the islands that my wife and I love to visit.

My first year in the Army, I was stationed at Ft. Lewis and spent many weekends in both Seattle and Tacoma (though not at the same time, since we didn't yet know about quantum physics

). I loved it there. That was back in 1970. I have been back several times since to Microsoft's campus, and the area has changed drastically in the ensuing years, but it is still a beautiful area.

Tony