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Old 04-16-2009, 07:47 PM
jm5 jm5 started this thread
 
6 posts, read 10,539 times
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Hi,
My family and I will be relocating to the Roanoke area at the end of May. I will be working at Carilion Hospital.We found a house between Boones Mill and Rocky Mount. I believe my kids will be attending Boones Mill schools. I just have a couple of questions...... How are the schools? Is it a nice place to raise a family? Will we find amenities like grocery stores, Target/Walmart, good restaurants near by?
Both Boones Mill and Rocky Mount have small populations. We don't mind being further out, just not isolated. Thanks for any feeback you can give me.
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Old 04-17-2009, 06:47 AM
j1n
 
Location: Southeast of the Northwest Territories
1,245 posts, read 4,659,337 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jm5 View Post
Hi,
My family and I will be relocating to the Roanoke area at the end of May. I will be working at Carilion Hospital.We found a house between Boones Mill and Rocky Mount. I believe my kids will be attending Boones Mill schools. I just have a couple of questions...... How are the schools? Is it a nice place to raise a family? Will we find amenities like grocery stores, Target/Walmart, good restaurants near by?
Both Boones Mill and Rocky Mount have small populations. We don't mind being further out, just not isolated. Thanks for any feeback you can give me.
Franklin County schools are good. And, yeah, I'd say it's a nice place to raise a family. There's a Walmart, Lowes, etc in Rocky Mount. Good restaurants are, uhhh, limited. There's not much in between Boones Mill and Rocky Mount, and Franklin County has it's share of problems. It's nice, but certainly not perfect. We moved to VA about 2 years ago...into Rocky Mount. My wife works for Carilion too. After a year or so, we moved into Roanoke. The drive can get pretty oppressive when you have to do it every day...Rocky Mount to Roanoke and back. I'm much happier in Roanoke than Rocky Mount. What Carilion are you going to be at?
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Old 04-17-2009, 07:41 AM
 
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Boones Mill Elementary is consistenty ranked as one of the nation's best elementary schools. The school is amazing.

The Franklin County School System is ranked in the top 10 percent of Virginia school systems.
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Old 04-17-2009, 09:32 AM
 
192 posts, read 631,305 times
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That's a great area - no doubt. However, if you like to be able to zip to restaurants, activities, parks and shopping you might want to look at Roanoke. I have many friends that make that drive daily and it is taxing to them. The question is to look at your lifestyle. If you don't mind giving up the convenience of being close to amenities and the daily drive to work then you will truly enjoy that beautiful area. If however, you don't care for the idea of "a trip" to - for instance - visit the market, take advantage of the MANY outdoor activities coming up in spring and summer, etc. - then you're perfectly suited for rural life. Best of luck and welcome!!!!
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Old 04-18-2009, 06:36 AM
 
Location: Apex, NC
1,341 posts, read 6,188,721 times
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We'll be making a move from Boones Mill to Roanoke for personal reasons. Our girls attend North Cross School, and thus most of our friends live in Roanoke, etc. But in many ways we'll be making more sacrifices by living _in_ Roanoke.

The point of rural life is that you don't have to drive to a park to enjoy the outdoors. You step out of your backyard and you are in your own park. You can walk trails on fellow neighbor's rural parcels, etc. We have two young daughters that go on woodland outings on our land and come back with all sorts of natural treasures. I can't imagine letting 7 and 9 year old girls out in a city park by themselves like that.

There are an enormous amount of outdoor events in Franklin County. I would say that it's a wash between Roanoke city and rural living in that regard. Of course, Roanoke wins the restaurant contest hands down. So if you don't cook much at home and frequent restaurants for meals then you wouldn't enjoy rural living.

Commuting to Carilion for the north half of Franklin County can be less than 20 minutes. And it's a painless commute with, what, two or three stop lights? I'm 10 minutes west of Route 220, between Callaway and Boones Mill, and I can literally go door to door to Carilion in 25 minutes. It's a beautiful easy drive up 220, then a turn onto Yellow Mountain road and directly into South Roanoke.

What I really don't understand was the trend in recent years for suburban people to move out into Boones Mill. If you're going to buy a home with under 2 acres of land, and your jobs are in Roanoke, then why in the hell would you want to live in the Boones Mill area? I can completely understand living in the country and commuting into the city on 5 or more acres, because you have horses, or enjoy 4 wheeling, or hunting, fishing, nature, wildlife, etc. You make that longer commute because you can't enjoy your preferred lifestyle in the city. But if you're a suburbanite, then stay in suburbia, and reduce your carbon footprint

Sean
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