Stevenson, WA (Seattle, Vancouver, Bellevue: rental car, real estate, 2013)

[Spewed]

The number of places for me to visit keeps adding up. I've recently discovered the area of Stevenson, what I have seen from google images it looks absolutely gorgeous. I would love to have something like that. From what I gather Portland, OR is the biggest city nearby? Does anyone have information about Stevenson, just general information. Things to do, employment(I'm going to be a nurse), places to eat, scenery, etc.

More importantly to me, does anyone have any personal pictures of Stevenson that they would like to share that differs than those of Google Images? I love viewing pictures of the various places that I intend on living.

How likely would it be to have an apartment or home with mountain views, or situated within mountains near Stevenson?

It seems to rain a lot in Stevenson from what I can see Moderator cut: link removed. Apparently there is around an average of 70 inches per year annual, which is wonderful. Can anyone tell me about the rain? Is there a lot of heavy rain as well as misty winter gloomy rain? There also seems to be more snow there than in places like Seattle. Tell me about that too, how bad does it get. How are the drivers in Stevenson in snowy situations?

Thanks.

[StealthRabbit]

Stevenson is a bit of a hidden gem... Rough around the edges (Skamania County is VERY corrupt and run by a bunch of locals who ONLY hire locals, and schools reflect that ... VERY VERY poor academics, serious drug and health problems(physical and mental)). Your closest significant Medical employment (aside from a clinic and elder care) is Hood River or White Salmon,(30 min) The Dalles, Portland or Vancouver (50 min)... in decent weather ~ 95% of time, but REALLY rotten driving 5%(freezing rain and wind). Skamania County has a VERY inexpensive transit bus to Vancouver Fisher's Landing transit station.

Rain is 285 days of overcast most w/ drizzle. Takes a LONG time to drizzle 70+" (I get 100+", in NARROW part of Gorge, enroute to Stevenson).

Employment / economy revolves around tourism. It is a VERY poor / depressed economy since timber dollars left in `1980's. It has some nice places to live, a few nice places to work, a few nice people, and an absolute travesty of county politics running (destroying) the show.

The best thing going is Skamania County Parks and Rec, and the activites at the Fairgrounds. The Stevenson Chamber of Commerce has a good pulse on activities and things going on. It is probably the least expensive place to live in the Gorge (Aside from Cascade Locks, OR across the river).

For recreation (especially wind surf / sail board) it could be tops. Close to XC skiing

Good brew pub "walking man"
good food choices (Mex / local)
Great CHEAP fish (from local indian fishery)
Friendly people (congenial), xcept for those involved in illegal growing operations)
Not much for singles seeking relationships
Nice for singles seeking solitude.


as usual YMMV

[Spewed]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Stevenson is a bit of a hidden gem... Rough around the edges (Skamania County is VERY corrupt and run by a bunch of locals who ONLY hire locals, and schools reflect that ... VERY VERY poor academics, serious drug and health problems(physical and mental)). Your closest significant Medical employment (aside from a clinic and elder care) is Hood River or White Salmon,(30 min) The Dalles, Portland or Vancouver (50 min)... in decent weather ~ 95% of time, but REALLY rotten driving 5%(freezing rain and wind). Skamania County has a VERY inexpensive transit bus to Vancouver Fisher's Landing transit station.

Rain is 285 days of overcast most w/ drizzle. Takes a LONG time to drizzle 70+" (I get 100+", in NARROW part of Gorge, enroute to Stevenson).

Employment / economy revolves around tourism. It is a VERY poor / depressed economy since timber dollars left in `1980's. It has some nice places to live, a few nice places to work, a few nice people, and an absolute travesty of county politics running (destroying) the show.

The best thing going is Skamania County Parks and Rec, and the activites at the Fairgrounds. The Stevenson Chamber of Commerce has a good pulse on activities and things going on. It is probably the least expensive place to live in the Gorge (Aside from Cascade Locks, OR across the river).

For recreation (especially wind surf / sail board) it could be tops. Close to XC skiing

Good brew pub "walking man"
good food choices (Mex / local)
Great CHEAP fish (from local indian fishery)
Friendly people (congenial), xcept for those involved in illegal growing operations)
Not much for singles seeking relationships
Nice for singles seeking solitude.


as usual YMMV

Hey, thanks for filling me in! I didn't think this was going to get a bite on here. I noticed when asking about "mountain towns", no one mentioned this one. This town seems to have tons of mountain views, and "natural" beauty. To be honest, I'm not actually looking to meet friends or anything like that. So the issues with people don't particularly bother me too terribly much. I'm married, and have a son so I wont be needing to meet any women or anything like that. I'm moving moreso for the weather, scenery, mountains and peacefulness. Of course I wont be able to move until 2013 sometime. I intend on taking a 2013 trip during the Summer time(for the daylight), it would be nice to experience it in the Winter months, but I know the daylight is hard to come by during this time, and I intend on doing lots of driving in uncharted territory for me, so the light will be much needed.

As for the employment opportunities I do fully intend on working with the elderly, in my occupation that will be where the money is at, especially when you compare it to things like hospital working. Hospital employees pretty much get the shaft when it comes to nickels and dimes, as to where nurses who work with the eldery get paid literally double what the hospital workers do. . So something in that realm would be awesome. Since the elderly is our fastest growing population, surely somewhere around Stevenson, within 40 minutes there is a decent cluster of Nursing homes?

Do you have any pictures of your neck of the woods to give me a better idea of everything? Again, this isn't a final decision. I get a student loan that will give me about $1700, which I am saving to take a "graduation vacation", assuming I do graduate, but that looks good so far. I planned out a trip just to get a rough estimate of the costs, all in all for my wife and I it's going to be $1400 for 2 round trip tickets, a hotel and rental car. I intend on driving from Seattle all the way to Bellingham and visiting various towns\scenery along the way. Then I plan to come back down and check out places like Darrington, and scoping out the Northern Cascades to see what kind of real estate opportunities there are within a decent commute to a decent sized city. There is a highway that goes to Stevens Pass, I think it's the i-5? , but from what I've seen purely from a Youtube video it looked absolutely beautiful, and if there were any real estate opportunities there I would consider that, a long with of course Stevenson, Bellingham, Darrington, Everett, Bellevue, etc.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by Spewed

Hey, thanks for filling me in! I didn't think this was going to get a bite on here. I noticed when asking about "mountain towns", no one mentioned this one. This town seems to have tons of mountain views, and "natural" beauty. To be honest, I'm not actually looking to meet friends or anything like that. So the issues with people don't particularly bother me too terribly much. I'm married, and have a son so I wont be needing to meet any women or anything like that. I'm moving moreso for the weather, scenery, mountains and peacefulness. Of course I wont be able to move until 2013 sometime. I intend on taking a 2013 trip during the Summer time(for the daylight), it would be nice to experience it in the Winter months, but I know the daylight is hard to come by during this time, and I intend on doing lots of driving in uncharted territory for me, so the light will be much needed.

As for the employment opportunities I do fully intend on working with the elderly, in my occupation that will be where the money is at, especially when you compare it to things like hospital working. Hospital employees pretty much get the shaft when it comes to nickels and dimes, as to where nurses who work with the eldery get paid literally double what the hospital workers do. . So something in that realm would be awesome. Since the elderly is our fastest growing population, surely somewhere around Stevenson, within 40 minutes there is a decent cluster of Nursing homes?

Do you have any pictures of your neck of the woods to give me a better idea of everything? Again, this isn't a final decision. I get a student loan that will give me about $1700, which I am saving to take a "graduation vacation", assuming I do graduate, but that looks good so far. I planned out a trip just to get a rough estimate of the costs, all in all for my wife and I it's going to be $1400 for 2 round trip tickets, a hotel and rental car. I intend on driving from Seattle all the way to Bellingham and visiting various towns\scenery along the way. Then I plan to come back down and check out places like Darrington, and scoping out the Northern Cascades to see what kind of real estate opportunities there are within a decent commute to a decent sized city. There is a highway that goes to Stevens Pass, I think it's the i-5? , but from what I've seen purely from a Youtube video it looked absolutely beautiful, and if there were any real estate opportunities there I would consider that, a long with of course Stevenson, Bellingham, Darrington, Everett, Bellevue, etc.

Definately a mtn town, with a HUGE river and HUGE trees (some of biggest in PNW in USFS research station) Stabler, WA (nearby)

Elderly got the shaft in recent County cuts... Instead of creating a Caregiver Co-op for self employment and keeping profits local... the county subcontracted that service.

Too bad. all minimum wage jobs and profit flows out of county. Skamania County is a good place for seniors, BUT county didn't have the vision to encourage that as in industry (VERY SAD, as it was one of VERY few high paying options for county). You can probably create a way into employment AFTER you serve your time in a few different care options. I want to eventually build a senior village with different levels of care and an out patient facility for stroke / surgery recovery.

Pics... I'm on PAY BY THE BYTE dialup... you are gonna have to search, plenty available. (Skamania Lodge, Columbia Gorge vistors center, Bonneville Hot Springs, .... Skamania County website can direct you to places, as can Google maps.

From my place I see this crown point vista house - Google Search and cape horn washington - Google Search

Not bad....

You can do ALOT better than $1400 for a trip.

I am not spending anywhere near that for ALL of Oct on East coast.

SWA special rate ~ $200 ea RT (if you are coming from east coast) $ 150 from Denver or nearby. I see your near DFW, so Love Field will get you ro PNW VERY cheap. I fly to SA and AUS frequently for sun.
Rental car $12 / day priceline.
Hotels... Camp, or use private guest homes ($10 - $20 / night) I've used them for 25+ yrs (It's Like couchsurfing for adults)
(Packwood, WA hotel is NICE and CHEAP ~ $35)

Eat via grocery and farm stands ~ $10/day MAX.

Look to Portland as well as Seattle, prices vary.

For a winter visit, there are some Gorge Web cams and Weather Forecast Stevenson, WA | Stevenson Weather | Wunderground
Weather Station History | Weather Underground
Weather Station History | Weather Underground

Stop on by. I spent a few hours today with a C-D poster looking into the area. We accept 'drop-ins'