Quote:
Originally Posted by resident2be
I am relocating to Rolla in a few weeks and am looking for places to meet people and become involved. I'm single and in my mid-twenties. I'll be working at the hospital, which should keep me busy during the week, but I have no idea what I'll do with my weekends.
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Malls and parks seem to be important to wannabes and newcomers looking for something to do. We don't have a mall yet, but the city and the chamber are working on bringing one to the Rolla West sprawl sometime in the next decade. We have two large parks, city-owned Ber Juan Park and the civic club-owned Lions Club Park, plus many neighborhood parks.
We don't have a Starbucks, but we have three coffeehouses, locally owned Harvest Coffee Co., locally owned Giddy Goat and chain-owned Panera Bread Co.
We don't have a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. We have a small health food store, Foods for Health. I think there's also a new one called Natural Girl or something like that.
The No. 1 thing to do here for everyone--natives, long-time residents and newcomers alike--is to complain that there is nothing to do. Now, I think what people mean by that is there aren't enough stores for "serious shopping," there aren't enough nightclubs, there aren't enough museums and art galleries.
There are a lot of events, though, and you can fill your calendar with activities, most of them free or cheap.
You missed the Vichy Tractor Cruise today, but you can go here to find some other events.
Public radio KMST calendar
RollaNet calendar
Chamber calendar
The Big 3 summer activities in Rolla are the Route 66 Summerfest, coming up next weekend; the Rolla Lions Club Carnival for four days around the Fourth of July, and the Phelps County Fair.
In addition, there are other events and activities going on in the towns and counties around us. You missed Frogfest over in Waynesville, but Dixon, Crocker and Richland will have festivals coming up this summer. Don't miss the St. James Grape and Fall Festival in September.
I maintain a blog that has been roundly criticized here, but it will clue you in on some specialized events (mostly about my interests in gardening, farming and bluegrass music). On the right-hand side of the page, down a little ways, is a list of links to area calendars of events. You can get to my blog by clicking on my name and dropping down to the proper link.
As I said, the No. 1 activity in Rolla is complaining about how boring it is here. Other activities include complaining about the hospital, the city council, the school board and the school district, the newspaper and the university. You'll pick up on these complaints at the workplace, at the grocery store and at the diners.
Other popular activities in Rolla are: 1.) Leaving to go shopping in St. Louis or Springfield, 2.) Leaving to go to concerts in St. Louis, Springfield or Columbia, 3.) Just leaving to go anywhere but here.
I haven't been to St. Louis for 10-15 years, and I go to Springfield only to drive through it on my way to visit my relatives who live in Nixa and outside Republic.
My wife and I are perfectly content with life in Rolla. We don't find life here boring at all, but I'm an old hillbilly and my wife is a transplant from Houston, Texas, and has no interest in going back there. Rolla is the biggest town I've ever lived in and the smallest town she's ever lived in. Rolla is stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, and that's why we like it.
But we're old sticks in the mud. I don't know how a 20something girl from someplace else is going to find enough to interest her here. If we could get more of you to move here, we could get our mall sooner. We could get more and bigger coffee houses and we could see some progress and growth, which is always good and never bad in the eyes of most Rolla residents.
I can't close without saying this, for the benefit of Curmudgeon and CaliBassMan: I'm looking forward to the day when Rolla has grown large enough with progressive city transplants that the city can host its first annual Gay Pride Parade, so I can stand on the curb with my beer-drinking redneck buddies and make fun of the light-in-the-loafer boys.
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I can handle the heat, but the cold is a whole different story for me.
P.S. If there are tarantulas in MO...I don't want to know.
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