Need Rural...but w/in 30 min of Knoxville (Oak Ridge, Cookeville: renting, hotel)

[OhioT]

Originally Posted by bbkaren

"I'm actually better than all these hillbillies. But I want to live here in beautiful Tennessee without having to watch them driving past my house in their pick-em-up trucks. I also want to make sure none of these rednecks comes into a couple dollars, buys property next to me and drags in one of those hideous trailer homes. The next thing you know, they'll have abandoned cars in the yard, and they'll be hooting and hollering and shooting off their guns. By living in a gated/restricted community, I have control over these problems and can live with like-minded people who also want to keep out that 'element'. Because as we all know, those people and their trailers will lower our property values--I mean, that's why we build these houses, for investment purposes so we can sell them for a profit. And, what buyer wants to live next to some redneck hick and his hound dogs?"
.

I hope this is true....I dont want any dam yuppy/keeping-up-whith-the-Jones's people callin the cops when Im out shootin in my backyard..or workin on the junkers I buy and fixup to sell (I like restoring cars)..and I dont want them complainin when my labs are running around my yard..

[bbkaren]

Ah yeah, all the treehuggers up here in NJ get fired up when we ride our quads on the trails.

It's the only state I know of where you can own a quad (or dirt bike), are required to insure it and register it, but then are not given anyplace to ride it legally. Many communities here even prohibit riding on your own property. I mean, where does all the money go from all those registrations? And what are we insuring against, that someone might trip over our quad?

Can you imagine??

I want outta here!

[sliverbox]

I actually lived in Harriman for two years. The thing you need to realize is that harriman is not at all part of Knoxville. It is more like an hour away. The town itself is very small and hasn't changed in decades. I can attest to this because me and my wife drove through it on our way from Nashville. It looked the same as it had when I lived there 12 years ago.
But.. it does have quiet a few older homes in quaint neighborhoods. The area for the most part looks a tad run down. But I can easily see it turning into prime gentrification-land any day now, which I guess is good for some people.
The areas around harriman are very rural. There are several small towns up and down the road: Rockwood, Dayton, and a few others. Mostly fast food joints and Wal-Marts inbetween.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by sliverbox

I actually lived in Harriman for two years. The thing you need to realize is that harriman is not at all part of Knoxville. It is more like an hour away. The town itself is very small and hasn't changed in decades. I can attest to this because me and my wife drove through it on our way from Nashville. It looked the same as it had when I lived there 12 years ago.
But.. it does have quiet a few older homes in quaint neighborhoods. The area for the most part looks a tad run down. But I can easily see it turning into prime gentrification-land any day now, which I guess is good for some people.
The areas around harriman are very rural. There are several small towns up and down the road: Rockwood, Dayton, and a few others. Mostly fast food joints and Wal-Marts inbetween.

Harriman isn't growing, but Knoxville is. The Knoxville suburbs keep expanding towards the west, and Harriman now finds itself within about 15 minutes of West Knox. You can get from Harriman to the massive Turkey Creek shopping district (Belk, Super Target, Wal-Mart SuperCenter, CarMax, etc.) in about 20 minutes.

I have friends who live in Harriman because of its quiet lifestyle and its cheap housing and commute to jobs in West Knox; they can get to Turkey Creek quicker than I can, and I'm in the city of Knoxville.

[LynneG]

Originally Posted by borntoservegod

Hi! I am a resident near Maynardville, TN in a little place called Powder Springs! Union County is a great county all around!!!!!! Very nice communites, lakefronts, and it is within 20 minutes of Knoxville!
Go to www.unioncochamber.com to find out alot more about this wonderful county!!! Best of luck!

I loved your response here. I hope you tune in on a regular basis. Your area interests me. Wherever I go, I'll probably rent for a while until I get familiar with the area. Even find a housemate. And can you answer honestly? How do the Knoxville area people take to northern/yankee transplants? I live in Michigan. My goal is to move south, somewhere near a lake or lakes, because I've always been around them. I like the best of both worlds...to live in a place with a country feel, yet close enough to the city where I don't have to leave an hour early to get to work, or a zip to a store or library. What is the population of your Powder Springs? Do most folks work in Knoxville then? I couldn't find it on the map I have here at home. Is it N,S,E.W. of Knoxville. I need to work for another 8-10 years. Jobs are really slim here in the north. I do not want to be old and grey in northern Michigan. I've been researching for 2-3 years and like TN proximity to my northern family, yet it has mild winters. Do you have many Tornado warnings/hits in the area? I was reading that the Franklin TN area does. Thanks for whatever you can offer.

[DirtyDan]

I am a native of TN but have lived in FL from 2000 to 2004. I realize there are good and bad people everywhere, but, in FL a lot of people have an entitlement attitude. They feel like everyone owes them something. Natives of TN don't mind working for what they get and it makes them puke to see people who are too lazy to work and expect someone else to provide for them. Come on up to TN but lose the city slicker attitude, try not to wear too much perfume/cologne everywhere you go.

[DirtyDan]

when we get tired of listening to those idiots riding chain saws, we just go out and string some wire...they stop riding.

[DirtyDan]

STAY IN JERSEY - we don't need people like you down here.

[bbkaren]

[sigh] one in every crowd. Thanks for the input Dan. I can see from looking at your other posts that you're just a pretty angry, hateful person.

As for Powder Springs, I looked into the area and if I recall correctly, it's in Grainger County, not Union. It sounded nice but we're winding up looking more to the Western area of Knoxville so it kind of fell off our list. It's East-Northeast of Maynardville.

Good luck!

[bbkaren]

We're so excited...finally made our flight reservations. We'll be flying into Nashville (half the price of Knoxville!) on May 11, and leaving May 21. We'll be renting a car and staying at either a hotel or our friend's house in Crossville, depending on where we are on a given night.

Haven't really nailed down our travel path yet but we have a lot of ground to cover.

We definitely plan to hit Maryville, as well as areas of Anderson, Loudon and Roane Counties. There were some properties for sale on the outskirts of Knoxville so I imagine we'll spend some time in those areas as well.

Good thing we're getting unlimited mileage with our rental!

Do you feel like 9 days would be enough time to get a feel for these areas? I reckon we'd spend a day or two (plus a night or two) in each area.

We plan to make a rush-hour round trip between the West Knoxville commercial area and any neighborhood we're interested in buying in, to get a feel for what the highways are like on a typical workday.

Here in NJ, we have a couple of highways that are single-direction gridlock during rush hour (i.e. Route 80 East is bad in the morning but West is okay in the morning--vice versa in the afternoon). I've heard about I40 and I75 in Tennessee being pretty bad traffic wise. While I find it hard to believe that traffic in TN can rival New Jersey, I'd be interested in knowing what the flow is like in the morning and afternoon so perhaps we could plan to live somewhere against the traffic pattern to make our commutes easier.

Thanks for any advice!