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My husband and I, and our 2 young daughters (18 months and 3 1/2 years) are most likely going to be moving to St. Peters or O'Fallon, MO in the next few months because we can't afford to stay in our suburb near the beach in Los Angeles County any longer. My husband's been offered a job in Missouri, and we just haven't been able to find another financial option to stay in Calif.- so we're probably going to need to move there. I'm in my mid-thirties, born and raised in California (San Francisco suburb for 3/4 of my life, and Los Angeles near the beach for the other 1/4). I've only visited St. Peters once during September when I thought it was beautiful and sunny, but extremely humid- more than anything I had ever experienced before. I've never been in a thunder or lightening storm (we've had tiny little bits of thinder and lightening once in a while here in what I remember and have noticed), and I have no experience with snow (except for a few ski trips in high school). I love going outdoors to the beach and sand, and hiking on trails in mountains. I have to admit I'm really nervous about getting depressed if I have to stay indoors much of the time, and/or how it will be for me to not get to go to the ocean and go into the mountains. But as for my questions: has anyone here ever had experience living in both California and Missouri? Did you feel a huge culture shock when you moved between the two? Are there many things to do outdoors within 45 minutes or less of O'Fallon/St. Peters? Rivers, lakes, outdoor pretty places with lots of nature, etc.? Forgive me ahead of time for this naive question, but is the air quality very, very good- because I have horrible allergies to smog (I had to leave a former job in inland Los Angeles because I literally couldn't breathe with wheezing everytime I would leave my office building and go outside)? Are the drivers on the freeways more easy-going or at least more polite than you would imagine "LA drivers" to be like? (I literally avoid the LA freeways at all costs because I have almost been run-off the road so many times by raging drivers that I don't feel safe out there anymore). Any recommendations of other messageboards or forums on the net where I could meet more people and/or make some friends in Missouri before I move there? Thanks so much for reading, Ashleybeth
My husband and I, and our 2 young daughters (18 months and 3 1/2 years) are most likely going to be moving to St. Peters or O'Fallon, MO in the next few months because we can't afford to stay in our suburb near the beach in Los Angeles County any longer. My husband's been offered a job in Missouri, and we just haven't been able to find another financial option to stay in Calif.- so we're probably going to need to move there. I'm in my mid-thirties, born and raised in California (San Francisco suburb for 3/4 of my life, and Los Angeles near the beach for the other 1/4). I've only visited St. Peters once during September when I thought it was beautiful and sunny, but extremely humid- more than anything I had ever experienced before. I've never been in a thunder or lightening storm (we've had tiny little bits of thinder and lightening once in a while here in what I remember and have noticed), and I have no experience with snow (except for a few ski trips in high school). I love going outdoors to the beach and sand, and hiking on trails in mountains. I have to admit I'm really nervous about getting depressed if I have to stay indoors much of the time, and/or how it will be for me to not get to go to the ocean and go into the mountains. But as for my questions: has anyone here ever had experience living in both California and Missouri? Did you feel a huge culture shock when you moved between the two? Are there many things to do outdoors within 45 minutes or less of O'Fallon/St. Peters? Rivers, lakes, outdoor pretty places with lots of nature, etc.? Forgive me ahead of time for this naive question, but is the air quality very, very good- because I have horrible allergies to smog (I had to leave a former job in inland Los Angeles because I literally couldn't breathe with wheezing everytime I would leave my office building and go outside)? Are the drivers on the freeways more easy-going or at least more polite than you would imagine "LA drivers" to be like? (I literally avoid the LA freeways at all costs because I have almost been run-off the road so many times by raging drivers that I don't feel safe out there anymore). Any recommendations of other messageboards or forums on the net where I could meet more people and/or make some friends in Missouri before I move there? Thanks so much for reading, Ashleybeth
Hello Ashelybeth, and welcome to St. Louis . I've lived in St. Charles/St. Peters my entire life. To give you an idea of St. Charles County, at one time a few years ago it was the fastest growing county in all the U.S. To answer some of your questions, the humidity may take some time to get use to. People who live here a long time or their entire life like me don't really even notice it because our bodies have adapted. But I've had friends from Phoenix come up here and visit in the summer and they've had a hard time getting use to it, but they are only here for a few days. You're body will adjust. In terms of the weather here...Well you're going to get just about everything. Heat, cold, rain, sleet, snow, etc, etc. On thing about the St. Louis metro area, is that the jet stream runs right through it so at any given time you can get a cold front from the north or a warm front from the south and the temperature/weather can literally do a 180 on you within a couple hours. In terms of things to do it's not different than any other major city. If you like the outdoors, check out the Katy Trail, it's really big for the outdoor type people from spring to fall http://www.bikekatytrail.com. There's also the Wineries in St. Charles, which are really big, now sure we don't have any ocean's, but we have plenty of water, and a ton of rivers and lakes. There's also's something to do at Lake of the Ozarks. About a 2 hour or so drive from St. Charles. One thing about St. Louis is there is a lot of curlture and heritage here. It is after all the Gateway to the West. I've been to CA quite a few times on business. St. Louis is much much more relaxed and laid back. We love our sports teams. You can go down to The Hill and eat at some of fine Italian restaurants. Go to Lacledes Landing in downtown St. Louis and see some of the historical areas down there or Main St. in St. Charles to do the same. Back to the weather, you're gonna witness some thunderstorms, no doubt about that. In the spring it comes down pretty good, but once May rolls around summer starts up. Missouri is part of what's called Tornado Ally in the midwest and sure we gave our share of tornadoes, but I can tell you this. I'm 30 years old and have never seen one. Although you hear about them on the news all the time when it's tornado season. Don't let that bother you though it's just part of the weather and at least they can predict and tell you when a tornado is coming. The winter is does get cold not like a state like Minnesota when it would be -30 degrees or something. But it can get down to 0 degrees sometimes in the winter or just below 0, usually it's in the 10-20 degree range from late Dec. to early Feb. But like I said the jet stream runs through the city so it's not uncommon to get snow on one day and have it be 50 degrees and sunny the next during the winter. We don't get a lot of snow but we will get some. Back to the city, two years ago I believe the city of St. Louis was number one in terms of crime in the U.S., but what no one realizes is that nobody lives in the city of St. Louis, everyone lives in the suburbs. That same year I saw that the St. Louis metro area was around 120th in crime, so when you include the metro area it's not bad at all, actually it's great. I read a few weeks ago that O'fallon was one of the top 10 safest cities to live in. Kind of odd how they take us from worst in crime down to 120'th to having one of the safest city's. The driving I'm going to refer to another survey that stated drivers in St. Louis are most likely to yield to you and less likely to give you the bird while driving lol. There's a lot to do in Missouri in general. Take a weekend trip down to Branson, or the Ozarks, take your kids to the zoo(one of the only free ones left in the country) or Grant's Farm http://www.grantsfarm.com go to one of the rivers, check out this site for other things to do in St. Louis http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...hbCtcVI8xXEv5g you also have Forest Park, which is bigger than New York's Central Park, or what ever you can think of I'm sure it can be done here just like in Cali. All in all it's a great place to live and I wouldn't worry about anything because there's always something to do, schools are good, crime is low. And don't worry about the humidity, you'll get use to it.
Sorry to get off topic but these comments really disgust me...
"but what no one realizes is that nobody lives in the city of St. Louis, everyone lives in the suburbs"
Are you really serious? The cities population is growing, it is one of the financial centers of the midwest, is a major US city, and is above 350k which is much larger than any other city in Metro St Louis.
Have you been to the city lately? Maybe no one realizes it because it is totally inaccurate.
what no one realizes is that nobody lives in the city of St. Louis, everyone lives in the suburbs.
200,000+ of my hardworking Southside neighbors disagree.
Ashleybeth -
I would recommend suburbs like Kirkwood or Webster Groves if you are looking to put a child into public school soon. The neighborhoods are highly wooded, are walkable, laid back, safe, and closer to the Ozarks with I-44 right there where you will find small mountains (Bell Mountain backpacking loop is a good one) and plenty of spring fed clear rivers to canoe on. St. Peters/O'Fallon really isn't a hometown type of place where people move back to raise kids, its an affordable and frenzied place to buy new or newer construction in a good school district (which the St. Louis metro has better). I grew up off of Timberidge in St. Peters and will instead put my kids in private school in South City or public in Kirkwood or Webster Groves. If you have more money to spend, Clayton is a good place as well, being walkable and wooded with a good school district. University City, yet another suburb, is a great place, but I don't know much about the public school district.
someone once was misinterpreted as saying about Oakland, CA "theres no there, there," (there really is)...well there really is no sense of place in St. Peters or O'Fallon.
Last edited by CoffeeAndBeer; 04-12-2009 at 08:33 PM..
Sorry to get off topic but these comments really disgust me...
"but what no one realizes is that nobody lives in the city of St. Louis, everyone lives in the suburbs"
Are you really serious? The cities population is growing, it is one of the financial centers of the midwest, is a major US city, and is above 350k which is much larger than any other city in Metro St Louis.
Have you been to the city lately? Maybe no one realizes it because it is totally inaccurate.
The CITY of St. Louis has about 350,000 residents according to 2007 data. The entire St. Louis metro area has over 3 million. Now what does that tell you? Most of the residents DON'T live in the city. In fact the city of St. louis only has about 11% of the population. Go out to west county, st. charles county, south county, or north county and see how they compare to the city of St. Louis. You can be disgusted all you want, but the facts are there. And one more thing, it also supports why the city alone has a high crime rate, because the footprint of data is much smaller compared to other major U.S. cities.
Brian, you comment was simply exaggerated and wrong. If you had said, most of the metro residents live outside the city, that would be fine probably. To say nobody lives in the city can very easily be taken as an insult to the city. Not only that, it is simply ignorant.
In all msa's the majority of the people do live in the suburbs as opposed to the center city. So based on your 11% methodology you are stating that no one lives in Minneapolis, Boston, Denver, etc which all have close to that percentage. The city of STL's population is extremely dense which cannot be matched in the burbs. To state no one lives there is completely false.
11% is nobody. Now I never said it was a ghost town. But the fact is, when you see rush hour traffic, how many people you see driving into the city versus out of the city? Almost everyone! You people take one statement from an entire paragraph and take it out of context, that shows a lot of class. And 11% of 3 million is no one. For people to take one statement and blow it out of proportion like that shows what's wrong with a lot of things today. If someone says "man this food is killing me" do you really take that as someone is dying? I sure hope not. How is it that out of that entire paragraph you people decided to start an argument over how many people live in the city? Let the lady make make up on her own opinions on the city. Way to flame on her post where she tried to get information which you have yet to contribute to. Thanks have a great day I'm done with this post.
If we could stop fighting and help the OP, that'd be super.
I love love love the city of St. Louis and it has so many fabulous aspects, but the OP specifically asked about St. Peters, so I'll answer based solely on that. St. Peters is a middle class exurb, about 45 minutes from St. Louis -- that's pretty far out as far as St. Louis suburbs go, though I know that's not considered particularly far out in LA.
Most of the housing stock was built in the mid- to late 70s through today and houses can run from about 125K to well above 500k. Francis Howell and Fort Zumwalt school districts both have fabulous test scores -- on par with many of the top districts. Francis Howell has one of the only (perhaps only?) secondary gifted education programs in Missouri and is often used as a guide for other gifted programs. Although both districts score very well, you'll find that for many St. Louisans they hold less cache than the West County districts of Parkway, Rockwood and Clayton and to a smaller scale Kirkwood and Webster -- all of which are in more upper middle class areas closer in to the city.
What's your budget and what is it about St. Peters/ O'Fallon that attracts you?
In the early '70s, St. Peters was a cow town with a population under 1,000. The adjacent city, St. Charles, however, actually has a great history -- it's the first capitol of Missouri, is near the confluence of two of this country's major rivers (the Missouri and the Mississippi), was the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition and today has a lovely historic downtown with antique shops, restaurants and even the original cobblestone streets. It's a great place to spend a warm Saturday -- in the summer there are streets festivals with live blues music, wine tastings from the local wineries and craft and art booths.
About a 45 minute drive away is a little town called Augusta, which has several wineries with some absolutely incredible vistas.
You can head just a couple hours south of the city and get into the rolling hills of the Ozark mountains -- people in the know will tell you that while they seem like rolling hills now, they're actually some of the oldest mountains on Earth. There are plenty of great little rivers for float trips -- a very popular summertime activity in Missouri -- and plenty of fabulous state parks for camping. There's some great information on weekend trips in MO on this Web site: Welcome to Missouri -- Close to Home. Far From Ordinary..
Because you're a nice easy drive in St. Louis city on the weekends, you'll have access to some of the nation's preeminent free attractions. Forest Park is one of the largest and most beautiful urban parks in the country -- it's bigger than New York's Central Park. One of the best attractions there is the St. Louis Zoo -- it's rated by Zagat as the best zoo in the country, and admission is free! You can also go to the Muny -- the country's oldest and largest outdoor amphitheater, where every summer they show Broadway-style musicals -- the summer 2009 schedule is online: The Muny - 2009 Summer Season. Kids will also love the Science Center (also free, though some special attractions require a fee) which is considered one of the best and largest of its kind in the US and the History and Art museums are both great additions to the area as well. You can rent paddle boats or ride bikes on the trail in the summer and ice skate at Steinberg and sled down Art Hill in the winter. I can't possibly over state what a fantastic place Forest Park is.
Oh and it's crazy humid here pretty much from June through Sept. It's tough, but you do get used to it. Air quality in the suburbs is fine, you shouldn't be bothered, but allergies are bad for a lot of people here -- though worse in Kansas City.
Wow, that's a lot. I hope that helps, at least some -- fire off some more questions and I'll try and help however I can!
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. I've lived in St. Charles/St. Peters my entire life. To give you an idea of St. Charles County, at one time a few years ago it was the fastest growing county in all the U.S. To answer some of your questions, the humidity may take some time to get use to. People who live here a long time or their entire life like me don't really even notice it because our bodies have adapted. But I've had friends from Phoenix come up here and visit in the summer and they've had a hard time getting use to it, but they are only here for a few days. You're body will adjust. In terms of the weather here...Well you're going to get just about everything. Heat, cold, rain, sleet, snow, etc, etc. On thing about the St. Louis metro area, is that the jet stream runs right through it so at any given time you can get a cold front from the north or a warm front from the south and the temperature/weather can literally do a 180 on you within a couple hours. In terms of things to do it's not different than any other major city. If you like the outdoors, check out the Katy Trail, it's really big for the outdoor type people from spring to fall 
