I would like to move to Utah from Florida (felon, buy)

[SLCPUNK]

My wife was from Miami and found the generosity and general politeness we encountered in SLC to be confusing, lol. We had Mormon, and non Mormon friends. All our kids played together, and they never came home feeling "left out." Not once.

I've met some awesome people out there, and some big jerks, just like here in Tampa.

[Tim Tim Tim]

I am going to be moving from tampa (Carollwood village, about 30 mins from riverview) on dec. 15th. my wife grew up there and I went about 2 years ago to visit and i absolutely loved it. I have never met such nice people ever. they all waved and greeted you, the scenery is AMAZING. when I was at the store trying to count change, the lady behind me actually reached up and gave me the correct amount.. Its something stupid, but I have never even heard of that happening here in FL.
I am an outdoors person like you but there really isnt much outdoor stuff to do here. The beach sucks in my opinion. thats really the only thing FL has to offer. Of course there are the theme parks but how many times are you going to go to teh same ones?

[LAFrench]

Originally Posted by Tim Tim Tim

I am going to be moving from tampa (Carollwood village, about 30 mins from riverview) on dec. 15th. my wife grew up there and I went about 2 years ago to visit and i absolutely loved it. I have never met such nice people ever. they all waved and greeted you, the scenery is AMAZING. when I was at the store trying to count change, the lady behind me actually reached up and gave me the correct amount.. Its something stupid, but I have never even heard of that happening here in FL.
I am an outdoors person like you but there really isnt much outdoor stuff to do here. The beach sucks in my opinion. thats really the only thing FL has to offer. Of course there are the theme parks but how many times are you going to go to teh same ones?

I wish you the best with your move.
Most of the outdoor stuff in FL is either the beach (which I am not fond of) and some camping and canoeing.
I am just sick of the heat, humidity and hurricanes.
I want four distinct seasons and a lot more to do for outdoor activities.

Let me know how you like it there and where you move to.

Thanks,

LAFrench

[stycotl]

to be fair, there is more to florida than beaches and theme parks. one of the best vacations i have ever taken was an everglades-florida keys trip. it was awesome. i caught a 3-foot iguana on an overpass in miami, chased barracuda off of the keys while snorkling (my wife was pretty nervous), straddled an adult alligator in the everglades (my wife was even more nervous), and had a delirously fun time.

but that is me; i realize others wouldn't consider any of that fun. but then you have to consider the more mundane stuff that i forget: the beaches (which i do love, though not as much as the red rock), the great seafood, the scenery of the everglades, the history, the castles of st. augustine, etc. there is a lot there.

as far as slcpunk's statements:

My wife was from Miami and found the generosity and general politeness we encountered in SLC to be confusing, lol. We had Mormon, and non Mormon friends. All our kids played together, and they never came home feeling "left out." Not once.

I've met some awesome people out there, and some big jerks, just like here in Tampa.

too true.

when we moved to jacksonville, fl, we decided that we could afford to live in the ghetto for a while, since we wouldn't be staying long, and the prices were too good to pass up when we were renting, and trying to save money for a house.

imagine us, two white mormons living in a not-so-friendly-toward-whites neighborhood. in fact, not so friendly period; there were gang wars and shootings and all kinds of problems there. my command (i was in the usmc at the time) had a list posted on the hallway wall that listed dangerous places of jacksonville to be avoided. our neighborhood was the largest area on that list.

we were a bit nervous moving there, but we made it work. we were friendly, even outgoing, and we made friends. didn't have a horrible time, even when things looked scary or unfriendly.

only bad experience we had was when i was driving home from work one night and i thought i saw the children of our neighbors playing in the yard across the street. i stopped the car, unrolled the window, and shouted a greeting to them. the kids all ran off terrified of what they probably thought was a pediphile or something. that was when i realized that i didn't know those kids, and that their parents were now staring at me with suspicion and anger. one bad experience, and it was completely my fault.

aaron out.

[Tim Tim Tim]

the everglades is cool but its not amazing, its only cool for so long and you can only do so many things. Im not steve irwin, i dont hunt aligators lol. castles are cool to look at... once

[stycotl]

that is where my personality differences come into play. my wife and i accidentally stumbled across a castle in spain when we were lost on one of the roads. we spent a good four or five hours just exploring. it was awesome.

alligators too. you know, i ought to post those gator pics here sometime...

[SLCPUNK]

Florida is EASY living. Right now I've got my sliders open, and it's just awesome. Utah has the life style I'd prefer though.

Get 7k feet up on a hike, with a backpack on and nobody around, breath the air in, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

[LAFrench]

I agree with you on that SLCPUNK.

Funny... I have only lived in LA (Louisiana) and FL (last two years).
I am alergic to seafood (can only eat oysters and fish, which I love).
There is only so much that you can take in about a swamp. Most of the land was built on swamps so that it why you will hear about some people adding mudd to their yards.
I don't care for the heat, humidity, and hurricanes. I am not really a beach-lover as I do not like to swin in open waters. Say a shark once... never again will I go farther that waist deep.
My wife will go in farther with the boys but I am not far off and ask her not to go out too far from shore. I'd rather take my chances on gold old solid ground.
And having four seasons would be a blessing....

[stycotl]

never again will I go farther that waist deep.

i'm pretty intrepid when it comes to encounters with wild animals, but i hear you on that one. i felt comfortable chasing barracuda in the keys because i could see them, and could swim after them (though my piddling 0.5mph speed was nothing to brag about.

but when it comes to normal beach water, where you can't see as deep as your knees, and you don't know what it is that is sliding past your leg right now, spines and all, that gets my heart rate going. my first time in florida, i was swimming off the coast of tampa, and the bay water was really green--pretty, but impossible to see through. i was walking in about rib-deep water when i stepped on what i thought was a really rough rock, like lava rock or something. i couldn't see it, but started to dig around with my toes to see how big this rock was and to try to pry its edges out of the sand. it felt about as wide as a football or so. suddenly, it started to move, and it began to close around my naked toes. that was an adrenaline rush almost on par with my first run across ied-ridden roads in iraq (as point man no less).

i jumped. the thing scuttled off. i was scared, but too curious to run away. so i started searching for it, sweeping with my feet across the bottom. i found it again, this time just settled on top of the sand, not half buried. i reached down with my hand, face underwater but still unable to see it), and groped with my fingers. as i grabbed at it, i could feel ridges and sharp edges, like the serrated shell of a really big insect. again it started to move, and its shell pinched my fingers. i jumped back and lost it again. i couldn't find that one again, though i tried for another 20 minutes. but on my way back to the beach, i caught a small horseshoe crab (my first time seeing one in the wild), and upon examining it, found it to be an exact, if not smaller version of the mysterious, rough-shelled beast that i had been following for near on to a half hour.

i ran back to the beach and told the girl that i was with about it (she was a florida native), and she said that everyone is afraid of them because they're highly poisonous. i was skeptical though, since floridians generally believe golden orb spiders to be deadly poisonous, and call them banana spiders. so i looked them up on the web when i got home: horseshoe crabs are perfectly harmless, though they are related to arachnids, not crabs. still pretty exotic and intriguing, and a little hair-raising for a desert boy.

ok, thanks for putting up with my tangential story. aaron out.

[lolagranola]

i jumped. the thing scuttled off. i was scared, but too curious to run away. so i started searching for it, sweeping with my feet across the bottom. i found it again, this time just settled on top of the sand, not half buried. i reached down with my hand, face underwater but still unable to see it), and groped with my fingers. as i grabbed at it, i could feel ridges and sharp edges, like the serrated shell of a really big insect. again it started to move, and its shell pinched my fingers. i jumped back and lost it again. i couldn't find that one again, though i tried for another 20 minutes. but on my way back to the beach, i caught a small horseshoe crab (my first time seeing one in the wild), and upon examining it, found it to be an exact, if not smaller version of the mysterious, rough-shelled beast that i had been following for near on to a half hour.

Sigh...growing up on LI I would see 100's of them... I can't remember the last time I saw a horseshoe crab. We used to pull them out of the water by the dozen, and have "races" back to the water's edge. They are NOT NOT NOT poisonous, or even dangerous in ANY way.

But (yeah, got to add my dangerous ocean story here)... I was at the beach once with my kids (then about 4 and 7) when a SHARK swam about 4 or 5 feet passed my 4 yr old!!! This was the summer (2001) when there were several shark attacks, and it was our last time to the beach that year. I totally freaked out, but told my kid it was a dolphin, and that meant there was a school of fish around us and one touched me...cause I didn't want to give them the creeps about the ocean.