Please Help Me!!!!!!!

[Eury]

Crescent City is cooler than Redding, for certain, but it can be difficult to make a living here. If you want to be a correctional officer or if you have a medical background you will find employment fairly easy to obtain. However, for an average Jill or Joe, you really have to want to be here because you will almost certainly be underemployed and underpaid. Pelican Bay State Prison is the largest employer, and working for the state is probably one of the better paid career options a person has in this neck of the woods.

Del Norte (say nort, not nor-tay or you'll be marked as an outsider) is rural; the outlying unincorporated villages are Gasquet (say GAS key) Hiouchi (Hi YOU chee) Fort Dick (yes, that's really what it's called) Smith River, and Klamath. We have two Native American owned casinos ... and occasionally a third, but it keeps closing.

Compared to CC, Redding is a real hip and happenin' place ... so if you are bored there, you would be in agony here. You might want to take a look at Arcata ... it's a very liberal college town ... has a nice indie film theatre, a co-op, great bookstores, and some decent restaurants. Because it is home to Humboldt State University, you have a cultural diversity you won't find anywhere else behind the Redwood Curtain. I don't know about cost of living or employment ... but I do love to visit Arcata for the bookstores and the Farmer's Market on the square and the co-op.

Good luck with your move.

[TheDragonslayer]

I live in McKinleyville which is 3 miles north of Arcata and 12 north of Eureka [69 south of Crescent City] From Ferndale north to Crescent City, even Brookings Oregon, the weather is cool and moist, moderated by the ocean, it can warm up to the mid 80's on a few days in the summer, especially in towns further inland like Fortuna, Fieldbrook and Blue Lake. In the almost 8 years that I have lived here on the coast, we have reached the low 90's twice, both times in the fall. There are jobs here, you just have to keep aware that the pay-scale is lower than in bigger metro areas. The home prices and rents are lower here also, right now homes are in the mid/upper $200,000 range for a starter home and one can still get a mobile home in a good park for $90,000 and up for the good ones.

When we moved here to McKinleyville from the Redway area of Humboldt county in 2000, a 3 bed, 3 bath home in a good neighborhood was going for $135,000 to $150,000. Two years ago the same was in the $450k to $600k range and is now hovering at the $300k spot. We bought our 3 bed, 3 bath on 1/2 acre in 2000 for $112k and are sitting on our plan of waiting till 2010 to decide to sell or stay. There is not really a night life or the activity of the bigger city life, but there is a lot to do here all times of the year. Nearly every town celebrates a home coming, rodeo, pony express or some event related to the areas trades. Both Ferndale and Eureka have a fair and Eureka has car races. The price of goods and gas is higher here ( regular is $3.29 right now ), wages are lower, services cost less [ plumbers, gardeners, maids etc ], Eureka has 2 theatre complexes, Arcata has one maybe two and McKinleyville has a nine-plex. There are 2 big K's, one here and one in Eureka, Eureka has a mall, nearly every town has a Safeway or Rays supermarket. Take a drive over 299 and give us a visit for a few days if you can, right now the weather has been great and are expecting showers for the the next two days.

Martin

[lz64]

Originally Posted by Sorcerer68

My first thought was Santa Cruz but I don't know if that's small enough. It's diverse and foggy and all that. I've always liked going here immensely for a visit. It's the only place you'll see a dirty late model Rolls Royce with a dent in it.

If you're coming from Redding, the rents here will shock you, but the pay doesn't go up to match it. It has been in the top 7 most expensive places to live for many years because of the pay/rent ratio. There is variety, but not like it had over 20 years ago when I moved here (we're looking at Washington now). You'll love the weather, for sure, and there still is diversity, but people don't dance in the streets like we used to. Violence is way up (the beginning of this year brought on many random attacks on women, day and night). And it's big. 250,000 in the county.

You might like Boulder Creek near SC. It gets hotter, but it's small and off the beaten path. And you're still close enough to SC and San Francisco to visit.

Good luck!